My life changed the day I discovered texting. A quick, silent, efficient, easy way to get my point across without the hassle of actually having to speak to them. Bliss.
It’s a little weird to think about just how quickly texting, Facebook, Twitter and all those new communication methods have taken over our lives. I rarely talk on the telephone, and now I actually avoid it. Anyone who knows me texts me, because I simply don’t answer the phone. Leave me a message if you like, but unless there is an emergency I will text back. And if I text you and you call me back, that’s equivalent to sacrilege.
Personally, I only got Facebook a little over a year ago. Now I wouldn’t get invited to anything or talk to anyone living beyond a 10-kilometre radius of my house without the damn thing. I’m not big on the “c u l8rs” and kitschy little text-speaks of the world, and though I don’t believe we’re going to be writing text novels any time soon, it’s clear that our methods of connecting to one another are shifting very dramatically and that it’s a ripe subject for artists and designers to investigate.
Swiss graphic design and new media student Clément Gallet lays it all out it his new communication manifesto “ritN eng iz ded”. In it, he posits that the speed of communication is moving too fast for our traditional written word system, and he gives suggestions on how to streamline language to work better with our new communication methods: texting, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter.
Besides the obviously hot layout, I really love the slight irony that instructions on how to communicate more effectively electronically have been documents in such an appealing old-skool paper book. My favourite instruction of all is right here:
personally, i believe that ditching the capitals will be the next stage in the evolution of english. sure, people will freak out at first, but english used to be “ye olde english”, too. things change, and this will be next. for proof, look at how many people write facebook messages, emails, and texts all in lowercase. it doesn’t affect the clarity of the messsage and in lots of modern layout styles it simply looks better. did you even notice that there wasn’t a single capital letter in this whole paragraph?
Gallet has that whole hot minimalist thing going on, but I find that rather than just following a trend he’s constructing his own minimalism – basing it not on trends but on investigating and then re-creating. Just like “ritN eng iz ded” grew out of the new communication methods, he also created a “afterwork”, a font inspired by neon signage and the restrictions placed on the tubing in order to make them glow properly.
shape+colour 