As will be evident to anyone who follows me here and/or on social media, my current favourite creative pasttime is producing TextArt, this often linked to ‘On This Day…’ themed content.

The TextArt is for me a wonderful writing preoccupation, though it may be nearing exhaustion in terms of delivering fresh outcomes. I particulalry like it for its found process – this in the generative transitions from the first design where subsequent formats (mainly through enlargement) cannot be predicted, though the more I work with this, the more I can anticipate. Thus the outcomes are ‘found’ and I always love this surprise and discovery.

Over time I have been able to add variety by using different fonts and playing with the use of colour. I have increasingly explored content through the ‘On This Day…’ information – usually Historial or Musical – and this content can prompt specific font and colour decisions. There is always a full spectrum from the culturally/historically meaningful to the simply comic.

Today’s is a good example to illustrate all of this: the ‘On This Day…’ information is On this day in 1946, ‘Tide’ laundry detergent was introduced in the USA and it is certainly at the lighter end of the engagement spectrum.

Visually, the use of an apt font (couldn’t find an absolute match) and colour gives a close focus, and the generations do provid interesting shapes/forms, especially the first one here (probably 4th or 5th in the original run) which has a tidal, wave-like appearance. The ‘surprise’ element here in the narrative line is the conclusion either on ‘America’s’ or at the actual line-ending ‘favorite’, and I was able to arrive at these two variations more than once and give me the (albeit limited) storyline.

A further and final observation is how the content for today’s TextArt does resonate for me as an American in that being reminded of Tide in a historical context took me back to my childhood where I vividly recalled it being used in our family home/s and in that brightly coloured box. And the potency of the advertising: Tide, for me (as a child!!), was the only and obvious laundry powder we would be using…