The Relationship between Visual and Voiced Sound Images of Japanese Typefaces

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to clarify the relationship between visual and voiced sound images perceived in seeing and reading Japanese typefaces. Firstly, we prepared three different typefaces with three different levels of weight for some Japanese imitative words printed in Katakana, Japanese square phonetic syllabary, and took a questionnaire survey in order to pick up common images described by Japanese adjectives. Then we sampled the same Japanese words and elements of typefaces which had> held a majority in the former questionnaire, and surveyed the images sensed in seeing them. As a result of these two surveys, common adjectives could be found both in visual images of Japanese typefaces and in voiced sound images of Japanese words themselves. We also recognized this tendency in the fine typefaces usually used as body types. Consequently, intentional expression of voiced images can be considerable by the command of body types as well as display types.