ANIMATED TYPEFACE

Sound surrounds us and is present in every aspect of our lives - in education, the entertainment industry, art, science, and beyond. Letters, too, are everywhere around us*, making the meeting and overlapping of these two concepts in communication a natural one. Typography and sound are connected in several ways. Musical notation gives sound a typographic form, while letters themselves - the foundation of typography - are symbols representing the sounds of human speech.

*A typographic maxim.

Sound as a visual form

Soundwave is a typeface inspired by the visual representation of sound. Throughout history, humans have developed different methods of recording and representing sound. The most familiar is musical notation. Technological advancement brought with it a more scientific study of sound, allowing mathematicians and physicists to represent its properties graphically.

In a waveform, time is represented on the horizontal axis, while amplitude is represented on the vertical axis. The continuous change of sound parameters over time creates a distinctive visual aesthetic. As the scale changes, so does the character of the image.

This is where the idea becomes material: the waveform becomes a line, and the line becomes a letterform.

The waveform used as the basis for Soundwave is sampled from an extremely short period of time - a fraction of a second or just a few samples. At this scale, the waveform takes the form of sinusoidal curves. These irregular sinusoidal curves became the defining characteristic of the typeface.

Such curves are unconventional in typeface design. Their unexpected presence creates tension within the letterforms, producing a visual language that is both unfamiliar and immediately recognisable.

From oscillator to typeface

The development of synthesised sound gave artists new possibilities for manipulating sound. Electronic oscillators can generate different waveforms by modifying parameters such as frequency and amplitude. These variations produce different sounds and, consequently, different visual representations.

The basic waveforms generated by an oscillator are named after their graphical forms: sine, square, triangle, and sawtooth waves. The digital era introduced further developments in the representation of sound, including sample rate, which describes the number of samples taken per second and is measured in hertz.

The constant variation of these parameters over time produces complex graphical patterns. Soundwave isolates this visual language and translates it into typography.

Three waveforms

Soundwave exists in three versions. Each version is defined by a different type of signal used to modify the line that forms the letterforms.

The Sine and Triangle versions are based on their respective waveforms, while the third version uses a Noise signal. Each produces a different degree of irregularity and movement within the letterforms, allowing the same typographic system to generate distinct visual personalities.

Futura

The Soundwave typeface is derived from Futura, specifically its Bold weight. Futura was designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. Like Soundwave, Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface.

Futura was developed in the context of the New Frankfurt project and was strongly influenced by geometric forms, particularly the circle, reflecting the principles of the Bauhaus and the modernist approach to design.

The geometric structure of Futura provides a stable foundation for the irregularity of Soundwave. Combining the two typefaces therefore creates a visual contrast between order and disruption, geometry and movement, structure and sound.