“Coda” Concrete Poem
“Coda” by Dorothy Parker
Concrete poetry typographic design
Project Brief
Design Challenge: How can “Coda” be typeset to convey additional layers of meaning?
The objective of this project was to create a concrete poem of Dorothy Parker’s “Coda”. This required a relevant underlying image relating to the content of the poem. The image was constructed using only typeface glyphs and colors.
Skills & Tools Used:
The Final Design
The final printed design is photographed in a series of images below which highlight chapter openers, text-flow across spreads, and the overall variety of typesetting design.
Research & Design Process
A concept was derived from Michelangelo’s Pietà. Sketches helped modify the forms into place where text would be typeset. Reference images were either traced while layered together or traced separately. A process of scaling and warping text within these blocked-out shapes retained the figures’ forms.
Conclusion
After working through a series of revisions the final design plays with typography in a way meaningful to the poem. Each word is characterized by its use in the poem and is visually emphasized accordingly. Both figures are made entirely out of typographic characters and colored to imply their roles within the poem.
This project was designed for a Typography course taught by Lee Friedman at SFSU (2017).