Everyone knows them, uses them and deletes them: Filler words. The linguistic phenomenon is part of our daily communication as we listen, speak, read and write. And yet these “useless” words shouldn’t actually occur so often, should they?

Katharina Vahlenkamp typographically oriented bachelor thesis (supervised by Prof Andrea Hennig) dealt intensively with this observation of common language. Within a cross-media book, the linguistic phenomenon is investigated in an experimental way. In a typographic matrix, different aspects of filler words are first separated and visually translated into writing. The translation is then recombined in a variable font and applied in posters to show the interaction of linguistic factors.

The effort was worthwhile. The practical result of her exploration of language and visuality scored twice at the international INDIGO Design Student Award 2022: silver in both the book and typography categories.

Congratulations!