From The Archives ~ Topics: typography

Morphica

by Nick ShinnOctober 21, 2002

There is much in digital culture that is Post-modern. But it is more obviously Synthetic, in both the sense of being artificial, and of being complex, built up from combinations of simpler elements.

Morphica is a consciously Synthetic typeface, fusing a smorgasbord of understated thematic devices. It has a techno skeleton, yet it's not reductively modernist. It mixes sans and serif, yet there is no pointed, Post-modern dialectic (as in Dead History, Fudoni, or Missive). It has exotic letter forms, yet it's not anarchic or anaesthetically process-driven, but systematically harmonic. The intention is sweetness, and the technique is skillful and fanciful.

About the Author: Nick Shinn, R.G.D. was born in London, England in 1952, educated at Bedford, and acquired a Dip.AD in Fine Art (1974) from Leeds Polytechnic, Yorkshire. He has lived in Toronto since 1976. During the 1980's he was an art director and creative director at a number of advertising agencies, and a partner in the environmental marketing company Earthmark from 1988 to 1990. He went digital in 1989 and started the Shinn Design studio, which specialized in publication and marketing design during the 1990s. He has been a member of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario (R.G.D.) since its inception in 1996. His type design can be found at

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