Category: Blog

The right kind of support

typeface publishing incentive program

In June 2013 Ampersand conference hosted an exhibition of work by students of typeface design courses, there were submissions from over 30 countries: a reminder that typeface design is an international endeavour, growing in recognition as a career with path for study and recognised professional norms. As with other professions, this maturity brings increasing competition for new designers.

Eighteen months ago Monotype initiated a Mentorship Program for designers under 30. Yesterday, Type-Together announced their Typeface Publishing Incentive Program, for graduating students. This initiative, open to all designers currently studying typeface design, recognises the pressures on designers who may have promising projects alongside financial loans, and the very real stress of “what happens after graduation?”

Like in any established profession, the careers paths of typeface design graduates are not uniform, and the demand by the market and potential employers may not match exactly with the skills and experience of graduates — this is normal, and it is one of the correctives that allows outliers to enter the profession, as well as feedback to education institutions so that they evolve. But anyone with a good understanding of the sector will regret the small number of exceptional projects developed during study that never, or very late, make it onto a foundry’s catalogue.

Type-Together and Monotype are putting their money where their mouth is, and are offering support to a promising designer for those crucial first months after graduation. This support can make the difference between a typeface with potential being developed properly, and it being lost between the Scylla of “I’ll do it when I have more time” and the Charybdis of some “free” service, for peanuts.

People will object and say that this is too little for a growing profession. I’ll counter that this may well be the beginning of a trend in companies supporting new professionals, parallel to many schemes in other sectors. It is not too far-fetched to imagine that most major foundries might soon have a similar scheme: this would allow them to get in early on potentially great typefaces, and check out a new professional (who may well end up being hired, or contracted). More widely, it allows foundries to send a clear message that they recognise and support excellence in typeface design, and — through their selections — what is innovative and worth exploring.

 

Type Compass: pointing ahead

This is the text I submitted for the foreword for the Type Compass: charting new routes in typography book by SHS Publishing. It is an interesting publication, combining reference and notebook; perhaps exactly what design students need: inspiration, with space for sketching.

Type Compass

 

Members of the type world have every reason to be happy. For years we have secretly yearned to be able to mention our discipline without the despondent knowledge that blank stares would follow, without having to play the well-rehearsed tape that explained what typeface design is, and that — yes, imagine that! — some people actually made their living from designing letters.

In recent years we’ve seen a gradual recognition by the general public of typeface design as a discipline in its own right. Thanks to smartphones, ebook readers, internationalised brands, high profile wayfinding projects in cities and transport hubs (and a few journalists with a nose for a good story) fonts and typefaces are now terms suitable for polite conversation. In fact, they downright exciting, since disbelief has been replaced by credulous surprise, and eagerness to discover the ways in which our daily lives are filtered through fonts.
This gradual move of typeface design into the wider stage of public awareness has gone hand-in-hand with a stronger realisation by designers of all disciplines that typeface design matters. With this, come publications, exhibitions, competitions, and events of all scales. At the same time, the development of webfonts is beginning to breach the browser window, arguably the most important area where typographic choices were limited to handling space relationships, and crude font choices were justified on cross-platform predictability and the need to publish text as text, rather than as some poor pixelated simulacrum.

As typographic environments become more refined (the ones that had a lot of catching up to do, that is — because print is doing just fine in this respect) so do our typeface libraries become richer, more varied, and more complex. Richer, because designers continue to invent new ways of making forms, both exploring and abandoning the influences of manual tools (lots of examples of both in this book; notably, Typotheque’s History project manages to do both at the same time). More varied, because a good number of experienced and upcoming designers are publishing new fonts, raising the number of well-designed typefaces higher than it has ever been. And more complex, because typefaces now come in many weights ands styles, offering a degree of refinement in document design that until some years ago only few typographers could hope to expect from retail fonts.

At the same time, typeface design is maturing as a discipline of study and research. There are targeted modules within Bachelor-level courses, and a growing number of dedicated postgraduate programmes in many countries — some in parts of the world where typeface design itself is a very recent area of activity. Many graduates from these courses manage to leapfrog self-educated contemporaries, to found solid careers that pay the rent: this is overdue in typeface design, but the normal state of affairs in pretty much any established professional discipline. And as we acknowledge the elephant in the room, that typeface design is, more than most design disciplines, informed by past practice and context, so does research flourish. This is emphasised by the expansion of design briefs to cover many world scripts as a matter of course: pan-European Latin with Cyrillic and Greek to begin with, and many combinations of Arabic, Hebrew, Indian and Asian scripts. To meet these demands, designers do more research of their own, and make use of other research, to keep expanding their skills.
But the proliferation of typefaces and the texts that accompany them place a new burden on designers: it is now impossible for one person to keep abreast of developments. Typeface design is global, and the scale of output is similarly overwhelming. Publications about typeface design have similarly had to shift their focus. Many publications in the hot-metal and photo-typesetting eras attempted to show all the typefaces in circulation (or, at least, all the ones that mattered). This approach spilled into the early digital period, but is long now abandoned. Instead, publications can let online retailers to function as catalogues of nearly everything, and focus instead on editorship. The selection of work becomes more interesting than the volume; the editor’s perspective more illuminating than any message the inclusion or exclusion of a single work can get across.

