THE PLAYFUL CHARACTER OF CREATIVE ALPHABETS THE CASE OF COVER ART BETWEEN THE 1930s AND THE 1970s Francesca Fatta Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria Department of Architecture and Territory
[email protected] ESSAY 34/02 UNUSUAL ALPHABETS LETTERING GRAPHIC EXPERIMENTS COVER ART ARTWORKS What links Thomas More to Filippo Tom- with elementary forms. Letters represent an maso Marinetti? And how is the creativity extreme synthesis of the meanings of na- of alphabets related to the cover art of vinyl ture and of geometry and suggest unusual records? And yet there is a common thread alphabets, prompting us to invent new sto- called lettering, which is variously articulat- ries. From the artistic avant-gardes of the ed in the expressiveness of the typographic 20th century, the playful revolution of let- characters of the artists. There is a bi-pla- tering also invested the field of music with narity present in the letters of the alphabet: cover art. Many records are often first re- that of expression and that of content –sig- membered, even more than for their music, nifier and signified meaning, but there is for their cover art. The graphic design of the also an arbitrariness that does not connect, covers, moreover, often offers an intuition, in any way, one to the other, the will of an at first glance, of the musical genre of the alphabet to exist as an autonomous form album and the personality of the artist. To- of art. Lettering is perhaps the most appro- day, the graphic design and the imaginative priate area of graphics for experimenting, lettering of record covers have now become thinking, inventing, narrating and playing recognized as true forms of art.