The brief for this project was to choose how to order and sort nineteen typefaces out of forty possible choices, and to research into one of your own choice. I chose to order my chosen typefaces from newest to oldest, with the intention of showing how technology and typology has developed through time. The font that I researched into was Pilowlava, which I created an extra A5 booklet for, to go inside the front pocket of my book. 

Anton Moglia and Jeremy Lanes, the designers of the typeface, have made a font that seems problematic at first glance. But when you look deeper into the font, you can see just how revolutionary it is. Pilowlava takes its name from lava pillows, a natural phenomenon that is produced when lava is expelled by an underwater volcano, or when the lava flows of an emerged volcano, encounter a body of water. With its straight lines and rounding throughout, the name describes its two main attributes perfectly; pillow for soft, and lava for flow. It also explains why the font has a feeling of viscosity, a state of being thick, sticky, and semi-fluid in consistency. 

The typeface seeks a balance between viscous energy and controlled geometry. It evokes a feeling of carved away whitespace. The geometric side of the font is influenced by Swiss designer Armin Hofmann in his Graphic Design Manual, edited in 1965. The Hofmann Typeface was an experimental design tool for visual studies, which lends itself to create the unconventional wordmarks, offbeat typographic posters, and eye catching titles. 

Additionally this soft flow typeface is available in a three-dimensional version, created by Vincent Wagner. This allows the font to be used in three-dimensional renderings, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) project, video games, or even cast in plastic or concrete if you wanted to try it. The effect of the three-dimensional version of the font, is that its bulbous shapes make you think of inflatable balloons, or the bending of metal tubes. Pilowlava is truly a font that exists in the haptic world. 

This typeface is being widely used today in loud and experimental graphic design. It's often paired with colour fades, neon colours, three dimensional modelling, and lots of layers. Its wide use in today's bold graphic design is because both versions of this typeface are free for designers to use, modify, and redistribute however they like. Both typefaces can be found from the Velvetyne Type Foundry, which designs open source fonts. 

This project was completed in 2021.