FontShop
149 9th Street, Suite 302
San Francisco, 94103
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1
415 252 1003 local
www.fontshop.com
font
0904 13
Foundry
Spotlight
Making
the Rules
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10
I need restrictions to
be creative; it’s when
I have restrictions that
I can perform my
‘art’.
9
It’s good to introduce
non-human forces,
be they mechanical
or natural, in order
to invigorate or
question existing
creative processes.
28
Ideas can be works of
art; they are in a chain
of development that may
eventually find some
form.
All ideas need
not be made physical.
14
on
Neue
Fonts
2
Font
Rule Makers/Rule Breakers
20 3429
Breaking
the Rules
FontStruct:
Built with Bricks
New
FontFonts
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A
of scanning web
pages and deleting junk email, I
might sit back and soak in the latest
entertainment news from Hollywood or
reflect on national opinion with the chatter
of pundits and their eternal polls that never
seem to get the story right. I like to think that
it’s my obligation to the media industrial
complex to absorb as much information as
possible or risk, like excess carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere, a dangerous buildup
of ones and zeros.
Things sure have changed in the last
decade. When I think about the trajectory of
our contemporary society, with all the tools
and applications we use to publish, move,
and manage information, I’m immediately
reminded of Henry David Thoreau. I can
picture him sitting outside his small cabin,
quietly meditating on the breakneck speed
of social and economic progress as the last
rays of the day sparkle across Walden Pond.
Like us, Thoreau was experiencing a profound
shi. His, defined by rapid industrial
expansion and a final push across the frontier;
ours, by the release of the latest smart
phone or praise for the next big viral video.
But unlike Thoreau, who saw a need to
retreat from the rules and systems that were
quickly reshaping his world, we’ve embraced
ours as solutions to organize physical and
electronic space or to fulfill a personal
identity within the gathering storm of the
data we face every day.
Where Thoreau wasn’t impressed with
change, writing that, “There is an incessant
flow of novelty into the world and yet we
tolerate incredible dullness,” curator and
art critic Glen Helfand finds inspiration.
Recognizing ours as an age of convergence,
Helfand focuses this issue of Font on the work
of a wide cross section of artists and designers
who are “making the rules” by channeling
that incessant flow through filters and toward
the creation of generative art. He convinces
us that processing information is not only
a reflection of our time but a celebratory
act that can result in beautiful thought-
provoking images and objects. We also
focus on six additional projects that feature
graphic designers and typographers who
are “breaking the rules” by using generative
concepts to map ideas, from individual letters
to complex narratives. Finally, we toot our
own horn for FontStruct, a new online portal
for building and sharing fonts that’s been
getting plenty of blog buzz.
If it’s true that everything has its proper
place, then we can rest assured that Thoreau
found his at Walden and those extra ones
and zeros (and all that they represent) have
found a comfortable home in Font magazine.
To get started, here are a few simple rules:
read, share, and recycle.
Editor
.
3
The New
FontFonts
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Clan
Italic
Netto
.
29
Nicht on your , guv’
Unit
Rounded
tax
Formal ch
FAIR
’Twas a fri fi, methin
mpahn Fura-Bergree
Chambers
Sans
Cavallino Rampante
Enzo
And so it gøes on
Max
Torre pendente di Pisa
Tisa
Hexahedron
Ô Comptoir des Marchands
Netto
Quadraat
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Sans Bold Italic
30
Font
ufime
ethetc
Pitu
Trill
symbiont
Daxline
Italic
Formal characteristics
Polymorph
FAIR
PLAY
à
vous
Utility
’Twas a fri fi, methins
Nuvo
Cavallino Rampante
Torre pendente di Pisa
Hexahedron
Cube
Boot loader
Milo
.
31
Etęʼnđëd
Meta
®
Serif , ,
1990,
Erik Spiekermann made
several attempts at designing
a companion for his original
Meta, arguably one of
the most ubiquitous fonts
of the past two decades.
