Tools, techniques,
and innovation
(in typographic design)
!
Gerry Leonidas
Slide 2
Slide 2 text
What is easier to talk about,
or sounds more fascinating,
or appears obvious,
may not be the most
useful thing to consider.
Slide 3
Slide 3 text
“Doing design” is three discreet aspects:
> how people think about stuff,
> how they make decisions,
> and how they make that stuff.
Slide 4
Slide 4 text
Some ideas from yesterday’s talks:
> loss of (or emphasis on) materiality
(via, not only, Richard Hollis’ “physicality
of graphic design”)
> imposed frameworks of interpretation
(via the tyranny of Excel’s matrix)
Slide 5
Slide 5 text
> the “designers, learn to code” mantra
> tension between form-making
and encoding
> the overlapping roles of people
> design as a process to create meaning
and enable understanding
Slide 6
Slide 6 text
These are all aspects of the same thing.
!
Like Berger’s “Ways of seeing”,
we want to make making visible.
Slide 7
Slide 7 text
Four routes into this:
1. effects of dematerialisation*
2. language of describing and specifying
3. tension between models and encodings
and…
* not “immaterial”, because the physical paradigms survive
Slide 8
Slide 8 text
(the elephant in the room)
4. the space for innovation and invention
Slide 9
Slide 9 text
An example:
Slide 10
Slide 10 text
Typecon 2013, Portland
!
Kevin Larson & Matthew Carter report
on reading tests comparing Sitka with
Georgia, Swift, and Paperback
Slide 11
Slide 11 text
Sitka looks like this
Georgia looks like this
Swift looks like this
(Paperback does not look like this)
Slide 12
Slide 12 text
“We were not able to find
any statistically significant
difference between them”
!
!
Which means that…
Slide 13
Slide 13 text
…at a line- and paragraph level,
!
Well-designed typefaces are not
distinguished by performance
Slide 14
Slide 14 text
!
!
but by identity and association,
which are extrinsic to the “visible”
encoding of the design.
Slide 15
Slide 15 text
Therefore, the key question is:
!
“Is this typeface well designed?”
Slide 16
Slide 16 text
Or, better:
!
“How can we talk about the design of
typefaces in a way that helps people
make more well-designed typefaces?”
Slide 17
Slide 17 text
This is one of the key challenges
in teaching typeface design.
!
!
!
And most common in a type crit, like…
Slide 18
Slide 18 text
type crit on the MATD wall, image by Ben Mitchell
Slide 19
Slide 19 text
[the objective is:]
to help the student become conscious
of how they absorb influences and
make decisions, through the narrow
medium of typefaces
Slide 20
Slide 20 text
This is more difficult when our ways
of talking about typefaces are unfamiliar
to the designers, like in the…
Slide 21
Slide 21 text
Type crit in ATypI Amsterdam
image from porchez.com
Slide 22
Slide 22 text
Here, the objective is:
To give feedback
> without imposing your style or taste,
> equally across projects, and
> consistently across sessions.
Slide 23
Slide 23 text
!
!
!
!
So here are some pointers
for typeface reviews:
Slide 24
Slide 24 text
Pointers for typeface reviews (1/3):
> fit of typeset text within the brief
> key dimensions within the body
> stroke thickness range
> balance of key strokes and space
within and between letters
Slide 25
Slide 25 text
Pointers for typeface reviews (2/3):
> stroke modulation
> in/out stroke recipes
> alignments in H and V axes
> transitions between letter elements
Slide 26
Slide 26 text
Pointers for typeface reviews (3/3):
> relating of inner and outer strokes
> letter shapes within key patterns
> integration of exceptions
Slide 27
Slide 27 text
!
No part of this discussion needs
to rely on language derived from
the technology of type-making.
Slide 28
Slide 28 text
Ways of looking at typographic design:
1. objectives
2. tools
3. language
4. evidence
Slide 29
Slide 29 text
!
1. through the way a brief are expressed
2. through the means of realising the brief
3. through our discussions with peers
4. through the records that connect the
results to other acts of designing
Slide 30
Slide 30 text
1. objectives
!
Slide 31
Slide 31 text
[an axiom:]
Each new technology answers the
problems of the one it replaces
Slide 32
Slide 32 text
!
Each new technology answers the
problems of the one it replaces
so, what we want is expressed in the
parameters of the older environment
Slide 33
Slide 33 text
The initial brief here is:
“make me something that looks close
enough to a book on a small screen”
(and not: “what is the act of reading
on a portable digital device?” )
[next slide]
Slide 34
Slide 34 text
No content
Slide 35
Slide 35 text
The initial brief here is:
“make me something that looks close
enough to a desktop pasteboard”
(and not: “what decisions does the act
of document composition involve?” )
[next slide]
Slide 36
Slide 36 text
No content
Slide 37
Slide 37 text
The initial brief here is:
“make me something that looks close
enough to a familiar word processor”
(and not: “how do we enable text
composition for an online platform?” )
[next slide]
Slide 38
Slide 38 text
No content
Slide 39
Slide 39 text
!
How many user-cycles does it take
for new uses to be imagined?
!
and the use of a technology to
migrate to native paradigms?