This process opens up the space for editors to give each publication a specific depth of field, to borrow a photographic metaphor. From typefaces shown on their own, worthy of study in their own right, to texts in books, on screens, on street signs, where typefaces become enabling tools for other designers, the editor is very much not a silent partner. In putting Eric Olson’s Seravek (a quintessentially contemporary design that manages to be an accomplished all-rounder at the same time) next to Pierre di Sciullo’s inspired T for the Nice tram service, this book makes a robust case for the healthy invention and originality suffusing typeface design, while reinforcing the ubiquity of manufactured and rendered letterforms surrounding us. In this sense, a book such as this becomes a starting point: for inspiration, argument, and another round of informed selection: as good a send-off as any editor could hope for.

 

 

Pencil to Peerless

 

Pencil to Pixel private view

[Preamble]

Reading has a long, fruitful relationship with Monotype stretching back decades. But, whereas “we” have known intimately what makes the company unique (and its uninterrupted presence in large OEM and branding projects), most of the type world held a perception of Monotype as a somewhat monolithic company, that made the transformation from heavy industry to the digital world without shedding the weight of the machinery it scrapped. The expertise of staff, the richness of its library, and the knowhow embedded in its archives (and the staff looking after them) were anything but common knowledge.

Since 2001, when we started directing MATD research towards a global typography, slivers of the archives have started coming to light through the students’ dissertations (several examples here), the typefaces themselves (lots of examples here) but also the PhD and post-doc projects of Jo De Bardemaeker, Sallie Morris, Titus Nemeth, Alice Savoie, and others.

Monotype have also been helping fund postgraduate students in Typography through the Monotype Studentship (tip of the hat to Alan Haley and Robin Nicholas, who spearheaded the establishment of the award in 2006).

A big part of our teaching and research has been enhanced and accelerated by the donation to Reading, in 2003, of the non-Latin drawings held in the Linotype archives in Germany. Otmar Hoefer and Thomas Caldwell were instrumental in this. They shared our vision of turning a historical archive that was opaque to researchers and practicing designers alike into an accessible resource that would cater for different levels of engagement: teaching and research from introductory MA to post-Doc levels, to design support for revivals and new typefaces, and for wider narratives that help engage with the community. The Linotype non-Latin drawings sit well within our Collections & Archives, in the company of world-class collections in printing processes, manuscripts and early printing, ephemera, newspapers, nineteenth and twentieth century posters, type specimens, children’s books, Isotype, corporate and personal archives, and more. (And they are in the room next to one of the best libraries on typography and typeface design,itself an invaluable resource for students and researchers.)

In 2008 we started collaborating more closely with the UK part of the company on a two-year Knowledge Transfer Project. This aimed to recapture know-how embedded in Monotype’s library drawings for key scripts in the Indian market, with a focus on mobile devices, and – later – webfonts (Fiona Ross and myself from Reading, and John McCallum and Robin Nicholas from Monotype; and Dan Rhatigan as the Associate doing the heavy lifting).

Then things started to accelerate: as the company got bigger (much bigger) it got more nimble, open, and imaginative. The same company that supported Doug Wilson’s Linotype the Film, put its weight behind events like the Beauty in the Making exhibition with GFSmith, and the popular BrandPerfect events, aimed at branding agencies. (They’ve also been developing some really neat services, which – I am willing to bet – point to the next big development in the font business.)

[End of preamble]

Pencil to Pixel catalogue

The opening of Pencil to Pixel yesterday made me think that this new confidence is now well embedded in the company. To begin with, the event was a superb example of exhibiting typographic material: just the right amount, and with a broad range of objects; drawings, specimens, books. A collection of films put these objects in perspective, and underlined the transformational effects of digital technologies. The object are not displayed with distanced reverence; on the contrary, these are intended to be seen up close, to help inspire and excite as much as to learn. The cases are shallow, allowing you to come very close to the material, and the lighting ideal for discerning textures and layers. You can easily imagine Bruce Rogers, Frederic Warde, and Chris Brand marking and correcting the sheets of Centaur, Arrighi, and Albertina a few centimetres from your eyes. These objects are typeface design as it really is: decisions and backtracks to get that shape in your head just right, because the inked sketches will turn into letters with the permanence of steel, numbering millions of impressions.

