Narrative Time and Typographical Space: Towards a Typographical Narratology

Narratologists have long raised the question of how narrative theories could be applied to other disciplines that involve stories and storytelling. Focusing on recently revitalized concepts of space, sequence, and story, this article attempts to illustrate narrative constructions in various fields of arts and humanities and examine them particularly in typographical works. Through the concept of narrativity, this article highlights the prevalent uses of narrative in typography and scrutinizes the ways in which a sense of storyness is forming and emerging in some typographical works. Particularly emphasized are the importance of and interplay between the formal and cultural attributes of narrative that transform the spatial world of visual images to the temporal world of stories. Narrative is arguably the most familiar, interesting, and effective medium of communication regardless of age, race, and culture, and can be critically rethought to apply to typography and design.