Colleagues had often asked
which serif face would best
fit with Meta, and after
years of recommending
a variety of suitable faces,
Spiekermann realized that
he should just make his
own serif companion.
The OpenType version of Meta
Serif oers book, medium, bold,
and black weights, each including
italics, , alternate numeral
styles – proportional, tabular, lining,
oldstyle – extra ligatures, case-sensitive
punctuation, and a range of arrows and
other symbols. (The Pro version also
supports Eastern European languages.)
While the serif design can stand
on its own in a wide range of
applications, the extra benefit is
its close relationship to the original
Meta, its sans serif sister. The two
families can be mixed in the same line,
and one can be used to accentuate the
other. Using both on the same page
adds .
“The whole Meta system is supposed
to solve separate typographic
problems while keeping
. This is not a family
of identical triplets, but sisters and
brothers or even nieces and nephews.”
FF Meta Headline Compressed
FF Meta Headline Condensed
FF Meta Headline
FF Meta Hairline
FF Meta Condensed & Italic
FF Meta Correspondence & Italic
Meta & Italic
Meta Serif & Italic
Meta
tąme
måŧé
ţεάm
→
ǽ
ģ
ĵ
∂
a
4
@
¶
ſ
€
ů
→
⅝
Q
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32
Font
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.
.
o, what exactly is this FontStruct thing?
FontStruct is a free online platform for creating and
sharing modular grid-based fonts which FontShop
International launched in early April 2008.
Where did the idea come from?
In many ways, the starting point was really the Meek
(also see page 28), which was my first contribution to the
world of grid-based design tools, and initially appeared in
2000. I was relatively new to the world of graphic design,
having just switched from the programming to the design
department at the agency where I was working. I was
completely ignorant of the world of typography, but soon
became fascinated by it, and wanted to design a font;
a grid-based modular font seemed like an easy way in.
How did the project come about?
I started laying out shapes in Freehand. My lack of
experience led to a lot of hesitancy in making creative
choices. I kept changing my mind about the forms I wanted
to use – should they be spaced out or flush next to each
other, that kind of thing. At some point, I moved from
Freehand to Flash so that I could automate changes, and
gradually built a tool to cater to my indecision. That’s
where the Meek came from.
There were also a number of comparable projects under
development at about the same time – evidence of a
broader interest in grid-based design tools.
Really? Who was behind them?
Michael Gianfreda, Lorenz “Lopetz” Gianfreda, and Kaspar
Lüthi at Büro Destruct were working on (Büro Destruct
Designer) between 1999 and 2003. A tribute to Swiss
design of the 1960s, it’s certainly a classic of the genre,
encouraging the user to make a virtue of limitation. Strict
adherence to a grid, a simple point and click interface, and
a selection of simple geometric shapes to choose from
were its key ingredients. The ability to export creations
in a usable format was also an important feature.
Another inspirational piece of Swiss work was Lineto’s
Lego Font Creator (circa 1999), by Urs Lehni, Rafael Koch,
and Jürg Lehni. This was more explicitly a type builder,
but was again based on principles of grid-constrained
construction using a palette of predefined shapes.
Fast-forward to 2005, and there was BitFontMaker from
Japan. (I actually only became aware of this after I first
pitched FontStruct to FontShop in May 2006.) It shares
many characteristics with FontStruct: one hundred percent
online; a simple intuitive interface for grid-based font
creation; a gallery; and downloadable TrueType fonts.
™
.
35
I think FontStruct oers a lot more than BitFontMaker,
but it’s very well executed nonetheless.
So there’s definitely a clear precedent for grid-based
design tools, and a tradition of designers trying to create
their own more specialized tools.
Perhaps it’s also partly a reaction to the complex
interfaces oered by the likes of Fontlab and Adobe.
Yes, it’s good to have – or at least imagine – alternatives,
whether they are more specialized tools or simply tools
which defamiliarize the creative process.
How does the Meek dier from FontStruct?
