Description:

This project explores the intrinsic and important connection between creating and uncertainty through typography to encourage acceptance and creative growth. It emerged from a personal place of fear and paralysis when approaching the uncertainty of a creative project and process. Creativity relies on ideas of newness and originality, concepts that cannot exist without uncertainty The project aims to encourage a new understanding of the value of uncertainty, framing it in a positive way and exploring how this can improve the creative process and its outcomes.

The artefact is a process-led publication that documents creative processes behind typographic making and explores uncertainty in these letterforms and the creative process more broadly. The visual style takes inspiration from visual journals to evoke a sense of quirkiness and to reference the non-linear pathway that creativity and inquiry takes. Hand-bound with a range of paper stocks and different-sized inserts, the physical outcome embodies the sense of disorder that comes with uncertainty. The letterforms are intentionally shown in a random order, and the translation of the cover is intentionally left off the front, details that reinforce the overarching concept of uncertainty.

The key methodology behind the project is reflective practice, encompassing methods like physical making, sketching, and note-taking to reflect the creative process. Many aspects of this process are in the publication itself. Written content doesn’t follow a specific style, rather it is full of dualities both visually and in the words itself. Imagery is a combination of documentative photography and more emotive illustration. These dualities come directly from the creative process of making this work and keep the publication feeling unexpected and more reminiscent of a visual journal.

Uncertainty is not a separate entity from our practice; it is inherent and imperative to creating in any context. Dubito Ergo Creo, Creo Ergo Dubito – I doubt therefore I create, I create therefore I doubt. I’m so grateful that I do.