Hye Yeon Nam, associate professor of digital art, won a TDC Award in Lettering for “Living Typography,” a robotically seeded living interface for collective music making.

Living Typography is composed of a microcontroller, capacitive touch sensors, plants, and planting media. The interface is grown from robotically planted seeds in computationally generated planting patterns. The living matters – the plants and soil – act as a sensor network. Touching a zone of the living interface will play a sample from a sound palette of environmental recordings.

“People can touch, feel, listen to, and experience Living Typography while they appreciate the beauty of typography and nature,” Nam said.

Nam was art director for the project, collaborating with Brendan Harmon, assistant professor of landscape architecture, and Ka Hei Cheng, Ph.D. candidate in Experimental Music and Digital Media (EMDM).

Living Typography from Hye Yeon Nam on Vimeo.

Echo from Hye Yeon Nam on Vimeo.

About TDC

The TDC competition, established in 1953, is the longest running, most prestigious, global typography and type design competition. Now in its 69th year, these awards are all about how letterforms are used and drawn, recognizing typographic excellence and celebrating new typeface designs in all global languages.