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the conference
Oh I know another of those dreams that just seem so real
bounces around in my cranium all day check in I still hear
myself talking about him with you and gossiping about
you with them I actually got to meet him while he looked
nothing like I expected you appeared almost exactly as I
imagined she was a bit older while he was much younger
and I confess I cannot tell you everything some is much too
personal to reveal hmmm elevator up down up down ding
listen clap learn revere laugh eat spend up early down late
it blew my mind apart and put it back together and blew it
apart again you said I knew what you meant brilliant check
out as days weeks months pass memories of you and he
and she will intertwine mesh meld blur whatever the case
it was blissful exhausting dizzying exhilarating and while it
feels like it really could have happened I’m now convinced it
was all just a dream.
21-July 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
pas de blog: snotty repartee
Honestly! I never thought your blog would last this long.
Will wonders never cease?
You’re really too kind, Sir. But certainly, you know about
the logarithmic perception of time; as we grow older, it all
becomes increasingly compressed.
Oh, you must have misunderstood me! I was merely
expressing amazement, and I received a science lesson in
return! Though my attentions to you may be unwelcome,
I’ll tell you this: I’m entirely familiar with everything you
have written, and I’ll have to say that I still don’t understand
daidala. What are you trying to do with it, and where are
you headed? Is it some sort of typographic journal? Is it a
venue for your attempts at humor? Do tell!
2
If I’m confusing you, then I sincerely apologize. Truth be
told, I just write down whatever’s on my mind. And after the
workday is over, and after everyone else in the house has
gone to bed, I often focus on type.
Dear me, late night trysts with a cathode ray tube! That
must be hard on your poor family, slumbering without
you. And on your unfortunate employer as well, having
to accept the proposals, findings, and conclusions of a
sleepy statistician! But plod on nonetheless, you idealistic,
martyred soul. I’m curious, however – and of course, I mean
no offense in the least – but why don’t you just keep a
private journal? You know – your own special place for your
own special thoughts – and leave serious discourse on type
to the experts.
If you had truly been reading – as you claim – then you
would know that daidala is, at least in part, my own
attempt at a personal – albeit public – education in type,
and you should also be aware that this attempt is yet in
its nascent phase. But to answer you more directly, I’ve
never proclaimed any authority on the topic. I do feel that
I possess some knowledge that might be useful, however,
and knowledge hoarded is knowledge wasted.
Ingenuous generosity itself! How endearingly diplomatic;
how convincingly coy! Lest you attempt to charm the pants
off of me a second time, please allow me back up a step
and ask the really relevant question here, which is: With all
of the other excellent, well-informed sites on typography, is
there really a place for your daidala?
Fair enough, I grant you; a question I ask myself, as a matter
of fact. I strongly believe that the best way to advance
the discipline of typography is through dialogue – or via
polylogue – if I am permitted to invent a more descriptive
term...
3
I’m fairly certain you didn’t invent it, o wishful, wordsmithing
theoretician, but go on...
Anyway, through polylogue, which I would define as
simultaneous communication by many participants on
several, related subjects, and with one, overarching aim.
Typophile, Typographica, TYPO-L, and Speak Up allow
for this – nay, provide for this, actually – by engaging
participants forum-style. My site, on the other hand...
Is – I suppose you’ll tell me – a monoblog, as opposed to a
polyblog, and as such, offers nothing of the kind...
As I was saying, my site is, for all intents and purposes, a
monologue – yes, a monoblog, if you will – a vehicle for
one-way communication. I’ve thought about pursuing a
Movable Type-based weblog; more seriously, I’ve also
contemplated – on more than one occasion – just calling
up Stephen and inquiring very nicely whether I might
somehow become a fourth wheel in his operation. But then
monoblogging has its advantages, too. I can write about
whatever or whomever I wish, more or less with impunity.
By going solo, I’m a bit freer to learn and to make mistakes,
and if I don’t want to write about type, I don’t have to.
Which is patently evident! You write about your college
teachers, about selling shoes to schizophrenics, about
disco music you happen to fancy; and most bothersome
of all, you sometimes don’t write at all for weeks on end.
A major concern of mine is, as pertains to one, particular
feature of your site – your “twenty more” Textism rip-off
– that you seem to have become ensnared in the trap of (1)
fall in love with font, (2) proclaim your love of said font to
world, and (3) make GIF of beloved font using silly excerpts
from Shakespeare or Jane Austen. On one level, at least, it
seems to me you’re really nothing but a type whore. In fact,
you want to score with the entire FontFont catalogue, don’t
you!
4
Stop already with the terms of endearment! If I understand
you correctly, it’s true – I do admire the letterforms first
and foremost. But I haven’t always been a moony-eyed
monomaniac. I became interested in all of this via Knuth
and TeX. Several years ago, out of sheer necessity, I had
to produce clean, mathematical copy, and so back then, I
was more interested in typesetting than in type. But this is
now, and daidala is largely concerned with typefaces and
the people who make them; I haven’t settled back into
typesetting, nor have I ever really examined it from a purely
design-related perspective. I recall hearing a performance
of La Bohéme on the radio several years ago, and one of
the commentators said something like, “La Bohéme is the
first opera people learn to enjoy, because it is so accessible.
Then, once their palate becomes more experienced, they
begin to appreciate the complexities of other operas...”
Well, I can tell you for certain – and without apology – that
my La Bohéme phase is still in high gear. Chapter 10 of my
copy of Bringhurst is easily my most dog-eared, yet I’ve
never tackled chapter eight. Moreover, I’ve tried – and
failed – to read Gerrit Noordzij’s Letterletter no fewer than
five times. Parenthetically, and with all due respect, would
someone kindly tell me what in the hell he is saying? For the
most part, I can only read any book on type if it’s got nice
pictures of different letterforms on most of the pages. So
you see, I haven’t really begun to think about typography
– outside of mathematical typography, that is – in terms
of setting type on the page in anything but a relatively
rudimentary manner; someday, surely, but not yet.
