Swash & Serif 2025 Selected Work

Procedural Type is a computer program written in p5.js designed to create fake letters through a series of instructions vaguely matching perceived rules of the Latin alphabet. The program understands a Latin letter to be a glyph of a certain size composed of vertical/horizontal lines that are parallel or perpendicular to each other, occasionally featuring diagonal lines that can be straight or curved. Attempting to capture the entirety of a complex and detailed system such as the alphabet in a single sentence results in an imprecise definition, which results in a flexible interpretation of said definition. This is materialized through the program generating random values for key details such as line length (as the previously stated definition for a Latin letter mentions no specific values). When looking at these letters, feel free to think about how they feel and what they communicate (both individually and as part of a larger system) and how these relate to the twenty six characters we are used to working with.