Swift strokes and sampled constructs (Pt. 1)

Unlike the flowing, balletic movements of hand-rendered letterforms, there is nothing swift in typographic forms. Intentionally arranging typeforms is slow, staged, expensive, and always deliberate. Typeface-making invites reflection, discussion, and review. Typefaces will stretch the limits of their encoding technologies to maximise the potential to act as agents of design discourse, cultural commentary, innovation and experimentation. This observation applies across typemaking and typesetting technologies -- any variations we perceive are a factor of the number of people working on making typefaces, and the ease with which people can make one more typeface.
(This is a self-contained lecture, but part of a longer narrative; therefore the “Part 1” in the title here.)

Transcript

1. ISType | 13 June 2015 Swift strokes and sampled constructs 
 Gerry Leonidas
2. dedicated to Richard Southall
4. “Developing a new design 
 the designer is concerned primarily 
 with the appearance 0f character images, 
 and only secondarily with the shape 
 of the objects that give rise to them.” Richard Southall
 Shape and appearance in typeface design
 PROTEXT III, 1986
6. De Aetna 1496/97 (+ previous slide)
7. Character appearance space: the object identifiable as the 
 character it represents.
8. all possible 
 renderings 
 of a shape all possible 
 associations 
 by the reader designer intention
9. Walbaum 6 and 10 pt metal, 
 and Monotype T1 digital.
 Left shapes from: Harry Carter
 Optical scale in typefounding
 Typography 4, 1937
10. Where is the typeface?
11. Punches in the Plantin-Moretus
12. Matrices in the Plantin-Moretus
13. Engraving 
 for the 
 romain du roi
14. Legros & Grant, 1916
17. Linotype & 
 Machinery
 drawing, 1943
19. Richard Southall: “models” and “patterns”
20. “models” and “instances” Redefined to avoid the overlap 
 of “pattern” with hot-metal use, 
 and Alexander’s “pattenr language”
21. model instance [Designer’s intentions realised]
22. model instance instance instance [One typeface, many outputs]
23. model encoded
 object instance instance instance [One typeface, encoded in one 
 technology, many outputs]
24. model encoded
 object instance instance instance encoded
 object instance instance [One typeface, encoded in many technologies, 
 many potential outputs]
25. model encoded
 object instance instance instance typographic notions [What gives form to the models 
 in the designer’s mind?]
26. No discussion of typefaces 
 is worth having 
 independently of the typography 
 that makes use of them.
27. The things you can readily measure 
 are not necessarily the things 
 that are worth measuring.
28. ATypI 1985
29. Gerrit Noordzij
30. “The crux of the matter is that 
 type is not pen-written forms, 
 but sharply-cut letters.” Sem L. Hartz
 An approach to designing type, 1992
31. We reflect, research, discuss, theorise.
32. William Morris and Edward Johnston
33. Stanley 
 Morison
34. “The only alternative is a sloped type 
 sufficiently inclined to be differentiated 
 from the primary type, yet following its 
 design as closely as possible.” Stanley Morison
 Towards an ideal italic
 The Fleuron, 1926
35. Herbert Bayer
36. Type derives from a slow, iterative, deliberate process.
37. Sketches by Marian Misiak
38. From Gerard Unger, 
 “Design of a typeface” in
 Visible Language VIII no 2, 1979
39. From Gerard Unger, 
 “Design of a typeface” in
 Visible Language VIII no 2, 1979
41. From Richard Southall, 
 “Metafont in the Rockies” 
 in RIDT, 1998
42. Emigre no 40
46. “It is a safe rule that he should do nothing 
 without a correct understanding of the 
 design of the letters, or having good models 
 before him to allow him to catch the 
 fashion of them, and to make such 
 alterations as he thinks necessary.” Fournier, quoted in Counterpunch
47. Why is this discussion important?
48. 1. Font-making environments 
 are commoditised
49. 2. The added value of design is redefined 
 away from the visible acts of practice
50. 3. A typeface does not contain enough information to explain itself.
51. adhesifny adhesifny EssayText by Ellmer Stefan
52. adhesifny adhesifny Fenland by Jeremy Tankard
53. The rules for evaluation are determined 
 by context: trends, genres, use scenarios, 
 and the allowance for creativity.
54. “Rejection or ignorance of the rich and varied 
 history and traditions of typography are
 inexcusable; however, adherence to traditional 
 concepts without regard to contemporary 
 context is intellectually lazy and a threat 
 to typography today.” Jeffery Keedy
 The rules of typography according 
 to crackpots experts. Eye 9, 1993
55. Teşekkür ederim @gerryleonidas
56. “A fashion in type is an encumbrance to the reading world until it becomes common.” Harry Carter
 The establishment of common idioms
 A view of early typography […], 1926