THE IMAGINARY ALPHABET
A year and a half ago, David August and I got in touch to collaborate on his new album VIS. I imagined and created an Imaginary Alphabet to visually describe his music. David was sending me music fragments and I would translate them into letters. The Imaginary Alphabet was created in order to vector the forces of nature, through shapes, lines, fragility, sharpness, curves, downstrokes & upstrokes, contrast & light, strength and weaknesses. It's a form of translation of sound & music. Vīs is a strength, a power, that gave birth to a new form of language, unspeakable, untranslatable but yet perceivable.
The purpose is to get away from a form of languages & alphabets that we know; which carry known stories, concepts and translations. By searching for a new & imaginary way to focus on the emotion & personality of each letter and building an architecture (page layouts), we want to bring these emotions & this strength into life.
The calligraphic work and transcription is a result of emotions conveyed by the music and my cultural heritage. Born and raised in Morocco, calligraphy has always been part of my visual field. Living across multiple cultures, this typeface’s research follows the aim to propose a new lecture of what a symbol and an imaginary letter carries.
Here are some sketches from my personal graphic research
