Parallel Contrast
Amanda Guo
Do standards help or limit how we think and feel?
This project intends to explore our relationship with graphic standards that are embedded in our subconscious minds through the lens of typography.
First, I explored how the time zones (Universal Time) rigidly define our experience with time across the globe due to geographical differences using typographic manipulations.
In continuation of my exploration with Universal Time, I focus on a different set of standards that indicate how people understand time passing—the writing systems in Chinese and English. Studies have shown that Chinese native speakers think about time more vertically than English native speakers. How have writing standards created differences in human perception?
Writing systems embody culture and history. Not until the 1950s, Chinese writing was officially adopted the westernized standard of left-to-right directionality. What would happen if it was the other way around?
As a designer, I am interested in discovering ways of reading outside of norms through experiments that change the reading direction of English texts. Addressing western and eastern readerships, I intend to initiate thoughts about the power and the authority represented by standards. Interchanging and reconstructing two typographic systems, I present how our perceptions are deeply rooted in language structures.
Using this graphic approach, I will explore and investigate more standards in the future such as paper formats, temperature, and length.