Monotype Recorder

But alongside these are a mesmerising installation by Marcin Ignac, a series of twelve collectable booklets (like this), a tasty selection of specimens, and two very special publications: a celebratory issue of the Recorder, dedicated to Robin Nicholas’ career in the company; and a special issue of Eye, given over entirely to the unique place of Monotype in the type industry, and its contribution to typography. Dan and James, Well Done.

Postscript: I am going to be modest about the Recorder here: I’ve written a piece for it, and will be posting more in the coming weeks. But I will allow myself some hypebole on the special Eye: It is, quite simply, a tour de force of design for a periodical publication. It takes Eye’s established visual cues out for a drink and a spin, then sweet-talks them into all sorts of improbable contortions and surprising twists. Space, scale, contrast, and typography are turned into the best argument for printing things I’ve seen in a long while.

Eye 84 spread

Eye 84 spread

Λυσία υστερόγραφο

[English text below]

Στην προηγούμενη ανάρτηση χρησιμοποίησα την αρχή από τον περίφημο λόγο του Λυσία για τα παραδείγματα. Στην Αναγέννηση, αλλά και αργότερα, οι λόγοι του Λυσία ήταν από τα βασικά κείμενα για τη μάθηση των ελληνικών (δεν τα έλεγαν «αρχαία ελληνικά» τότε, αλλά σκέτα «ελληνικά»). Σήμερα το πρωί προετοιμαζόμουνα για ένα εργαστήρι και μια ομιλία που θα δώσω στο TDC σε λίγες βδομάδες, και έπεσα πάνω στην έκδοση του Λυσία από τον Henri Estienne, του 1570: ένα πανέμορφο βιβλίο (πέντε πόντους πιο ψηλό από Α4, για να πάρετε μια ιδέα από την κλίμακα) με τα περίτεχνα ελληνικά του Garamond. (Συγκρίνετέ τα όμως και με τα γράμματα του Granjon).

(Για το αρχείο υψηλής ανάλυσης: κλικ στη φωτογραφία, και μετά στον υπότιτλο)

1575 Henri Estienne Lucian detail
A detail from Henri Estienne’s 1575 Lucian

Να όλη η σελίδα:

1575 Henri Estienne, Lucian
A page from Henri Estienne’s 1575 Lucian

 

 

A postscript on Lucian

In the previous post I used the opening from a speech by Lucian to talk about some typefaces supporting polytonic Greek. From the Renaissance onwards, Lucian’s texts were considered good sources for learning Greek (n.b. At the time Greek was just plain “Greek”, not “Ancient Greek”). This morning I was preparing some material for my upcoming TDC Salon talk and Greek workshop, and took out Henri Estienne’s 1570 Lucian: a beautiful book (about four inches taller that Letter size, to give you a sense of its scale) set in Garamond’s ornate Greek. (Do compare these types with Granjon’s Greek, though.)

(For the hi-res images: click on the image, and then on the subheading.)

Πολυτονικά με καθαρή συνείδηση

Χαζεύοντας το απολαυστικό και ταυτόχρονα εξοργιστικό This.Is.Greece. είδα την Κα Κανέλλη να ωρύεται, μεταξύ των άλλων, και για την έλλειψη γραμματοσειρών για τη σωστή γραφή της ελληνικής γλώσσας στους υπολογιστές. Υπέθεσα ότι εννούσε πολυτονική γραφή. Είπε διάφορα η Κα Κανέλλη για McDonalds και ξεπουλήματα, για τα οποία δε γνωρίζω τίποτα. Ξέρω όμως κανα-δυό πράγματα για τα πολυτονικά στους υπολογιστές. Να λοιπόν μερικές γραμματοσειρές που αξίζει να έχει υπόψη όποιος γράφει σε πολυτονικό, που είναι είτε ελεύθερες για κατέβασμα, ή έρχονται μαζί με το λειτουργικό, ή περιέχονται σε κάποιο πακέτο όπως το Microsoft Office, ή τα πακέτα της Adobe, που χρησιμοποιούνται από σχεδόν όλους στο χώρο της τυπογραφίας. Δηλαδή υπάρχει μεγάλη πιθανότητα να υπάρχουν στον υπολογιστή όποιου ασχολείται με τη γλώσσα, ή την τυπογραφική παραγωγή.

