typo graphy/graphers - Ben Fry

1 Typo graphy/graphershistory and meggsydrooling and geekyThe Beowulf typefaceDistinguishing typefacesFuturaClaude Garamond and his faceBradbury Thompson (badass)Univers (Adrian Frutiger)Wolfgang Weingart, educatorHermann Zapf, calligrapherThe evolution of the i and jKerningLowercase/uppercase (majuscule/miniscule)Mechanical typesettingOld style figuresRomanSerif/Sans SerifThe W and U, and their parent the VChinese CalligraphyEmigreQx heightRcurved legrhetoric and banterHandwritingNever!Prehistoric vs PostScriptY - the Crystal GobletOf course this is an alphabet book , so if you d like to find a letter, you re going to have to know what letter it comes you re not to good with the alphabet , you can find it on the V the Beowulf typeface, van Rossum and van Blockum replaced all the lineto and curveto commands with something they wrote called freakto.

2 Instead of a straight line or a curve, it draws a random spikey-looking 1 moveto1 3 lineto1 1 lineto3 10 lineto3 7 lineto0 10 lineto20548725652279curveto4935225654011 06curveto565124500-1280curveto255-121973 423curvetoFonts that are used by a printer are actually computer programs. They consist of a lot of numbers and statements like the commands lineto or curve-to which draw (think hard) lines and curves. The example b is shown with the postscript code that is used to draw or would you call it hacking? What came of that interest was a very cool-looking thing. We wanted to make a typeface that looked very smooth and rounded off, but instead it became spiky, with little pointy bits sticking out from the edges of each character in a most unpredictable way. And what's the most fun about Beowulf is that every time you print it, those spiky bits take on a slightly differ-ent appearance.

3 Spiekermann: You both have said that a designer, by definition, has to make things that haven t been made before. But why? Isn't it the job of the designer to work within a frame of reference which is commonly understood? If we use Egyptian hieroglyphs or Chinese writing here in The Hague, we won't communicate anything. But at the same time, as graphic designers who are trying to innovate Erik Spiekermann: You made the first random typeface called Beowulf, by replacing the commands "lineto" and "curveto" in the PostScript code with your own command "freakto." The new command calls up a random generator that makes the character outlines irregular. When you created Beowulf, were you trying to prove something or was it just a joke? Erik van Blokland: It was quite a joke. We were both into programming Erik Spiekermann interviews Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum An excerpt from Wired magazine, July 1995and establish creative new ways of communicating, we have to be surpris-ing and invent new images What does that mean for type?

4 Is it going to disappear or is it going to go back to images? Just van Rossum: Type is definite-ly here to stay. Text won't disappear; in fact, you'll see more and more of it on screens. Images simply aren t strong enough or powerful enough to express everything you want to say. You can't make pictures to replace this interview. Thirty spokes meet the hubbut it is the emptiness between them that makes theessence of the clay pots are made,Chinese Calligraphybut it is the emptiness between them that makes theessence of the principle: The material con-tains usefulness,but it is the emptiness inside them that makes theessence of the with windows and doors form the house,the immaterial imparts essence.[Text is from the eleventh aphorism of Lao-Tse, images from Li Fang-Yin, Chu-Yun-Ming, and Tao Chi, from works of their own]believed Helvetica and Univers were becoming dated.

5 He soughta renewed sans-serif approach by blending propertiesof Univers withorganic and prop-ortional aspects found in less geo-metric sans-serif typefaces such as Gill , reflecting classical Roman proportionswideaperturelarge aperture makes e and ceasily distinguishable from the oGRijHelveticais a rounded sans-serif typeface with a large various weights (Regular, Bold, Black, etc.) for Helvetica were created by different type designers, at varying time periods, leading to a lack of visual cohesion between the dotscurved legspurOQCoval-shaped counterformsstraight,angled tailabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890 ABCDFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ distinguishing typefacesThis is just a handful of the more popular sans-serif typefaces. Univers and Futura are discussed on their own pages, so they are not included here.

