Writing / Reprint
Wired Dictionary: Lexiconography
Multiple Signatures, ed. Michael Rock, January 2013
“Wired Dictionary: Lexiconography,” by Irwin Chen and Michael Rock, from Multiple Signatures: On Designers, Authors, Readers and Users (2013).
We expect authors to write the words we will form into pages, and we expect those words to be chosen and arranged to create a specific effect. The author is saying something (or trying to); the typographer enhances or intensifies that effort (or doesn’t). But words themselves have a way of revealing or belying the author’s intention. Suppose the process was run in reverse? Could the unraveling of printed pages uncover hidden desires?
