Typography as a Reflection of Cultural Imprint in Indonesian

History

Budi Sriherlambang

, Angela Oscario

, Laura Christina Luzar

and Liliek Adelina Suhardjono

New Media Program, Visual Communication Design Department, School of Design, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta,

Indonesia 11480

Creative Advertising Program, Visual Communication Design Department, School of Design, Bina Nusantara University,

Jakarta, Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Typography, Cultural Imprint, Indonesian History.

Abstract: The paper will investigate the possibility of finding new letterform based on three different major culture

that ruled in Indonesia. Cultures bring their unique characteristics when encountering other culture.

Letterform are the visible artefact of a culture that can be seen spreading across the world. There are

cultures that interact with Indonesian cultures are being absorbed and modified before it can become fully

accepted. The culture acceptance in the letterform in Indonesia is changing depends on who is having the

authority. Even the current letterform used in Indonesia is the Latin letterform, but the history shown that

there are also other letterform being used, such as Pallava and Arabic. The attempt is to create new

letterform that can be a symbol of harmonious cultural dialogue, knowing ourselves as Indonesian and try to

contribute to the identity of Indonesia as Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, unity in diversity.

1 INTRODUCTION

Historical journey is one of significant aspects to

create an identity (Berger, 2007). Based on historical

perspective, a country develops in parallel with the

development of globalization. The globalization has

made a country to have interaction with another

country, together with their culture, has influencing

each other. From the interaction happened, a new

culture or mixed-culture can be formed. As in every

culture has created their specific and unique

artefacts. Furthermore, the culture can be recognized

by the artefacts they created (Sampson, 2009).

Letters are one of the artefacts of a culture can

created which can be seen in the culture daily

activity. Letters, as a visual representation of the

sound and meaning, carried over by verbal

communication culture. The communication for

each culture, has their own history and meaning,

specific to their origin. To ensure the

communication conveyed correctly, a set of visual

form, called letters, are created to help people to

communicate clearly. By using visual approach of

communication, people can transmit more abstract

and in more emotional level compared to verbal.

Letters, have a feature to narrowed down meanings

during communication between the sender and

receivers (Carter, R., Day, B., & Meggs, 2012).

Typography, an approach of human knowledge

to arrange letters into visual compositions, has been

able to empower a culture to create their own

identity showing a culture’s geographical ancestor

and specific time stamp. During the period of pre-

Indonesia era, there are various cultures enter

Indonesia, bringing their visual communication

culture. The culture enters Indonesia together with

the arrival of different people and culture

background, during the ocean trade route. Various

culture, strongly related to specific religion, Hindu,

Islam, and so on until the arrives of western culture

brought by VOC, Dutch Trade Company. Different

ruler in Indonesia in their own time stamps of

Indonesian history, has introduced different

particular way of living. During the time, the

authority of the culture implemented were also

including the culture of communication. Verbal and

visual communication were entering into Indonesia

culture. From the perspective of written

communication culture, typography and letters, have

their important mark and role. A typeface can show

the time period of use and also the identity of a

306

Sriherlambang, B., Oscario, A., Luzar, L. and Suhardjono, L.

Typography as a Reﬂection of Cultural Imprint in Indonesian History.

DOI: 10.5220/0010007000002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 306-310

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

nation that uses it, slowly it influenced a nation’s

identity (Sampson, 2009).

Different period of time and culture have gone

passed Indonesia’s history, but there are less cultural

artefact that are properly archieved, especially using

digital media. Typography, in this current of time,

have become a taken for granted artefacs. By the

development of technology, the distribution of

knowledge can be more impactful if using digital

media. Digital media has its own opportunity to

become one of the inggredients of forming Indonesia

identity. This research will take standpoint of how

typography has become a common ground for

different culture from visual communication design

perspective. The research will try to knot the missing

peace of different culture that had ruled in Indonesia.

The shape of a letter, is the focus in this research.

From the perspective of historical cultures that have

been entering Indonesia, there is an opportunity to

translate the typographic form and translates it into

more today and current situation. It is important to

keep observing the development and evolution of

culture, especially when encountering different

culture with each other unique background and

values. One way the effort of translating a culture to

be more relevant is by using digital medium. Digital

medium has offered different dimensions of what

paper and print can offer. By using digital mediums,

artefacts can be preserved, translated, studied and

developed to keep a culture relevant to the society.

One of the strongest point of digital is how it is easy

and accessible for people to have interact with, and

have more opportunities of more engaging

interactions (King, L., James, S. F., & Cooke, 2016).

This research an attempt to not only preserving

national culture, but also can be used as a ground to

respond the current and future national identity

issues. The historical journey will become a

historical and cultural record of how an artefact

formed from the occurrences of diverse cultures and

good intercultural dialogue (Sampson, 2009).