Slide 40
Slide 40 text
[next slide example]
Typecast makes text hierarchies
visible during authoring
Slide 41
Slide 41 text
No content
Slide 42
Slide 42 text
[next slide example]
Kindle’s X-Ray indexes and
cross-references the text you
are reading
Slide 43
Slide 43 text
No content
Slide 44
Slide 44 text
[next slide example]
Readmill shows shared highlights
and enables local comments
Slide 45
Slide 45 text
No content
Slide 46
Slide 46 text
[next slide example]
Medium, Quartz, and the Guardian
allow comments at a paragraph level
Slide 47
Slide 47 text
No content
Slide 48
Slide 48 text
No content
Slide 49
Slide 49 text
2. tools
!
Slide 50
Slide 50 text
!
What is the impact of type-making
and typesetting technologies on
decisions about typography and
the forms of letters?
Slide 51
Slide 51 text
[next slide example: on our way of
thinking about things]
Ikarus, FontStudio, Fontographer,
Glyphs, Robofont, FontForge:
what is the best way to represent
a character complement?
Slide 52
Slide 52 text
No content
Slide 53
Slide 53 text
[next slide comment]
Given how many of these glyphs are
derivatives (components or automatically
generated), does this arrangement mislead
as to the design problems in the typeface?
Slide 54
Slide 54 text
No content
Slide 55
Slide 55 text
Which design decisions (or the setup
to make decisions) can be automated?
Slide 56
Slide 56 text
In other words:
To what degree, if at all, are meaningful
decisions (the ones that matter for users)
possible to systematise?
Slide 57
Slide 57 text
[next slide example]
Accents that are consistent within
a typeface may take very different forms
across typefaces.
What is topologically “correct”
Slide 58
Slide 58 text
across letters, within a typeface, and
across typefaces within a letter:
àààà áááá ââââ åååå
èèèè éééé êêêê ěěěě
Slide 59
Slide 59 text
[previous slide example]
What is topologically “correct” and
well-encoded in its outlines, may be
stylistically inappropriate, or even
culturally wrong.
Slide 60
Slide 60 text
!
Decisions on shapes and space
can always be “well-formed” technically.
Slide 61
Slide 61 text
!
Decisions on shapes and space
can always be “well-formed” technically.
They are good or bad, appropriate or not,
for a specific context only.
Slide 62
Slide 62 text
3. language
!
Slide 63
Slide 63 text
[next slide comment]
A 1952 drawing for a Linotype Metro Black
letter: a snapshot at the end of a series of
design decisions, that on its own tells us
little about the qualities of the design.
Slide 64
Slide 64 text
No content
Slide 65
Slide 65 text
!
Is the definition of shapes and the
specification of behaviour enough?
Slide 66
Slide 66 text
[next slide comment]
Here’s a proof of a –redacted– typeface,
with just one set of comments surrounding
the letters: We can learn more from these
comments than any “production-ready”
encodings for making the typeface.
Slide 67
Slide 67 text
No content
Slide 68
Slide 68 text
[next slide comment]
But how well does our “niche” language
support design decisions?
Frank Chimero’s example from a recent
blog post is telling.
Slide 69
Slide 69 text
Frank Chimero:
code as temporary substitute for language
!
frankchimero.com / what-screens-want
Slide 70
Slide 70 text
No content
Slide 71
Slide 71 text
No content
Slide 72
Slide 72 text
[next slide comment]
This reminded me of Ewan Clayton’s
descriptions of writing motions to the
MATD students, a couple of weeks
earlier:
Slide 73
Slide 73 text
Ewan Clayton
!
Slide 74
Slide 74 text
Ewan Clayton
using
Rudolf Laban’s
dance notation
Slide 75
Slide 75 text
[next slide comment]
So, when we attempt to describe typefaces
as disparate as Formal, Fenland, and
Enquire, individual shapes may be
described with precision, but the style is
captured by metaphor and association.
Slide 76
Slide 76 text
adhesion for rugby
adhesions for rugby
adhesions for rugby
Slide 77
Slide 77 text
4. evidence
Slide 78
Slide 78 text
No content
Slide 79
Slide 79 text
[previous slide comment]
Going back to the comparison of foundry
and screen type from earlier, we may ask:
Slide 80
Slide 80 text
!
Which decisions add value to the object?
Slide 81
Slide 81 text
!
How are people, places, and conditions
of document-making captured?
Slide 82
Slide 82 text
[next slide comment]
And, a comment on the statement we
heard that “everything we need to learn
is on Google”. Data and some information,
yes; but rarely the tools to create knowledge
and understanding. For example:
Slide 83
Slide 83 text
No content
Slide 84
Slide 84 text
[previous slide comment]
Monotype’s Drawing Office Image: raises
questions of traceability, collaboration,
institutional memory, industrial relations,
gender bias… None of these aspects are
embedded in the image itself.
Slide 85
Slide 85 text
!
Typography and typeface design
are interesting because they reflect
the tension between tradition
and modernity.
Slide 86
Slide 86 text
[next slide comment]
A spread from Octavo on its own does
not tell you much about technological
shifts, the typographic context within which
this was groundbreaking, why it generated
discussion, or what the arguments were.
Slide 87
Slide 87 text
No content
Slide 88
Slide 88 text
[next slide comment]
Today an equivalent discussion about
innovation is taking place in the rethinking
of typefaces, in width (character sets), in
depth (family variants) and in richness
(the relationship between styles).
Slide 89
Slide 89 text
No content
Slide 90
Slide 90 text
!
!
!
!
!
[in conclusion:]
Slide 91
Slide 91 text
Design matters because it forms
the way we perceive and interact
with our environment.
Slide 92
Slide 92 text
And if we don’t consciously talk about
design interpretations and decisions,
then the most obvious substitute,
the narrower language of making
will define the range of our expression.