6 Serifs are a whole nuther ballgame, and aren t included here for clarity s influenced by Akzidenz-Grotesk, and borrows heavily upon Roman letter- ing, as noted by the forms of the a and g. The term gothic was erroneously given to sans-serif typefaces originating in the at the beginning of the 20th century. Aside from the weight of the letters, there is no true relationship with the black letter gothics of the mediaeval GothicC and e and with angled strokescurved tailis a humanist face meticulously patterned after classic roman character proportions; this gain-ed it a reputation as the most legible sans-serif design of the time. It does not set well as book text, however, because the book face is too heavy, and the Light face is too SansWVouch! pointed bases for v and wj with a short tailhigh, pointedcentral juntioncurved legabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZT hough most people are of the opinion that all type looks the same, they can generally tell the difference in how a printed page in one typeface feels from a page in another face.

7 They may not be able to describe the subtleties of it, but under-stand where one is darker, or the face feels larger, and even which of the two pages might be the more readable. Anyone can make better typographic decisions, even without a lot of anal training and terminology in their ends. With the mind-numbingly dull 1970s and 80s behind us, designers are waking up and starting the next millenium. Emigre is documenting where graphic design is going. And it s going to be interesting. [J. Keedy] Zuzana s mastery of a limited palette is quite elegant. To consider Zuzana Licko s type design as crude or illegible ( non-functional ), weird or radical, would be incredibly shortsighted and historically ignorant. Her preference for reductivist strategies in form and her expression that allows the functioning of the computer, put her in the catego-ry of classical modernist, not radical reactionary.

8 [J. Keedy] It s too hard to read a curious excuse com-ing from someone that is presumably visually literate. [J. Keedy]Arbitrary, designed by Barry DeckEmigre, the San Francisco born purveyor of a new dialogue for graph-ic design, appeared around 1984. During the time, its lay-out was highly uncon-ventional, and they were one of the first to see the computer as a design medium. Along with other designers of the time (like April Greiman) used chunky-looking computer generated type and heavy layering of imag-ery to create new spaces. The style has since been copied, rehashed and regurgitat-ed with results that vary from inter-esting improvements to ignorant , designed by Zuzana LickoThe discourse of Emigre magazine goes hand in hand with the typefaces expos d in each issue. Most of the original faces were designed by Zuzana Licko (who is in fact married to Rudy Vanderlans), including the better known low-resolution faces like Oakland and Emperor.

9 Emigre is now in a curious position, straddling opposite view-points. While still regarded as insignificant and down right det-rimental to graphic design (underground, alternative, reactionary, rebellious) by some, others complain abou tthe ubiq-uity of Emigre s typefaces (main-stream, establishment). [Emigre The book ] I am really interested in type that isn't perfect. Type that reflects more truly the im-perfect language of an imperfect world inhabited by imperfect beings. [Barry Deck]Circle stick, circle stick,Inspired by the Dutch De Stijl and Russian Constructivist movements - along with the Bauhaus school and its dictum that form follows function - European designers explored elemental geometry during the 1920s. Futura reflects this was designed by the German book designer and educator Paul Renner, who applied elementary geo-metric form to a typeface design by con-structing Futura with a T-square, triangle, and com-pass.

10 Renner s original concept was quite abstract; numerous changes occurred before the Bauer foundry released it from 1927-30. Futura and the host of other geometric sans-serif fonts were embraced during the late 1920s and 1930 s as an expression of modernism and industrial culture. Type companies rushed to bring out competing fonts; similar faces include Jakob Erbar s Erbar, Rudolf Koch s Kabel, Willam A. Dwiggins Metro, R. Hunter Middleton s Tempo and Sol Hess s sans serifs were extremely popular until the 1960s, when sans serifs such as Helvetica and Univers became dominant. Futura is widely used by con-temporary designers for its crisp geometry and formal simplicity.[Philip Meggs]The readability of Futura suffers consider-ably because each of the letters are overly geometric, which makes them less distin-guishable from one itsgeometrySimilar to Helvetica and others, the face is not actually made up of perfect circles or lines of uniform thickness, even though many of the letters appear that way.