Dundee University
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design
Dundee Scotland

Posters - Digital Prints

All the World's a Stage

I first encountered this speech in secondary school when a Shakespeare play was studied in each year as an obligatory element of the curriculum. Part of our learning experience was to dissect and analyse every nuance of the playwright's inner-thought process as he penned the complicated plots and events for future generations of scholars to excruciate over. I must confess that in the tenderness of youth most of this washed over me and when I was 'ordered' to learn Jaque's speech in 'As You Like It' Act Two,
Scene Seven, for homework, I automatically embarked upon a rote learning mode. When called upon to recite the speech a few days later in front of the class, the content and meaning of the words came a poor second. A good number of years later I revisited the play and the 'seven ages of man' became much clearer and relevant. I am now on the threshold of entering the 'sixth age' in Shakespeare's philosophical depiction of man's life-cycle and when I read the speech I can reflect on an ever-growing past with the hope that the last scene involving 'sans teeth, sans eyes, sans
taste, sans everything' is still a little further into the future. My admiration for these magnificent words has influenced me to create a typographic interpretation of the piece. I decided to break up the
continuous nature of the text as it appears in verse form in the play and to highlight each 'age' through the use of different typefaces -seven in total. Consideration has also been given to the delicate balance of line length, meaning and shape and the speech as a whole hopefully integrates in an attractive and visually stimulating manner. As you read the piece I hope you share with me the reflective nature of Shakespeare's wonderful words.

If

Wonderful words - beautiful typeface . . .The large-format shape of the lower-case letters provides a figurative centrepiece and pivotal point for the four verses of Kipling's poem. Through experimentation with a number of typefaces, I considered the timeless beauty of Bembo most appropriate for this piece. The chancery italic has an easy and natural grace with well proportioned letterforms and clear detail, providing good legibility in the text.