Thomas Feuerstein wrote an interesting text about sampling. Actually, sampling is not exactly the right topic for Binnenland’s discourse but in one paragraph he uses the German term ‘Korpuskeln’ (corpuscles). This is a coherent coincidence, since the typeface we use for the puzzle is called ‘Korpus’. Corpuscles are all these small elements you get by fragmentation of a whole unit. And these elements constitute the elementary starting point for creating or recreating something new.

The puzzle ‘Modern life is a continuous intelligence test’ does not consist of a picture motif as usual, but of a text, a single sentence. We see an interesting and amusing aspect in the similarity of approach, that of sampling and that of the puzzle: we try to break up established typographic procedures in our work and often work in trial&error mode to find suitable results. In our design process, we dissect the alphabet, the individual letters into smaller parts — just as the individual parts are the starting point before setting a puzzle, individual letters or smaller parts can be the starting point for developing a new typeface.

This leads to a more philosophic aspect:  from something seemingly non-existent, from only loose parts, we try to create something. This strategic process of finding solutions — like the content of a jigsaw puzzle — allows us, after putting several pieces and parts together, to take a look at a whole and at its meanings and relationships. Our process aims at dissection on the one hand and reconstruction on the other. Dissection and fragmentation create the elements and components, for their bringing together we work with imitation and replication. This procedure enables us to freely combine corpuscles (particles) into new bodies and, moreover, represents a sampling process.

Modern life is a continuous intelligence test.
Korpus-A font puzzle, 256 elements.

Related Typeface Korpus