How I create typewritten art
Since getting my first typewriter, I’ve become more playful with words. Because I’m not a particularly good painter or illustrator, playing with words seems like my thing. Typewritten art usually involves “painting” with characters, as in the case of the fantastic UK-based artist James Cook. I’m not quite there yet; my creations are much simpler but they bring me great joy. Here’s how I go about doing it. Let’s look at my first serious submission, which has been published in Global Health Annual Review, a Canadian student-led journal (go check it out; it’s a great journal for early-career reseachers).
The process is as follows:
Decide on the issue or topic you’d like to talk about (in my case it was gender equality in global health).
Pick a shape that represents your topic visually (for example, a woman’s face contour).
Create your text to fill in the shape. As I was writing about a well-defined problem and using statistics and facts, I paraphrased scientific texts and included references. Depending on your shape, you may want to add or remove some sentences in the process to make your shape simpler or more complex.
Begin shaping your text in the word processing document. This is the part that takes the most time. What’s important to know at the start of your project is which font size corresponds to the one on your typewriter. To create my word shape, I use Courier New, size 11, with 1.0 line spacing. When I’m satisfied with the shape, I go ahead and click Show formatting marks (¶) to see how many spaces there should be between words and where each line should begin on the page. For a better effect, I highlight some of the key words in red so that I can write them in red ink later on.
Finally, I place the typewriter in front of my computer and begin copying the text. It usually takes the longest because I write carefully not to make any mistakes. I still do, and if you look closely, you can see minor typos that I fixed by writing on top of them, which is something that I actually like because it gives each piece a more raw and honest feel.
After I finish typewriting, I photograph the printed page and play with it in an image editing software such as Gimp. I boost the contrast, elevate the colors, and remove ink smears. The end result is usually much better than the initial photograph:
Before
After
Creating typewritten art is a lot of fun and a very rewarding experience. What I like about it is that no matter how hard I try, there will be some mistakes which is what makes this art unique. I also enjoy it as it incorporates both analog and digital components. I encourage you to give it a shot and share the result with me using #TypewrittenArt.