Η λίστα που δίνω δεν είναι καθόλου εξαντλητική, αλλά περιορίζεται σε γραμματοσειρές στις οποίες έβαλα το χέρι μου κι εγώ, και μπορώ να βεβαιώσω ότι αντιπροσωπεύουν σημαντική επένδυση σε έρευνα και εξέλιξη. Επίσης, είναι από έγκυρες πηγές, που σημαίνει ότι μπορούμε να έχουμε εμπιστοσύνη στην ποιότητα του λογισμικού. Εκτός από πολυτονικά Ελληνικά, οι περισσότερες καλύπτουν ευρεία Κυριλλικά, και μεγάλο εύρος του Λατινικού.

Με χρονολογική σειρά, λοιπόν, οκτώ συν μία γραμματοσειρές που μπορεί εύκολα να έχει στη διάθεσή της η Κα Κανέλλη:

1 Adobe Minion Pro (2000)

Η πρώτη σημαντική γραμματοσειρά σε πρότυπο OpenType με ουσιαστική κάλυψη του ελληνικού αλφάβητου, από τις μέρες ακόμα που το πρότυπο Unicode δεν είχε κατασταλάξει (υπάρχουν, δηλαδή, σημαντικές διαφοροποιήσεις ανάμεσα στην πρώτη και τις μετέπειτα εκδόσεις της γραμματοσειράς). Πολλά από τα βασικά ερωτήματα για την εξέλιξη και τυποποίηση των πολυτονικών ελληνικών γραμματοσειρών έγιναν μέσα από την Minion Pro, που με τη σειρά της αποτέλεσε άτυπο πρότυπο για πολλούς σχεδιαστές. Όπως σχεδόν όλες οι ιστορικές γραμματοσειρές κειμένου του Robert Slimbach, η Minion Pro προσφέρεται σε πολλές παραλλαγές βάρους και πλάτους, αλλά και τεσσάρων οπτικών μεγεθών.

 

 

2 SIL Gentium (2003)

Μια ιδιαίτερα σημαντική γραμματοσειρά, από τις πρώτες με εκτεταμένη κάλυψη στα τρία ευρωπαϊκά αλφάβητα και πλήρη ενσωμάτωση στο πρότυπο Unicode (το λατινικό τμήμα καλύπτει μέχρι και τις Αφρικανικές γλώσσες νότια της Σαχάρας). Εξελίχθηκε από τον ήδη έμπειρο σχεδιαστή Victor Gaultney ως τμήμα των μεταπτυχιακών σπουδών στο πανεπιστήμιο του Reading, για λογαρισμό του οργανισμού SIL. Ως η πρώτη ελεύθερη Unicode γραμματοσειρά ποιότητας με πολυτονική κάλυψη, η Gentium κυριολεκτικά μεταμόρφωσε την υποστήριξη ελληνικών σε όλα τα πανεπιστήμια όπου υπάρχουν έδρες σπουδών ελληνικής γλώσσας, καθώς και τους εκδότες δίγλωσσων εκκλησιαστικών κειμένων (μια σημαντική αγορά, ειδικά στις ΗΠΑ). Δεν είναι υπερβολή να πούμε ότι δεν υπάρχει πανεπιστήμιο εκτός Ελλάδος που να μην έχει εγκατεστημένη αυτή τη γραμματοσειρά. Διατίθεται ελεύθερα από αυτή τη σελίδα.

 

3 Adobe Garamond Premier Pro (2005)

Ενώ η Minion Pro είχε λειτουργικό λόγο ύπαρξης, και σαν τετοια είναι πιο συντηρητικά σχεδιασμένη, η Garamond Premier Pro (GPP) αποσκοπούσε στο να αναθεωρήσει τα δεδομένα των γραμματοσειρών κειμένου (μην ξεχνάμε ότι την εποχή που η GPP έπαιρνε το πράσινο φως οι περισσότεροι σχεδιαστές χρησιμοποιούσαν ακόμα μια πλημμύρα από Type 1 γραμματοσειρές με 8-μπιτες συνθέσεις χαρακτήρων: τα πρώτα δοκίμια που είδα, ήδη αρκετά αναπτυγμένα, ήταν το 2003). Η γραμματοσειρά επέστρεψε στις ονομαστικές της ιστορικές ρίζες (δηλαδή τα ελληνικά γράμματα του Garamond και του Granjon) αλλά είναι ξεκάθαρα εηρεασμένη από τα μετέπειτα ελληνικά γράμματα του Didot — και ορθά, αφού απευθύνεται στο σύγχρονο αναγνωστικό κοινό. Πάνω από όλα όμως είναι η γραμματοσειρά που έδειξε ότι η ιστορική ελληνική τυπογραφία μπορεί να εμπνεύσει αξιόλογες νέες δουλειές, που δουλεύουν πολύ καλά σε ρέοντα κείμενα. Και αυτή έχει πλήθος παραλλαγών στα βάρη.

