How do you spell New Jersey?
Woody Leslie has an answer for you.
He is a writer, illustrator, and one of the most creative media makers I’ve ever met. I chatted with Woody in late April at the Brooklyn Zine Fest, a venue for small, independent individuals to showcase their self-published work. Woody gives us a window into his world and a sneak peek into his spoken word album he has coming out later next month. Here’s Woody:
Courier’s Text Atlas of The United States of America started as what I thought would be just an exercise in my twin interests of geography and typography: to type every state 100% geographically accurate using only its name repeated again and again, following strict rules of left-to-right text conventions. As a thematic exhaustive exercise, it seemed like a fun way to spend some time with each state’s geography, get more familiar with Microsoft Word for typesetting and pass the 10 hour train ride I was on.
But it quickly proved to be much more interesting. Words started popping out in the repeated names of states that I hadn’t noticed before. Wavy patterns appear, almost like topography, because of variance in typographic color between different letters and how they align and realign in changing lines. Phase patterns arise in some of the boxier states where regular line lengths shift state names by only one or two letters. Each state took on its own typographic character, and compiling all of them into a book seemed to be the most suitable place for them—a home perfect for their nature as text, and as atlas.
I think of each state as equal parts image, map, and text. They are striking images, but just as useful maps—people often pick up the book, turn to their home state, and say something to the effect of “I’m from that letter R.”
But text is the underlying principle for how each map is put together, and to reflect this, I wanted to find a way to read each page as if it were a written piece.
Enter a computer text-to-speech reader.
The solid blocks of unreadable texts are easily dispatched by the reading algorithms of the computer. It only breaks at lines, turning each latitude into a momentous single word. Each state takes on its own sonic character, some hypnotic, others melodic, or stately even. The process oriented minimalism in the sound mimics that of how the images were originally put together (take a process, follow it through to completion), and it feels a bit like listening to the geography of a state. But the computer’s reading is inherently inhuman, and this becomes part of it too—the mispronunciations, the strange sounds, the odd pitch shifts—the map becomes a score for the computer as instrument.
Click the SoundCloud window or go to Gold Bolus Recordings for a preview of a few states right now. CTA will be released as a full album by Gold Bolus Recordings later this summer.
Courier’s Text Atlas makes a great gift for the typography or geography nerd in your life. Woody hand-bound these books, and you can buy them at One Page Productions. This link will only be active for the next month or so, get them while they last.
