Lettrism

レトリスム / 1946–1970s / Style / Experimental Typography

A Paris-born movement that freed the letter from its duty of carrying meaning, treating sound and shape themselves as the material of the work. From surfaces paved with unreadable characters, to hypergraphy's proliferating signs, to marks scratched directly into film stock, it expanded the experiment of handling letters as physical matter.

Lettrism — AI-generated interpretation 1 — AI-generated interpretation, not a reference work

Lettrism — grammeS, journal of the Ultra-Lettrist group, inside page — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — grammeS, journal of the Ultra-Lettrist group, inside page — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 · CC0

Lettrism — Hypergraphy on a torn poster, published in grammeS, 1954 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — Hypergraphy on a torn poster, published in grammeS, 1954 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 · CC0

At a glance

Visual cues

Surfaces paved with unreadable characters
Handwriting mixed with type
Hypergraphy of proliferating signs
Letters handled as painterly material

Best used for

Experimental type specimens and title sequences where letterforms are pure texture
Music and poetry scene printing and covers shown as density rather than reading

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Dictionary entry

Type: Invented alphabets, asemic glyphs and salvaged type mixed without hierarchy
Composition: All-over fields of signs with no reading path; density itself is the composition
Material: Ink, paint and scratched film or paper—letters applied as physical marks
Caution: Laying out unreadable letters as decoration alone drops the claim and leaves pattern. One legible word left in the field reinstates the meaning the work exists to suspend.
Further study: Isidore Isou's theory / The definition of hypergraphy / The split that led to the Situationists

Related entries

Concrete Poetry (具体詩／コンクリート・ポエトリー)Same Experimental Typography lineage.Compare Lettrism and Concrete Poetry
Dada (ダダ)Shared effects: Rebellion.Compare Lettrism and Dada

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