The Meek is about tweaking an existing design; I wanted
to do something that was about constructing grid-based
typefaces from scratch. Also the Meek , and, to a certain
extent, the other projects I’ve referenced, are more toys
than tools. There’s an emphasis on playfulness rather
than earnest practical production. The output is of limited
quality and practical value. I wanted to make something
that could really stand up as a useful tool to enable
modular type design.
I saw the opportunity, particularly when approaching
FontShop with the idea, to create an online font-sharing
community around a modular font editor; a kind of
mini-Flickr for fonts, if you will. Font design really lends
itself to the online environment. The file sizes are small,
and the relatively simple systematic nature of the data
make the creation of an online font design tool much more
straightforward than an image, video, or music editor.
I’d wanted to pursue the project for quite some time
and had initially imagined an oine application. However,
as Web 2.0 apps continued to get more sophisticated
and powerful, I felt a sudden panic that someone else
was bound to do this and realized that I needed a partner
with clout, with typographic expertise. . .
Enter FontShop.
Yes. It’s been a great match as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve eectively been paid for what I wanted to do in my
spare time anyway, with no compromising of the original
idea. FontShop had an immediate understanding of
the potential for an online font-building and sharing
platform. I think it’s quite brave and forward-thinking
for a font vendor to give people the chance to make
their own fonts for free.
FontShop’s vision for FontStruct really focused on
developing a community site rather than a pure font
editor. Sharing, rating, and discussion capabilities are
all right there in the browser.
It feels unique having the creation and editing together
with the community features. I don’t think there are many
online applications which integrate both. It’s as if people
were actually recording music in MySpace or taking
pictures in Flickr. There’s a very close relationship between
the creation and exchange with others.
Absolutely. Ask even the most seasoned expert and
they’ll more than likely say they’re still learning.
That’s probably what keeps so many people so
interested in drawing and redrawing the alphabet
over and over again. You’re always learning and your
context is always changing.
Indeed. My main goal when creating the interface was to
keep it accessible for beginners but also powerful enough
to interest seasoned typographers. I wanted to remove
everything that would inhibit a novice. You start with a
very simple metaphor – drawing on a grid of squared graph
paper – and you don’t have to bother with any specialist
terminology or concepts. More advanced features are
available from menus and with keyboard shortcuts.
The first two months have borne out your vision and
FontShop’s foresight. FontStruct has been unexpectedly
popular, resulting in some very high quality work and
tremendous diversity. Hey, we even got a mention
in The New York Times! So, what’s next?
We have a lot of ideas, many of them from the user
community, and we’re adding features steadily. The
highest priority at the moment is fixing minor bugs and
annoyances, and adding some control over horizontal
metrics so people can define how their letters are spaced.
We also want to bolster the community features, such as
incorporating proper user homepages.
Are you concerned that free FontStructions devalue
commercial type and might harm FontShop’s business?
Quite the opposite, actually. FontStruct is fun and easy
partly because it is very limited. I think it nurtures not only
the pleasures of type design but also an understanding
of how much work is involved in making a font and
why ‘real’ fonts cost money. FontStructions have too many
limitations (everything has to be based on a grid, there’s
no kerning, no hinting, no OpenType features, and so forth)
to be any real threat to FontShop’s retail sales.
..
..
36
Font
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Featured FontStructions include
Epiorque Joined, SlabStruct Too,
Ransom Note, Tight, Bolt, Texture
(shown within the FontStructor),
and Tristeak Ribbon.
