What is Pylongraphy?

As human being’s, we are hard wired to see familiar objects and shapes quickly. Anyone who has looked at the clouds and spotted two eyes, a nose and a mouth have felt the influence of Pareidolia! Paredolia is “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist”.

There are some interesting examples of this on the web, you can find photograph’s from people around the world who see faces in very unlikely places. There are images of Hilter’s face in a building, Mother Teresa as a Bagle and Mother Mary in a slice of cheesy toast. There are lots of funny digitally altered ones too.

Some scholars say its our evolutionary inclination for survival, to recognise familiar shapes quickly so we can respond to threatening situations more effectively and survive longer. Some say that our brains are constantly sifting through random lines, shapes, surfaces and colours. It makes sense of these images by assigning meaning to them - usually by matching them to something stored in long-term knowledge. Whatever the scientific reason may be - experiencing Pareidolia, is really quite cool.

Whilst researching this subject and seeing many examples of faces in the food stuffs and stains of the world, I began to wonder... If we can experience Pareidolia for faces or familiar shapes why can’t we experience the same thing for words? Could we not experience a typographic Pareidolia? So what is Pylongraphy? It’s nothing... I just made it up. However, I have been fascinated with Transmission Towers for a while. They are so very obvious and so invisible at the same time. I like to stand and look up and see what shapes I can see in their crisscross fret work. There are so many horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines that its impossible not to make geometric shapes whilst you stand under their tall outstretched wings. I photographed them and saw that I could make a whole nexus alphabet. The type has a very angular and irregular characteristic and the beauty is that there are many alternatives and options in what the letter’s can look like.

Pylongraphy may well be made up but so is the random cheese face that looks like Mother Mary. The reality is born when we give these things meaning. The lady who found cheesy Mother Mary now prints it on T-shirts. I look at Pylons and make typography. Our brains work in such an imaginary way and it would be interesting to see how many of our existing typographic beginnings have been born from “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist”. In the same way that a religious person may see a heavenly sign in a random smear on the underside of a marmite lid, so we, as designers, receive inspiration from the world around us and make things real.

Let us not inhibit our brains natural pathways in seeing things that are not really there. Let reason and logic be still, as we allow our minds to wonder the horizons of nonexistence.

Transmission Tower
Giant angels of steel across my landscape
Reaching the upper bounds of my horizon
Thin metal structures of perfect lattice
Electrified ribbons extending for miles
A nexus plexus of transmission power