As a designer, I see a challenging font like Tangle and go about imagining a client that's a fit. The bioengineered villains in Ridley Scott's classic 1982 neo-noir film Blade Runner will do nicely. Picture a prequel set in 2011 Los Angeles. Never mind visas. My android clients come to the studio seeking a new look to launch their interplanetary staffing business. Who better to finish the filing than a non-stop replicant, they say. Tangle's kinetic illusion is a definite match.
Tangle emerged during Mitchell's coursework at the University of the West of England (UWE), where the Graphic Design program includes a first semester module aptly named "Communicating with Words." For six weeks, students develop a 26-character font around a single word. Mitchell chose "Chaos."
The design went through several reiterations to reach its current form. Inspired by research and readings on the nature of chaos, Mitchell began with initial sketches on paper. Next she plotted the base style offline on graph paper--pre-staging for a digital translation. Finally the process moved online to , the type-building application developed by Rob Meek. Along the way, the designer and her classmates received support and criticism not just from instructors and each other, but also from the larger FontStruct community. The final result is a bold set of lower case characters composed of atmospheric motion lines.
Like the replicants of Blade Runner, Tangle is a beautiful feat of engineering, but its emotional range is limited. Clever entrepreneurs will choose words that take advantage of this in-motion style, like the word "fusion" to label a new micro-brew or "needleplay" to brand a minimalist's clothing line.
Tangle's characters are easily recognizable, although they are best teased apart with a little letterspacing. The action surrounding each letter is included in the point size, so characters will appear smaller than their non-chaotic counterparts at the same size. Start large and scale down while bearing in mind that single words trump phrases. The fizzing lines rope characters together so that phrases break from word to word, making for a spotty read.