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07. 06. 2007  17:42 | 11_Undergraduate_works

TRAFFIK, experimentations with speed and typography

TRAFFIK
by Lionel Tardy & Gregory Aegerter (MID-ECAL)
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Traffik is a visual experiment dedicated to the display of animated informations (speed limit, distance, name) on highways and that takes advantage of car speed to display message for drivers. Without any screen, just with "fresh painting", some optical games (anamorphosis) and a typographical work (a decomposition of the swiss typography for highways and national roads).
A bit more than forty years ago, the first highway in Switzerland got into function. The first one was the one who linked Geneva to Lausanne (and still do). At the same time, the major elements for road signalisation were build up by Adrian Frutiger, with his famous typography : Die Schweizer Authobahn.
This typography is made up of parts and fits very well for our experiment. By using every parts of each letter, "deconstructing" and placing them at different distance from each other, we can create words that are only readable at a specific speed. Add to this an anamorphic distortion so that the driver or passenger can perceive the text as flat (like a projection on the windshield) and the display rules are in place.
Our work consists here to analyse each word, split and rebuild it in a way that it becomes readable at a desired speed.

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traffik2_s.jpg
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traffik6_s.jpg traffik7_s.jpg
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traffik4_s.jpg traffik1_s.jpg
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traffik3_.jpg

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Check to discover more about Traffik in this PDF edition (9.3mb) or in the flash video animation that illustrates the "speed graphics" principles.

video_traffik.jpg

Posted by patrick keller at 7. 06. 2007 17:42