#interactive graphics

@elgngraphicdesign

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inspired by glaciologist Megan Thompson-Munson

Typography is usually about clarity, but the subconscious resists clarity—it speaks in letters, signs, but sometimes is fragments, echoes, slips of the tongue. To express this, a typographic system could weave legibility with ghostly undertones. Primary text might sit boldly in the foreground while faint shadow-text, mirrored glyphs, or partially erased words seep through behind it, like subconscious whispers.

I wonder—how might a typographic system be designed to reveal the subconscious layers of the mind? Typography usually demands clarity, yet the subconscious resists it. It rarely speaks in full sentences; instead it drifts in fragments, echoes, slips of the tongue.

Maybe the system doesn’t need to be perfectly legible. Perhaps the primary text could sit clearly in the foreground, while faint shadows, mirrored glyphs, or partially erased words linger behind it—like whispers I almost hear but can’t fully hold onto.

Layering feels essential. One layer could speak on the surface, rational and structured, while another layer unsettles beneath it—disrupting rhythm, stretching letters unnaturally, collapsing kerning as if logic itself were fraying.

This exploration was driven by a simple yet profound curiosity, how could be described the intangible flow of interaction and perception in a language that captures its complexity?

My desire to describe this graphical wave of perception mathematically stems from a longing to map the intangible, the shifting currents of my experience that shape my understanding of design. I envisioned the process as an intricate choreography, where each step, turn, and leap is an act of redefining reality itself.

Why attempt to capture this in numbers and formulas? Because, in doing so, I hoped to reveal a hidden architecture beneath the surface, a structural frame that animates the seemingly chaotic dance of interaction.

Imagine, then, that R(t)R(t)R(t) represents the state of reality at a given moment—like the ever-changing tide of perception—while O(t)O(t)O(t) is the perceived object, the design in its current form. Every line, click, or gaze acts as a ripple—an interaction III—that shifts the tides, transforming the perception through a process akin to a sculptor gently carving away at a block of marble. This transformation TIT_{I}TI​ becomes the chisel, reshaping the form of perception itself:

O(t+1)=TIt(O(t))O(t+1) = T_{I_t}(O(t))O(t+1)=TIt​​(O(t))

For me this recursive relationship is more like poetic reflection of how each moment of engagement is a brushstroke—layered upon the last graphics, and creating a canvas that is perpetually unfinished.

Each graphical interaction participates in the ongoing composition of an evolving graphical masterpiece. Because every transformation influences the next, the perceived design becomes a structure of enveloping the cause and effect:

O(t)=TIt∘TIt−1∘…∘TI1(O0)O(t) = T_{I_t} \circ T_{I_{t-1}} \circ \ldots \circ T_{I_1}(O_0)O(t)=TIt​​∘TIt−1​​∘…∘TI1​​(O0​)

In this view, the design ceases to be a static object inscribed in stone. Instead, it becomes an graphically alchemical process where perception is continuously brewed anew, blending past and present into a visually fluid, relational graphical reality. As if the boundary dissolves, and the object's forms and the experience are two faces of the same coin, eternally co-creating each other in an endless loop of becoming.

As Heraclitus famously intoned, “You cannot step into the same river twice”—and neither can perception be fixed, but in a continuous flow, could be shaped anew with each interaction with the graphics.