Artistic software in the collection of the Graphic Design Museum

The Graphic Design Museum Breda will be including the ‘Text Pencil' by artist Jonathan Puckey in its collection and by doing so will be taking an important step into the future.

More and more artists and designers use computer language when making their work. Creativity now translates itself into a self-developed computer code that generates the artist's image. In this way, artists develop tools that can also be freely used by other designers, so-called artistic software tools. Often these software tools are developed as ‘open source', so that others can adapt the code or develop it further. The result is a continuous evolution of the tools and of the work that artists can produce using them.

The ‘Text Pencil' that has now been included in the collection of the Graphic Design Museum Breda provides a special way of making graphic images with text. Using the tool, you can use a drawing method to write lines of text on the screen. At a distance, it looks like handwritten text. The lines and words on the screen are not positioned tightly next to each other in the way we are accustomed to on a computer. The result is an ‘ organic' line that is, incidentally, still constructed from proper printed letters.

With his tool, Jonathan Puckey emphasises the calculated and generated character of the computer image and human handwriting. It seems a contradiction, but he shows that technology is perhaps less predictable than we think. And that capricious handwriting has not disappeared with the arrival of the computer but has actually become much more characteristic. Artistic software brings us to the beginning of an important development for the future of the graphic image.

Jonathan Puckey's ‘Text Pencil' distinguishes itself on the one hand because it contains a personal opinion about technology and human behaviour. And on the other it contributes to the creation of exceptional designs. The museum is convinced that with this new acquisition for the museum it is introducing a new domain in the graphic legacy.

Puckey's tool can be downloaded free of charge from his website. www.jonathanpuckey.com