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37
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37
Font is published by FontShop
149 9th Street, Suite 302
San Francisco, 94103
1 888
-
1 415 252 1003
www.fontshop.com
Amos Klausner
Stephen Coles
&
Conor Mangat
www.mangatelier.com
Michael Pieracci
Glen Helfand
www.stretcher.org
Tamye Riggs
www.typelife.com
Erik Spiekermann
www.spiekermann.com
Paragraphics, San Rafael,
www.paragraphicsinc.com
Outputs from Meek , courtesy
of Rob Meek
2 Typeface sketch courtesy of Tomáš Brousil,
Suitcase Type Foundry
2/3 Other images credited below
4
–
8 Images
©
their creators
www.fstopimages.com
Object photography courtesy of the
LiveSurface
®
Layered Image Library
™
www.livesurface.com
14 Sol LeWitt: Incomplete Open Cubes, 1974
Painted wood structure, gelatin silver
prints, and drawings on paper
" × " × "
(. cm × . cm × . cm)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Accessions Committee Fund: gi of Emily
L. Carroll and Thomas Weisel, Jean and
James E. Douglas, Jr., Susan and Robert
Green, Evelyn Haas, Mimi and Peter Haas,
Eve and Harvey Masonek, Elaine McKeon,
the Modern Art Council, Phyllis and
Stuart G. Moldaw, Christine and Michael
Murray, Danielle and Brooks Walker Jr.,
and Phyllis Wattis.
©
Estate of Sol LeWitt /Artists Rights
Society
(
)
, New York
15 Brian Eno: Million Paintings
© Scott Beale and laughingsquid.com
15 Roxy Paine: Erosion Machine, 2005
Stainless steel, rubber, felt, glass,
galvanized steel, silicon carbide,
electronics, dust collector, reclaimer,
robot, and air
'" × ' × '"
© Roxy Paine, image courtesy
of James Cohan Gallery, New York
15 Roxy Paine: Erosion Machine Stone #
(Crime Statistics), 2006
Limestone
" × " × "
© Roxy Paine, image courtesy
of James Cohan Gallery, New York
16 Danica Phelps: Stripe Factory Sample
for Sister (, stripes), 2007
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil
on cut paper mounted to wood panel
" × "
Image courtesy of Sister, Los Angeles
17 Lee Walton: Angels vs Boston –
Game Series, April 22, 23, 24, 2008
Ink and paint on paper
" × "
Image courtesy of Lee Walton
and Kraushaar Galleries
18 Alex Dragulescu: Spam Architecture Series
Images courtesy of the artist
19 Mark Napier: Spire, 2007
Image courtesy of the artist
Balance
™
and Scribble
™
Balance marked the beginning of
FontFont designer Evert Bloemsma’s
decade-long exploration into readability.
Its peculiar horizontal stress and four
weights of equal widths put it in a class
of its own. Scribble is inspired by
the era of pre-digital composition and
an ironic play on the design truth that
sketches are often more pleasing than
the computer-processed final.
21 Boris Müller: Poetry on the Road,
2002–2008
Images courtesy of the artist
22 Cinthia Wen: Hours, 2003
Image courtesy of the artist
23 Marek Walczak: Noplace, 2007
Images courtesy of the artist
24 Benedikt Groß: Seelenlose Automaten,
2007
Images courtesy of the artist
26 Catalogtree: Typopath ., 2002
Image courtesy of the artists
28 Rob Meek: Meek , 2007
Images courtesy of the artist
Airport
™
and Tisa
™
Airport is the Lineto studio’s tribute
to the charm of displays, freight
waybills, and boarding passes. The
Gateway
™
fonts are based on the
electronic display systems at Tegel and
Schönefeld airports in Berlin. For Tisa,
Slovenian designer Mitja Miklavcic set
out to create a more subtle and dynamic
slab serif. He succeeded, earning the
Type Directors Club’s Certificate of
Excellence in Type Design for 2007.
Nuvo
™
During a stay in Paris, the elegance
and extravagance of French magazines
inspired Siegfried Rückel to create
a typeface of his own. The result isn’t
nearly as ostentatious as his muses,
yet is sublimely usable for editorial
design in its own right. Nuvo has
a so calligraphic touch with a set of
alternates that oer stylistic versatility.
©
2008 FontShop International. All rights
reserved. All trademarks named herein remain
the property of their respective owners. The views
expressed herein are solely the opinions of their
respective contributors, and do not necessarily
represent the viewpoint of . The contents of this
publication may not be repurposed or duplicated
without express prior written permission.
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(
t
)
.
%
38
Font
FontShop
149 9th Street, Suite 302
San Francisco, 94103
1 888 toll-free
1 415 252 1003 local
www.fontshop.com
font