About the Subject
When I started observing fences – sketching their shapes – I became interested in the emotions each one evoked. These observations led to a deeper question: Why do fences work?
I depict these fences through painting, capturing the feelings they evoke in me, those fences communicate without words. Taller fences feel oppressive, while lower, rounded ones provide a sense of security. This observation led me to wonder how others perceive fences. Through interviews and an investigation method combining sketching and note-taking, I gathered perspectives that reveal how fences act as silent communicators, conveying emotions and messages purely through their form, linking visual perception to emotional response.
About Process and Reflection
Through research, I found that fences in London have a long history, which closely linked with the city’s industrialization and modernization. They served not only as barriers but also as symbols of technical skill and identity. Fences with religious symbols or intricate patterns can indicate status, power, and faith. Even today, simpler fences serve functional purposes such as protection or organization of space, while still subtly communicating information through their placement and design.
Perec’s (1974, p.46) observation that streets are expected to form a line, and it’s a serious defect in them when they don’t do so, helps explain how fences impose a similar invisible order on space. Like aligned buildings on streets that guide movement and social interaction, fences define public and private spaces, acting as silent signals that guide behavior and reinforce social norms. This visual alignment connects psychological perceptions of order and territory, making fences more than just physical barriers.
This realization got me thinking about how fences, like text, communicate silently through their form. Both fences and layouts serve as silent signals, organizing and controlling space while conveying information without the need for explicit language.
Inspired by this, I created typefaces that mimic the visual characteristics of fences but reduce readability. As Foucault (1966, p.xxi) notes, order is created by “grouping, isolating, analyzing, and matching.” Fences, like typography, sort and organize elements, create boundaries and regulate access. My typography experiments obstruct direct access to information but still communicate through form. The text, like a fence, blocks and defines space functionally and emotionally.
Although the text becomes unreadable, its form still visually expresses the emotions and concepts that fences evoke. This experiment allowed me to explore how design can communicate beyond language, highlighting these silent signals.
Conclusion
Fences are more than simple barriers – they are silent symbols of identity, protection and exclusion. They provide security but also discomfort, they are necessary but restrictive. By exploring the relationship between fences, typography, and identity, I began to understand that these silent structures influence not only our movement, but also our understanding of boundaries-both physical and psychological.
References
Foucault, M. (2005). The Order of Things. Routledge.
Georges Perec and Sturrock, J. (1997). Species of spaces and other pieces : Georges Perec. London: Penguin.
What’s working:
Illustrative skills and ability to summarize information effectively were excellent.
Using typography to reflect the physical and emotional characteristics of fences.
Successfully used layout to visualize discomfort, capturing the emotional response through design.
What’s not working:
Constructive methods used not only for visual style but theory foundation.
Collecting information should support deeper investigation to clarify a position and analyze perspectives.
To develop this further:
The exploration of layered discomfort can be expanded, combining different types in the design work.
Consider how fences relate to the maintenance of power and capital in spatial dynamics.
Exploring fences as psychological boundaries that divide or protect.
Presentation