 

4 Microsoft CT Cambria (2007)

Αν και διατέθηκαν το 2007, οι γραμματοσειρές της Microsoft ήταν έτοιμες σχεδιαστικά ήδη από το 2004. Το σύνολο του προγράμματος αποτελεί αξιοσημείωτο έργο, καθώς είναι η πρώτη φορά που τα τρία βασικά αλφάβητα σχεδιάστηκαν παράλληλα, αντί οι ελληνικοί και κυριλλικοί χαρακτήρες να ακολουθήσουν τους λατινικούς. Όταν η Cambria επιλέχτηκε για να εξελιχτεί σαν βασική γραμματοσειρά «εργασίας» προστέθηκαν εκτεταμένα πολυτονικά, αλλά και μαθηματικοί χαρακτήρες. Οι γραμματοσειρές ClearType είναι σχεδόν παντού: υπάρχουν σε κάθε υπολογιστή με σύγχρονο λειτουργικό Windows, κάθε υπολογιστή ανεξαρτήτως λειτουργικου με σύγχρονο Office, ή οποιονδήποτε υπολογιστή έχει εγκατεστημένο το PowerPoint Viewer (που διατίθεται ελεύθερα).

 

5 Arno Pro (2007)

H Arno Pro, σχεδιαστικά ανάμεσα στη Minion Pro και την GPP, χρησιμοποιείται εκτεταμένα σε εκδόσεις τόσο με ρέοντα κείμενα, όσο και σε ειδικές εκδόσεις όπως τα λεξικά, οι γλωσσολογικές μελέτες, και οι δίγλωσσες εκδόσεις. Όπως και οι υπόλοιπες γραμματοσειρές κειμένου της Adobe, η πλήρης οικογένεια έχει πολλές παραλλαγές βάρους και εύρους.

 

6 SBL Greek (2009)

Μία ιδιαίτερα όμορφη γραμματοσειρά, πιθανότατα η καλύτερη ενημέρωση του ιστορικού μοντέλου του Didot (από τον John Hudson, σχεδιαστή με μακρά ενασχόληση με την ελληνική τυπογραφία). Η γραμματοσειρά έχει ίσως το πιο εκτεταμένο σύνολο χαρακτήρων για Ελληνικά κείμενα που μπορεί κανείς να βρει στην αγορά: έχει σχεδιαστεί με κριτήριο τις ανάγκες των μελετητών της Γραφής, και σαν τέτοια καλύπτει και ανάγκες πολλών συγγενών επιστημών (π.χ. παλαιογραφία). Το «πρόβλημα» βέβαια είναι ότι ως γραμματοσειρά μεταγραφής χειρόγραφων δεν παρέχει παρά ένα βάρος. Διατίθεται ελεύθερα από αυτή τη σελίδα.

 

7 Adobe Text Pro (2010)

Μια γραμματοσειρά με έξι μόνο μέλη (τρία βάρη, συν τα πλάγιά τους) αλλά σύγχρονη σχεδιαστική προσέγγιση στο σύνολο των χαρακτήρων, και στην εμφάνισή της στην οθόνη και τις εκτυπώσεις, κατάλληλη για κείμενα όπου το πλήθος των παραλλαγών είναι περιττό. Ο,τιδήποτε έκανε κάποιος παλαιότερα με την μετριότατη Times Greek, μπορεί να κάνει πολύ καλύτερα με την Adobe Text.

 

8 Brill (2011)

Μια γραμματοσειρά που σχεδιάστηκε για να αντικαταστήσει το πλήθος των γραμματοσειρών που χρησιμοποιούσε ο εκδοτικός οίκος Brill, που ειδικεύεται στις ακαδημαϊκές εκδόσεις. Για το ελληνικό τμήμα ο John Hudson προσάρμοσε τα καθιερωμένα πρότυπα στις ειδικές ανάγκες του οίκου. Ο Brill ακολούθησε το παράδειγμα της Gentium, και διαθέτει τη γραμματοσειρά ελεύθερα με σκοπό να υποστηρίξει τους συγγραφείς και επιμελητές. Διατίθεται ελεύθερα από αυτή τη σελίδα.

 

[Συν μία] GFS Didot (2007)

Όπως σημείωσα πιο πάνω, σε όλες αυτές έχω συνεισφέρει, αλλού περισσότερο, κι αλλού λιγότερο. Δε μπορούμε όμως να μιλάμε για πολυτονικές ελληνικές γραμματοσειρές χωρίς να αναφέρουμε τη συνεισφορά της Ελληνικής Εταιρείας Τυπογραφικών Στοιχείων, με κύριο συντελεστή το Γιώργο Ματθιόπουλο. Οι γραμματοσειρές της ΕΕΤΣ βασίζονται σε ιστορικά πρότυπα, και προσφέρονται όλες ελεύθερα. Από αυτές ξεχωρίζω την Didot, που υπάρχει σε δύο εκδόσεις (με λατινικά, ή με εκτεταμένα πολυτονικά).

