Phase 1

The initial exploration began with a series of experiments of sound warping fields that altered visual form using recordings of my voice sounding out the individual letter. The form itself took various shapes including: pre-existing typography (Img 1-2), simple shapes (Img 3-4), and particles (Img 5-6). The resulting new forms were curious but not satisfying the goal. The form, although affected by sound, was not made from it.

Part 2

The second phase of explorations looked at sound in a slightly different 3D context. Taking the sound waves made through my recording of the individual letter pronunciation used in phase 1, and spinning them vertically along the y-axis, I created mini 3D sculptures unique to each recording (Img 7). The final result was then 3-d printed and interactable (Img 9-10).

As sculptures of the sound of type, these were rather fun and yet still not touching upon the original goal of creating type through sound. This was a visualization of sound.

Phase 3

Here I began to take a different track and look at the means of the production of sound.

My approach with Adobe Auditions, a sound editing software, followed the logic of vinyl production. Vinyl discs are produced by taking a disc and carving grooves into its surface that are in the shape of the music’s sound wave. As the needle runs along the groove, the sound is produced. Taking a recording of my voice pronouncing the letters, I cut into the sound using the “eraser” tool to create letterforms (Img 11). The new sound, when played, followed the form of the new letters, created an abstracted sound effect.

My exploration into Adobe Auditions launched further research into sound editing software and into the world of image-to-sound creation. The tool I found most useful here was PhotoSounder which translates images into sounds based on certain rules: height of the image, how many lines are there, angle of the lines, width, etc (Img 12). Taking these factors into consideration, I created a typeface specifically to work within this software to create the cleanest sound, indiscernible as it may be (Img 13-16).

Phase 4

The final sound creation process worked similarly to my vinyl concept. The letterform was carved into the sound recording using PhotoSounder as a tool to “read” the sound of the forms. This meant that when the sound was recorded within any other audio-visual software the letters were revealed almost like a hidden code (Img 15).