Abstract
Monster Type is a series of interactive letters that make up a complete alphabet set. The focus of the assigned brief was on creating ‘monstrous’ letter designs that could come to life by integrating a variety of animations and interactions. The set also incorporates main punctuation characters including the comma, ellipse, exclamation and question mark, and can as a result be used to produce complete phrases and statements. The produced letters were intended to be a fun, expressive way to communicate a mood or thought through graphic images and dynamic interactions, as opposed to being a functional text that is intended to be purely readable.
Interface, interaction modality and user experience
The interface format implements an interaction that simulates a stripped-down form of the conventional text editor, whereby the user can type text and utilise basic editing keys’ functionality using the space bar, backspace, and carriage return keys. Each letter design incorporates its own unique animations and interactions that either play out across defined timeframes, or react to various mouse events (click, hover, proximity)
Technology
The Monster Type letter collection was designed and implemented using the processing programming language.
Research and development context
Each student developed 3 letter designs individually, following a defined framework and set of guidelines as provided by the course instructor. The framework was put into place in order to implement a modular structure that allowed for a consistent management of all letter designs in one place. This framework also made applying global changes of ‘size’ and ‘colour’ variables consistent among all letters
Within the final stage of the process, all individual designs were brought together into a unified processing sketch to create one single interactive experience.
