Istanbul Gelisim University (IGU), Faculty of Fine Arts (FFA), Department of Graphic Design Lecturer İrem Fulya Özkan has published two academic books focusing on typography, visual perception, and meaning-making. “Typography as a Design Element: Relations Between Perception and Meaning” examines typography’s role in readability, visual hierarchy, composition, and meaning-making. “Perception Management in Typography: An Examination of Semantic Typography in the Context of Poststructuralist Arguments” approaches typography through semantics, semiotics, and poststructuralist theory. Both books explore the formal, perceptual, and semantic dimensions of typography from different theoretical perspectives, contributing to academic literature in graphic design and visual communication.
Two academic books by Lecturer İrem Fulya Özkan, a faculty member in the Department of Graphic Design at Istanbul Gelisim University (IGU), Faculty of Fine Arts (FFA), have been published. Focusing on typography, visual perception, and meaning-making, the books approach typography both as a fundamental element of graphic design and as a visual communication system that plays an active role in the construction of meaning, contributing to the field from different theoretical perspectives.
Özkan’s first book, “Typography as a Design Element: Relations Between Perception and Meaning” (Tasarım Elemanı Olarak Tipografi: Algı ve Anlam İlişkileri), examines typography as one of the fundamental components of graphic design while focusing on the effects of typographic arrangements on visual perception and meaning-making. The study explores the function of typography in the communication process through key design principles such as readability, visual hierarchy, composition, and typographic arrangement.
The book demonstrates that typography is not merely a technical element used to convey written content in a readable and organized manner; it is also a powerful design component capable of influencing how viewers perceive, interpret, and make sense of visual content. From this perspective, the relationships between typographic choices and perceptual and semantic processes are examined within the framework of the graphic design discipline.
A Semantic and Poststructuralist Approach to Typography
Özkan’s second book, “Perception Management in Typography: An Examination of Semantic Typography in the Context of Poststructuralist Arguments” (Tipografinin Algı Yönetimi: Semantik Tipografinin Postyapısalcı Argümanlar Bağlamında İncelenmesi), approaches typography through the frameworks of semantics, semiotics, and poststructuralist theory. The study argues that typographic form is not a passive instrument that conveys meaning in a direct and fixed manner; rather, it functions as a dynamic system of signs that participates in the differentiation, deferral, and reconstruction of meaning.
By examining the relationship between typographic form and meaning from a theoretical perspective, the book opens the role of the visual structure of writing in the communication process to discussion through different intellectual approaches. In doing so, it enables typography to be examined not only in terms of its formal and aesthetic characteristics but also through the perceptual and semantic relationships it establishes with the viewer.
When considered together, Özkan’s two books present a comprehensive approach to typography. While one focuses on its visual, functional, and perceptual role in graphic design practices, the other explores its theoretical dimensions within the contexts of semiotics, semantics, and poststructuralist thought.
Serving as theoretical resources for academics, researchers, and students working in graphic design, visual communication design, typography, semiotics, and design theory, the books examine the multilayered relationship between form, perception, and meaning from different perspectives and contribute to the relevant academic literature. Lecturer İrem Fulya Özkan’s newly published works also contribute to the academic production and design research activities of the Department of Graphic Design at Istanbul Gelisim University, Faculty of Fine Arts.
Özkan’s first book, “Typography as a Design Element: Relations Between Perception and Meaning” (Tasarım Elemanı Olarak Tipografi: Algı ve Anlam İlişkileri), examines typography as one of the fundamental components of graphic design while focusing on the effects of typographic arrangements on visual perception and meaning-making. The study explores the function of typography in the communication process through key design principles such as readability, visual hierarchy, composition, and typographic arrangement.
The book demonstrates that typography is not merely a technical element used to convey written content in a readable and organized manner; it is also a powerful design component capable of influencing how viewers perceive, interpret, and make sense of visual content. From this perspective, the relationships between typographic choices and perceptual and semantic processes are examined within the framework of the graphic design discipline.
A Semantic and Poststructuralist Approach to Typography
Özkan’s second book, “Perception Management in Typography: An Examination of Semantic Typography in the Context of Poststructuralist Arguments” (Tipografinin Algı Yönetimi: Semantik Tipografinin Postyapısalcı Argümanlar Bağlamında İncelenmesi), approaches typography through the frameworks of semantics, semiotics, and poststructuralist theory. The study argues that typographic form is not a passive instrument that conveys meaning in a direct and fixed manner; rather, it functions as a dynamic system of signs that participates in the differentiation, deferral, and reconstruction of meaning.
By examining the relationship between typographic form and meaning from a theoretical perspective, the book opens the role of the visual structure of writing in the communication process to discussion through different intellectual approaches. In doing so, it enables typography to be examined not only in terms of its formal and aesthetic characteristics but also through the perceptual and semantic relationships it establishes with the viewer.
When considered together, Özkan’s two books present a comprehensive approach to typography. While one focuses on its visual, functional, and perceptual role in graphic design practices, the other explores its theoretical dimensions within the contexts of semiotics, semantics, and poststructuralist thought.
Serving as theoretical resources for academics, researchers, and students working in graphic design, visual communication design, typography, semiotics, and design theory, the books examine the multilayered relationship between form, perception, and meaning from different perspectives and contribute to the relevant academic literature. Lecturer İrem Fulya Özkan’s newly published works also contribute to the academic production and design research activities of the Department of Graphic Design at Istanbul Gelisim University, Faculty of Fine Arts.