Oncetype by Kelly Moonkyung Choi

Graphic designer Kelly Moonkyung Choi’s typography project “Oncetype” is an art project that gives new functions to wooden printing type that has lost its original position today.

“I started collecting them one by one because I liked the clunkiness of the wooden printing type and the feeling of holding it by hand. On the raised edges of the letter shapes, the solidly hardened ink residue still remains along with the dust. Is it a scar from the printing process, a wound that’s been transported from place to place after being used, wandering around here and there? I feel sorrow for the scars all over the types. Looking at the wooden type in my hand, I can feel the harsh noises of the print shop that was busy at the time, and the strong smell of the printing ink. The typecutter’s delicate workmanship and the typesetter’s busy hand movements also flash across my eyes. Although I’m from the digital typography generation, my heart goes to old printing types that seem to be alive. I’m particularly attracted to the rebellious and experimental typography of those days when there were many physical limitations and constraints.”

Kelly Moonkyung Choi mixes natural ingredients such as polygonum indigo, paprika, and gardenia into a soap solution to create multicolored and vibrant patterns, using improvised hand movements. Soap type, produced like casting letters one by one, evokes images of its colorful use back in the day, unlike the dull and monotonous appearance of the unused type today. Like life, soap type will disappear someday.

The artist captures the splendidness of “Oncetype” in photographs, then brings these images into the computer, applying new colors to them. Every color of the original material is replaced by a Risograph ink, and the type is recreated as prints. The prints created in this way, named “Oncesoap”, may last a little longer than the “Oncetype” soap.