2 METHOD

The reinterpretation effort will certainly start by

revisiting some of the letters used by previous

dominant culture in the history of Indonesia. The

study will use study case approach, because most of

the study is being experienced by the researcher,

reflecting on the journey of the history. The

reflection of the experience and information will be

converted in visual communication design work. In

the writing of this paper, letters of the past will be

shown the details of their shape. The extraction

phase is used as a ground for further design

development. By using dominant culture that have

existed in Indonesia, as have been mentioned above,

the culture of Hindu, Islam and Western, as a

starting point to develop letter design that will

relevant with current era. The final design will be in

digital form, so that the result can be easily accessed

and improved in the future (UNESCO, 2018).

The semiotic approach will be used especially in

terms of form and context. The excavation of the

content is not considered as major factor in

developing the final design, because the content will

relate with wider considerations. The goal of the

research is to create new set of letter, based on

letters used in the history of Indonesia. The process

of developing this new form will use artistic

approach, in the same time the process will maintain

the basic design principles related to visual

communication design (Carter, R., Day, B., &

Meggs, 2012).

A descriptive explanation will be used in the

phase of creating the new visual shape of the

typography. Detailed explanations will tend to have

qualitative approach and processes, although the

study of the letter anatomy will be more measured

and quantitative. The researcher background as

visual communication designer contributes to the

constructive way of interpretation. The design will

gain its value by using design principles in

developing new design form (Lidwell, W., Holden,

K., & Butler, no date).

The design process starts from observing the

existing letters of Pallava from Hindu culture,

Arabic from Islamic culture and Latin letter from

western culture brought by the Dutch. Anatomical

studies are performed to dissect and take each letter

unique form and characteristics. Each culture has

long history of interaction with Indonesia culture,

even while Indonesia name was not existed.

Indonesia has long history of culture with Hinduism

Kingdom in the past. The Arabic culture is entering

Indonesia from the traders from India. The Arabic

letter, even has successfully permeated into the

pronunciation of Indonesia language but using

Arabic letters, instead of using Arabic letters for

Arab language, marked by the book called ‘Kitab

Kuning’ (Laffan, 2008). The Dutch, which has the

longest period of colonizing Indonesia, has the most

powerful influence in the letter used even until

today. Japanese culture is not included because the

culture assimilation is not happening across time,

only existed during the Japanese occupation of

Indonesia. Letters chosen are from the cultures that

Typography as a Reﬂection of Cultural Imprint in Indonesian History

307

have already pervaded into daily life and culture of

Indonesian peoples (Raab, J., & Butler, 2008).

Figure 1: Modern Latin letterform anatomy (typographical

anatomy).

The final letterform is determined by the

researcher interpretative and aesthetical experience,

by take into consideration of design principles in

typography. Does not matter how decorative a letter

form can be, the main function of typography is

readable (Kana, 2001). Typography, as one of the

form of communication, is important to be ensured

that the message have to be delivered between the

sender and receiver of the visual message (Carter,

R., Day, B., & Meggs, 2012).

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The study will start from understanding basic and

unique characteristic of different letters mentioned

before. Hereby we will see different letterforms will

be studied so each of them will be taken each and

specific part to design new letterform. Different

letterform will be presented, and there will be some

remarks for each letterform from different culture.

Section 1.01 Pallava letterform

Figure 2: Pallava letters.

The anatomy of Pallava letterform shows that

there is a dynamic outer shapes and structure

between letters. Although, it can be recognized that

the letters are still constructed from basic visual

forms such as circles and squares. The thickness of

the line of the letters has minor differences, due to

this, it is a bit difficult to accurately measure the

thickness. The different thickness gives the

letterforms better visual balance and composition.

All of the letters, has rounded corner and curved

shapes which gives the experience of organic form.

In contrary, the height consists only two heights.

Section 1.02 Arabic letterform

Figure 3: Arabic letters.

The letters are written from right to left, and use

consistent slanted angle of strokes. Even though

there are variety of the letterform, it is clearly seen

that there are a pattern of shape. Some letter has the

same form, and they are marked differently with the

use of prism dot. Each amount of the dot, represents

different type of letter. The stroke width has extreme

contrast of thickness. There is no contrast size of

height between Arabic letters.

Section 1.03 Latin letterform

Figure 4: Latin letters.

Currently used in Indonesia as the main letter for

Indonesia language. There are varieties in the

development of Latin letterform. The most classic

letterform widely used for reading materials is letters

with serif. There are two main categorizations in

typography, serif and sans serif. The most common

used in daily life of current modern culture is the

one displayed above, the sans serif letterform. The

letter was created during the era of industry

revolution, which has focus on the easiness of mass-

production.

The characteristic of modern Latin letterform is

they have more simplified form. The letterform has

more thickness in vertical stroke compared to

horizontal. The height has few variations, only on

specific letters that has ascender and descender

(figure 1). The capital letter, or used to be called as

upper-case, has no variation in height.

