While Distancing: In-Out-In

March 30, 2020

In the spring of 2020, all classes at OCADu were suspended for face-to-face class times. Efforts were made to provide class experience online. This series, While Distancing, is an exploration of the work accomplished while learning from afar. This installation is essentially a landing page for all the motion & non-printable elements of our final project for Experimental Typography, In-Out-In. The project invites us to craft ten words through a process of analog or digital transference, putting the text through difference processes to explore how it transforms, makes new forms, etc. Originally, the process ‘book’ was going to be a box filled with posters and books exploring the project. Once classes were moved entirely online and services were suspended, with many print shops closed to facilitate social distancing protocols, the assignment was moved to a digital submission. I will eventually be making the whole box once everything is open again, but this space acts as a good way to supplement the print material anyway.

In-Out-In: Grandiose Over-Experimentation In As Many Directions Possible

For this project, within the framework of an In-Out-In transference process, we were invited to take ten words and move them through a process of analog-digital-analog or digital-analog-digital transformation to explore what novel experimental typographic arrangements we could make. I decided to craft the phrase ‘Alright then in for a penny in for a pound’ as my words and total phrase for exploration. Taking the theme of the idiom, I wanted to explore in as many novel directions as possible: if I was going to go in for a penny, I might as well go in for a pound. With this inspiration, I took a phrase with many words that maintain relatively low internal meaning as an opportunity to explore novel forms outside of word association, to create experiments of disparate style and application.

You can view the digital version of each of the above documents with the links below:

Alright Then In/For A/Penny In For A/Pound

In For A Penny, In For a Pound

The phrase ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’ is possibly not one used as frequently today, or in certain contexts, as it once was. In my hearing of it, it had lost its connection to the original meaning of the words, and I liked it as a choice because in my new context in Canada, it loses even more meaning, with the discontinuation of pennies in currency circulation. In essence, the phrase means if you’re going to do something, you might as go all the way; If you go in for a penny, you might as well go in a whole pound’s worth (from the British currency pound, not the weight measurement!)

The following are the scraps of process work that couldn’t be easily compiled in print, from audio samples to videos, and beyond. I will aim to add context where needed, but as this is initially an addition to a digital book, the whole media would likely make things make more sense together. I will most likely continue to compile things here after the project timeline, eventually with links or embedded material of the ‘book’ itself, and finally when I am able to make the real print and physical version, photos and explorations of the entire thing.