Launched in the summer of 1991 by London-based designer Neville Brody and editor Jon Wozencroft, FUSE is an interactive, experimental magazine that explores the fringe of digital typography. Distributed by the FontShop international network, the quarterly journal reflects personal and idiosyncratic approaches: themes range from the secret alphabet of runes to virtual typography, from disinformation to exuberance.
Each US$69 "issue" arrives packaged in a corrugated cardboard portfolio and consists of a written introduction by Wozencroft, a Macintosh or Windows disk containing at least four specially commissioned fonts, and four posters ' each designed using one of the disk's experimental typefaces.
FUSE ignores traditional notions of ownership by encouraging those who work with its fonts to extend and adapt them to their particular needs: it wants passive users to become active participants in the process of
type design.
Many of *FUSE'*s experimental typefaces verge on illegibility; some challenge all traditional notions of typography. But to judge FUSE by the legibility of its experimental fonts would be to misunderstand its intention. In promoting typographic innovation, as Wozencroft pointed out in the first issue, "abuse is part of the process."
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