 

Υ.Γ. Με σοφή προτροπή του φίλου zvr προσθέτω μια διευκρίνηση: όλες αυτές οι γραμματοσειρές συνοδεύονται από EULA, δηλαδή συμφωνία παραχώρησης δικαιωμάτων χρήσης. Άλλες επιτρέπουν να τις αλλάξεις, άλλες όχι. Άλλες επιτρέπουν μόνο μη-κερδοσκοπική χρήση (π.χ. η Brill) και άλλες μόνο όταν έχεις το λογισμικό της εταιρείας. You get the picture, διαβάστε την άδεια χρήσης. Το βασικό σημείο είναι ότι, από τη στιγμή που ήταν ρεαλιστικό, η υποστήριξη πολυτονικών επιτεύχθηκε και μάλιστα με τρόπο που να επιτρέπει σε χρήστες να γράψουν, να διαβάσουν, και να διακινήσουν πολυτονικά Ελληνικά.

Θα ήταν ωραίο το Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού / Παιδείας / οποιοδήποτε τέλος πάντων, κάποια στιγμή στα πρώτα χρόνια της περασμένης δεκαετίας (ή και νωρίτερα — άνθρωποι σαν τον zvr μιλούσαν για την υποστήριξη ελληνικών απο το 94–95 ήδη) να είχε επιδοτήσει κάτι σαν κι αυτό που έκανε η SIL με τη Gentium, ή η SBL με τη δική της. Και βέβαια αυτοί οι οργανισμοί έχουν τα συμφέροντα και τις σκοπιμότητές τους, αλλά και το όποιο Υπουργείο έχει στόχο την υποστήριξη, ενίσχυση, και εξάπλωση της γλώσσας. Το ότι οι όποιες προσπάθειες δεν έδωσαν μια ελληνική γραμματοσειρά αναφοράς σε διεθνές επίπεδο είναι λυπηρό. (Είναι μεγάλο ζήτημα αυτό το «γραμματοσειρά αναφοράς», και χρειάζεται ολόκληρη ανάρτηση από μόνο του. Ενδεικτικά να πώ ότι μόνο η κωδικοποίηση της αυτόματης αλλαγής από πεζά σε κεφαλαία στις γραμματοσειρές της Adobe πήρε μήνες δοκιμών – και ακόμα δε δουλεύει παντού σωστά, για λόγους που δεν έχουν θέση εδώ).

 

 

Lost for words

[Preamble]

A couple of years or so ago I started discussions with Linotype on student bundles for typography students.My first sketch at a very compact set was this: 

DIN Next  Light, Regular, Bold, Black  |  Light Italic, Italic 

Malabar  Regular, Bold  |  Italic

Really No 2  Light, Regular, Medium, Demi  |  Italic, Medium Italic

Trade Gothic   Light, Roman, Bold, Condensed #18 and #20  |  Oblique, Condensed #18 Oblique

(You can tell I’ve got little use for bold italics…)

The company responded positively, and expanded on my initial proposal with many more fonts, producing eventually a Type Designer Education Pack Catalog that has been a hit with our BA students. The typeface combinations are great for the kind of text-intensive, hierarchically-rich typography we require in our projects. It has also been great to be able to offer incoming students a legal way to begin building their font libraries. 

A few weeks ago Dan and James asked me to write a few words for a specimen featuring typefaces from this collection, on the theme of classic typefaces. (They typeset the text in Harmonia Sans by Jim Wasco, one of the nicest people in the type industry).

This is what I sent them:

[End of preamble]

 

The typographer’s pack

Typeface designers are not short of analogies for their work: bricks to build two-dimensional buildings with, clothes to dress texts with, culinary ingredients to cook documents with. All of these metaphors are helpful as starting points, but a well-designed typeface will also hold up a mirror to its time, reflecting the space within which communication happens. It will also add a gloss: reinforce or subvert a trend, introduce a new set of forms, suggest a fresh take on familiar problems. Classic typefaces inform our visual environment for decades, and the best revivals extend this relationship to new forms of communication and successive generations of designers.

But the typographer is rarely concerned with single typeface families. At the heart of informed, responsible typography lies good typeface choice. A designer who respects the content and makes decisions with the user in mind will strive for a balance between identity and efficiency. These choices happen on a sea of type choices, where (for anything more than a simple sign) several kinds of information need to be visually differentiated, yet balanced and coordinated.