Section 1.04 Letterform comparation study.

It is crucial to be able to identify basic forms

which become the identity of each letterform of

Pallava and Arabic. Each separate part of a letter

from the letterform was studied and collected into

one database of unique part of a letter. Different part

of letter is being used for different letter in Latin

letter, this is the phase where the researcher finds

different part should be suitable for which letter in

Latin letter.

BINUS-JIC 2018 - BINUS Joint International Conference

308

Figure 5: Study of anatomy letters used in Latin letters.

Section 1.05 Letterform merging study

Observation and study of different letterform has

shown that different letterform has their own unique

and recognizable form. There is opportunity of

combining the different form to create new set of

letterforms. The basic letterform which will be the

base of the design is the Latin letterform, because

the letter is the one used and will be identified easily

by Indonesian people or culture that uses Latin

letterform as their main letter. In the process of

synthesizing the different form, gestalt visual

perception is being used to support the visual

communication design principles. The methods of

adding, subtracting and eliminating visual elements

are used constantly during the creation process of

the letterform.

Figure 6: Study of unique visual character into Latin.

Section 1.06 Final result of new letterform

Figure 7: Final new letterform.

The letterform created has undergone several

development stages. The final form presented here is

the best collection of letter that shows the balance of

visual aesthetic and also the readable function of

letterform. As shown above, there are different parts

from other letterform comes from different culture.

The Pallava characteristic has more dominant

influence compared with the Arabic letters. The

Arabic letters subtly inserted in the different widths

of the strokes. The most prominent visual appearing

for the Arabic letters will be in the dot for the letter

“i” and “j”. There are several separations of shapes

created, this was done to give a dimension and form

related construction with the Pallava letterform.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The result of the design could contribute the

sustainability of Indonesia history in visual culture

context. Furthermore, the visual design offers

possibility for the upcoming generation in how

maintaining history and culture. By offering new

visual shape in a relevant way with current

generation, open possibility for further development

by current and following generations. The new

letterform has been showed to several respondents to

gain input for further development in different

research. The comments are that they can see the

characteristics of the Pallava letterform easily, but

the challenge for the reviewer was to find the

characteristic of the Arabic letterform. Even though

the letterform is considered as decoratively

interesting, most importantly was the new letterform

is successful in the readability factor in transferring

local values using digital format. As visual design is

expected to an ever-expanding communication

environment (Kana, 2001). With the successful

achievement of combining different culture into one

letterform has shown that different cultures can be a

harmony in hybrid culture, with the consideration of

cultural negotiation (Raab, J., & Butler, 2008).

For future research development, the area of the

combination of letterform can be widen into other

factors than only history of Indonesia. It will be

interesting to see the methods of creating the

letterform in this research is being used in

geographical factor. If the approach is used to

explore new possibilities of finding other hybrid

typography in different area of Indonesia, the result

is Indonesia will have its own set of letterform,

which will contribute to the identity of Indonesia as

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, unity in diversity.

Typography as a Reﬂection of Cultural Imprint in Indonesian History

309

REFERENCES

Berger, S. (2007) History and national identity: why they

should remain divorced History and Politic, Online.

Available at: http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-

papers/papers/history-and-national-identity-why-they-

should-remain-divorced&gt.

Carter, R., Day, B., & Meggs, P. B. (2012) Typographic

Design: Form and Communication. Hoboken, New

Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Kana, D. (2001) ‘Digital Communication Design in teh

Second Computer Revolution’, Aksen, 2, pp. 73–80.

King, L., James, S. F., & Cooke, P. (2016) ‘Experiencing

the Digital World: The Cultural Value of Digital

Engagement with Heritage’, Heritage and Society,

9(1), pp. 76–101.

Laffan, M. (2008) ‘The New Turn to Mecca: Snapshots of

Arabic Printing and Sufi Newtorks in Late 19th

Century Java’, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la

Meditteraneee, 124, pp. 113–131.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (no date) Universal

Principles of Design. Beverly, Massachusetts:

Rockport.

Raab, J., & Butler, M. (2008) Introduction: Cultural

Hybridity in the Americas, Online. Available at:

http://www.uni-

bielefeld.de/ZIF/FG/2008Pluribus/publications/raab-

Butler_intro-hybrid.pdf.

Sampson, F. (2009) Investing in Cultural Diversity and

Intercultural Dialogue. Paris, France: United Nations

Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization.

UNESCO (2018) Communication and Information:

Concept of Digital Heritage, Online. Available at:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-

information/access-to-knowledge/preservation-of-

documentary-heritage/digital-heritage/concept-of-

digital-heritage/.

BINUS-JIC 2018 - BINUS Joint International Conference

310