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Description
According to philosopher Umberto Eco, signifiers (signs that represent concepts) are impossible to define because every element of communication—every semantic unit—can only be understood in the context of its relationship to other semantic units. He calls this the Model Q; a recursivity difficult to visualize. He describes the concept as a boundless net in which every single point could be connected to every other point, dependent upon context and the communicator's perception. Yet the belief persists that the printed word is more concrete than non-printed forms of communication. Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure calls this phenomenon "The Prestige of Writing"; the falsity that written words are permanent and eternal. To demonstrate the impermanence of printed words, I designed a mutable typeface: every letter of the alphabet—both capitals and lowercase—has stylistic variations called discretionary glyphs. Thus the designer working with the typeface can choose the most appropriate glyph for their design, confident that all letters and alternate glyphs will work as a system. OpenType font software in the 1990s allowed for easier creation and use of glyph variations, and mutable typefaces have become more prominent in the last ten years. I named my typeface Model Q because it is a metaphor for Eco's eponymous concept; the stylistic alternate versions of each letter become more abstract as the designer progresses through them, and the final stylistic set is so abstract it is illegible. However, when the letters form a word, each letter derives legibility from the letters around it. Using the typeface Model Q as my medium, I assert that printed language is capricious because every person that reads a text has a unique perspective influenced by culture, environment, and experiences. Therefore, no matter how clearly something is conveyed, one can never predict how another might interpret it. The forms of the letters in my typeface, just like the derivation of meaning from a text, are ethereal based on those that view them. There is no ultimate truth or meaning; all signification is derived through context—through the relationship that signifiers have to each other and to the reader.