The best typefaces for text-intensive documents have subtle individuality. The balance of counters and blacks might sit comfortably within that ancient sweet spot of typographic density for reading, yet the texture of the paragraph will be delicately self-conscious and subversive. One or two letterforms might step out of line (like the Neo Sans “g”, and the giddy “s” in Trade Gothic). Others might keep to the overall rhythm of good typography while whistling to a tune you can’t quite place: the rootless Really No 2, the deeply rooted Malabar. Yet others stake a claim and own that space forever, marking any interlopers as imitators: DIN and Frutiger, and Swift.

None of these typefaces can be described as indulgent, save for the occasionally too-wide family. But in their combinations they offer an exceptionally rich typographic palette.And this is where the type-fun begins: give me the millions of possible combinations, to discover the ones that not only do the job, but make the document memorable, and a pleasure to read.

A comics reminisce, and the Daytripper

 

It gets more difficult for books to take me by surprise, as I get older. It may be down to the books I read, but I tend to find this in comics more than in prose (my generation never called them ‘graphic novels’, but this is what I’m talking about).

Manara's HP and Giuseppe Bergman
Giuseppe Bergman and the calm before the storm

My love of comics goes back to the dawn of my literacy – the combination of story and images speaks to me very strongly. During my thirteenth year a new magazine called βαβέλ (babel) hit the newsstands in Athens, translating into Greek a knowledgeable selection of mostly European comics. Monthly instalments of anarchic, fantastical, irreverent, and sometimes profound illustrated stories held a mirror up to two deeply messed up decades, full of crises, political fluctuations, and social unrest. Post-1968 European artists had little patience for the self-absorbed, blathering demigods of 2000AD or Marvel. Instead, I got Liberatore and Tamburini’s dystopian Ranxerox, anticipating the broken down cities of Blade Runner; Édika, Gottlieb, and Lauzier, showing up the absurdities of urban middle classness; the dark, black humour of Altan and Vuillemin (still going strong); and Reiser, subversive even thirty years after his death. I balanced these with Will Eisner‘s deeply human stories, Hugo Pratt‘s languorously adventurous Corto Maltese, and Manara’s extended Bergman stories: like Corto Maltese, a man caught in a turbulent stream of fate, but dealing with his predicament rather less gracefully. (By the way, has anybody noticed that Hayao Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso is really a porcine Corto Maltese?)

Abuli & Bernet's Torpedo
Abuli & Bernet’s Torpedo

The French and Italians dominated my early collection: Giardino, Battaglia, Varenne, Saudelli, Crepax, most of them alternating between adaptations of noir story lines and wonderfully indulgent fantasies. I suspect that my love of noir literature was seeded with Abuli & Bernet’s Torpedo, and Muñoz & Sampayo’s Alack Sinner. These partnerships of superb storytellers and image-makers (Spanish and Argentinian, respectively) have superlative peers today: Darwyn Cooke’s coldly amoral Parker, an exceptional translation of Richard Stark‘s character, is rivalled for impact by Jacques Tardi’s adaptation of Manchette’s West Coast Blues. I re-read both frequently: they are masterpieces of telling a story with the least expenditure of words: only situation, and action.

‘Your sorrow, my sorrow’

All of these stories have characters (men, mostly) in different stages of coming to terms with a world that exceeds them. In noir, the main character may have the odds stacked against him, but has perseverance, cunning, and strength to carry him forward. The most interesting stories introduce any range of character flaws, making the personalities more human. Unlike Stark’s ruthlessly efficient Parker, Andrea Pazienza‘s Zanardi is amoral in a self-destructive way, just as Moebius‘ John DiFool is a hunkering coward. By far my favourite ‘man-in-over-his-head’ character has been Pierre Christin & Enki Bilal‘s Alcide Nikopol: dislocated in time (through a bungled hibernation) and frame of reference (an Earth where ancient Egyptian gods play politics) he strives to adapt while still sucking in as much of this new world he finds himself in.

Alcide Nikopol and Horus the God
Alcide Nikopol and Horus the God

I knew Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá from De-Tales (and Bá from The Umbrella Academy). A few days ago I got a copy of Daytripper. I started reading, and it hit me like a sledgehammer.

The book is about Brás, a man with ambitions to be a writer, a good father, a worthy son, and a friend. Each chapter picks one part of his life, but weaves in the storyline the unpredictability of accidents, a series of plausible ‘what ifs’ which interrupt the storyline. This is a device every Greek understands well: the Three Moirai (or Three Fates), Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos spin, apportion and cut the thread of life. (Yes, that’s the origin of the phrase.) In the Daytripper the story picks up in the next chapter, the point of interruption unknown. This wonderful device, a cross between parallel universes and a linear world, is life laid bare: a microcosm of emotions and personal, immediate relationships, within a maelstrom of unpredictability. Most will pass with little effect, some will upturn everything.

