MONOTYPE - Research

Primary Research 

An ongoing discussion with a fluent Tamil speaker who grew up as a minority in Malaysia occurred throughout this project. Initially the conversation involved developing an understanding of Tamil culture and what it was like being a minority. The conversation then shifted towards the Tamil alphabet and language. From this, it was found that Tamil culture uses a syllabic alphabet and was originally written on palm leaves. Because the original alphabet was written on palm leaves, the letters are made up mainly of curved strokes as curved strokes prevent- ed leaves from ripping. Conversation then developed to presenting design outcomes of this brief to the Tamil speaker and asking questions based on whether or not it was legible and how it was received from a member of this community. From this it was highlighted how most of the designs are legible, while others are not.

An old tamil writing book was used to refer to when constructing designs. The imagery within the book was also scanned in and used within the book, shown bellow :

Tamil Typography Research 

Expressive Typography Research

An initial idea for the project was to show how outsiders to minority cultures often have an abstract and misunderstood perception of minority cultures. In response to this, different approaches to expressive typography were analysed. Examples included, Unlettered by Emuni Inc, this example paired the rest letters of 26 words with corresponding black and white illustrations. Taken away from this exam- ple was the e ect of lling up a space with a letter enough to create an abstract e ect that viewers may struggle to interpret, much like how viewers struggle to interpret minorities. 

Tamil Language

Tamil (தமிழ்)

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken mainly in southern India and Sri Lanka, and also in Malaysia, the UK, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Singapore, France, Mauritius, and many other countries.

According to the 2001 Indian census, there were 60.8 million speakers of Tamil in India. According to 2012 censuses, there were just over 3 million Tamils in Sri Lanka, and 1.8 million Tamils in Malaysia. There are also Tamil populations of more than 100,000 in the UK, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Singapore, France and Réunion. The total number of Tamil speakers is about 67.5 million. 

Tamil at a glance

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• Native name: தமிழ் (tamiḻ) [ˈtæmɪl]
• Linguistic affliation: Dravidian, Southern
• Number of speakers: c. 67.5 million
• Spoken in: India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, UK, South Africa, Canada, USA, Singapore, France, Mauritius
• First written: 500 BC
• Writing system: Tamil script
• Status: official language in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Recognised minority language in Malaysia, Mauritius and South Africa

Notable features

• Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet
• Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines
• When they appear the the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters.
• Some of the non-standard consonant-vowel combinations are not used in official documents.
• The alphabet was originally written on palm leaves. As a result, the letters are made up mainly of curved strokes which did not rip the leaves.

Shape, form and structure research.

Research also involved developing an understanding of shape and line. The book, ‘Basics of Design’ highlighted how changes in the primary elements of a design can creates different ‘forces’. This is because, small changes within a visual, operate within an optical environment and therefore alter this space. For example, changes in colour or brightness, length or breadth of an element, changes not only the element but the entire space it is operating within in. This was demonstrated in type experiments by having some design black on white backgrounds and others white on black backgrounds, in reversing the colour it created an illusion of shapes looking smaller or bigger depending on which way round the colours were.

MINDMAP :