Daytripper, three generations under a tree
Three generations under a tree

There is a lot to read in Brás’ desire for his life to exceed the limits of the immediate action and relationships. He strives to be a good friend, and father, but has deeper desires: he captures perfectly the frustration at the heart of the modern human condition, where a wider consciousness, contemplation, and ambition can place seemingly insurmountable obstructions. For most of the Daytripper, Brás embodies F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous aphorism: ‘This is what I think now: that the natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness.’

The dialogue is economical, like reality distilled. With the excess of words removed, the force of the environment and the unspoken, imagined expressions become more powerful. And it underlines the unspoken moments, when what is not said is more powerful than paragraphs of text. This is right at the heart of the power of comics: the illustrator does not supplant the visual imagination of the reader, but fires it up and channels it in new directions. The experience of reading becomes imaginatively richer because of the presence of images.

The women in Brás’ life offer a fascinating insight into the mind of the troubled male. They are ever-present, but in the periphery; they represent the family, continuity, and the next generation, but do not share in his contemplation. Only towards the end do we see a shift: when the son has taken on the role of father himself, companionship and affection have proven a stronger constant. This is juxtaposed with the role of Jorge, Brás’ friend: stronger in intensity, alternatively present and missing, catalytic at times, but ultimately absent. The overarching feeling of solitude, the man and his thoughts alone, is accepted and embraced brilliantly at the end of a life full of people.

The Daytripper is the best example of visual poetry I have read in quite a while.

Daytripper
A man and his thoughts, with coffee, by the sea

Time Capsule reborn

If you have a Time Capsule, you won’t have escaped the news that they tend to die sooner than they should. The Time Capsule Memorial Register will have been on your mind, especially if you’ve read the news reports (see ‘Apple finally admits problems with Time Capsule and offers replacement’ in The Guardian, for example). All the more worrying if you use the thing for a Time Machine backup.

I sent mine to Chris Fackrell, who tested and repaired the power supply, then punched a hole on the baseplate to enable ventilation. Well, ‘punched a hole’ is what I would have done; what Chris did is indistinguishable from OEM work, save for the use of a metal mesh (which does look better than the cutouts in plastic Apple would have used, if they had designed the thing with adequate ventilation). He also replaced the hard drive, so I got a hefty upgrade in capacity.

The cost of doing this was less than the cost of a new Time Capsule, which would be in risk of failing itself anyway. And much less that the cost of a new Base Station and a NAS, which is what the Time Capsule is in my setup.

If you’ve got one, check it out. My warning signs were overheating of the case, and brown marks on the baseplate.

InstaFonts

For some years now I have stopped trying to spot all MATD projects completed and used in high profile publications, OEM installations, and the like. But there is one new implementation worth commenting on. The latest update to Instapaper includes six new typefaces, including two that started as MATD student projects: FF Tisa by Mitja Miklavčič and Elena by Nicole Dotin (The original specimens for Tisa (2006) and Elena (2007) are interesting if you are into the type-spotting thing). It is telling both of the skills of the designers, and the clarity of the original briefs that what are, in essence, _tools for learning_ become commercially successful typefaces of the highest calibre.

The six new typefaces include three by designers at the peak of the profession (Ideal Sans, Proxima Nova, and FF Meta) but also Lyon Text, a typeface designed by Kai Bernau in 2009–10; Kai graduated from the KABK in The Hague in 2006. The presence of three young designers in this list is as good a sign as any that the field of typeface design as a whole is growing healthily, rejuvenating its ranks and seeding the pool of designers with new talent. I know that Jonathan, Tobias, Mark, and Erik would agree with me that the selection sends a very positive message on the state of typeface design today.

Of course, you could argue “Big deal. New typefaces are published all the time, why are these more important?” The reason is partly personal: I spend a big part of my reading hours looking at Instapaper, both on the iPhone and iPad. Up to now I’ve been using Georgia, ignoring most of the rest (and quietly hoping that a couple would vanish from every interface I come across). But there are two more reasons, worthy of more consideration than my reading habits.

Firstly, I am fairly certain that environments that allow us to collect our own content stream will keep growing, and exponentially so once we figure a good way to introduce this practice in education.

Secondly, because the selection process has been partly documented without the assumption that new typefaces were needed. Marco Arment’s posts (Learning from competition originally, and the announcement linked to at the beginning of this post) are a good introduction to how people recognise the need for new typefaces, and come to appreciate their value. Although his investigations into typefaces started as a response to competition, his enthusiastic description of the improvement in the reading experience is a confirmation of the effort by typeface designers. For an app like Instapaper, so closely focused on the reading experience, the right typeface can make a huge difference to its sustained adoption.

Georgia, thank you for the ride so far.

InstaElena_iPad1.PNG