Well, I can say I’m even more disturbed – and disappointed
– than I was before we began. You’ve actually convinced
me, on occasion, that you had at least a few scholarly bones
in your body, but now you tell me that you essentially
like looking at letters. The skeleton of a simpleton, and a
calcified brain to boot! All in all, here’s how I view you and
your weblog, and kindly permit me to be blunt.
5
You’re asking for permission only now? Gracious soul, the
floor is yours!
You’re fundamentally a Pollyanna; you view the world of
type and design through some very rosy glasses. One of
your greatest faults is that you seem to like everyone and
everything in the world you write about, and with such a
perspective, you have no edge.
No edge? Okay, so I occasionally give off warm fuzzies. Is
that all?
Indeed it is not! Listen carefully. You desperately need – in
the forthcoming year of daidala – to take a stand on things,
to develop sound arguments, even at the risk of being
wholly wrong or of causing offense. You must think more
clearly about fundamental and topical issues in type. If you
do already, then show it. If you don’t, then start. A little
more Hrant, John, Mark, and Kent. Hell, even Bill will do in
a pinch!
Like, boumas with attitude?
The bouma already comes with plenty of attitude, as you
are undoubtedly aware; but yes, something like. You would
do very well to begin, however, with beefier brains and
bigger balls.
That’s a very nice visual; thank you for that!
You’re quite welcome. Oh – one more thing: Learn some
HTML, for Christ’s sake.
I’ll stick to brains and balls for now, thanks...
20-June 2003
6
profound reflections upon the imminent, one-year
anniversary of the birth of daidala
gibber-gabber, chitter-chatter
prittle-prattle, tittle-tattle
spout off, hold forth, spin out
bibble-babble, yadda-yadda
yakkety-yak, blah-blah
gush: logomania
slush: logorrhea
flux de mots and flux de bouche
clack, cackle, clatter
blither, blather, blabber
gabble prattle nather babble
prittle gibble twaddle twattle
guff, gas, hot air, and patter
verbosity, prolixity, fecundity, redundancy
digression, discursion, circumlocution, diversion
rambling, roving
wandering, meandering
and in closing,
mock humility,
platitudinous gratuity,
and a dash of typographic superfluity
14-June 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
talking about ff kievit with mike abbink
I have my pet theories about type, as you undoubtedly do
too. Mine warp and mutate more-or-less continually, and
at present, I regard myself a utility-based gestaltist. Fancy
that! So what do I mean?
Well, I happen to view typefaces not in terms of a few,
select characters, but as whole blocks spanning 0 to 255
(and beyond), the virgule as important as the ampersand
7
as important as the Z. Designers who produce book faces
perhaps share this perspective. If a face is thoughtfully and
carefully designed, the whole is indeed much more than
the sum of its parts; but if reduced effort is applied, the net
result may be much less. That’s the gestalt part; it forms the
metaphorical trunk of the tree. Utility, then, comprises all of
the branches and leaves.
Sincere efforts at crafting book faces may assume a
gestaltist perspective and do well to have utility as a central
aim. I’ll define utility as the sum of three factors:
1. identifiability, or unambiguity – that is, the ease of
identification of each of the letters, numbers, and other
glyphs in the face; also, the canonical or archetypal nature
of their forms
2. interoperability, or cohesiveness – the manner with which
the different glyphs work together on the page and truly
constitute a single typeface with one, unified voice
3. the inclusiveness or completeness of the face – the
extent to which it has all of the necessary components for
setting text well: small caps, text figures, and ligatures
among them; through all of Bringhurst’s secondary level and
at least part of his tertiary (v. 2.5, p54)
Only the third component of utility is somewhat
quantifiable, yet certainly open to debate; the first and
second are more qualitative and subjective. It’s no trivial
matter to take qualitative sums, but again, for schematic
purposes, utility = identifiability + interoperability +
inclusiveness. For me, then, a truly good book face is one
that possesses maximal utility; it must score highly on all
three factors, and therefore, it occupies the upper right,
rear space in this figure.
But how many typefaces actually do maximize utility?
Clearly several serifed faces, but markedly fewer sans-serifs.
8
Of the latter, however, one that springs first and foremost
to mind is Mike Abbink’s FF Kievit. Admittedly, I thought it
rather plain when it was first introduced two years ago. That
only shows the extent to which I missed the point! Kievit is
a strong and unpretentious, yet ultimately versatile sansserif face, and that is precisely what Abbink intended to
produce.
As modest and unassuming as Kievit is, its story nonetheless
deserves to be told.
JC: A couple of years have passed, now, since Kievit was
released. Has the way you feel about the face changed at
all?
MA: Sort of; I guess it depends on how it’s used. There are
times when I feel Kievit really works well and other times
when I think it needs a bit more character or something
more unique; but after all, it was the intent to create a very
neutral typeface with no real character other than its lack of
character (if that makes any sense). Kievit is meant to take
on some characteristic or personality from the environment
it’s used in, kind of like the Woody Allen film, Zelig. If it’s in
a formal environment, then it feels somewhat bland; if it’s in
a more exciting environment, then it has more life. Overall
I’m pleased with Kievit and just want to focus on some
other fonts I’m working on.
JC: What was your reaction upon seeing Kievit used as the
main text face in the 2002 FontFont catalogue?
MA: I had no idea that it was going to be used until Erik
Spiekermann told me the new catalogue was at the printer.
I was very pleased of course, and I hope people respond to
it well. Hopefully it will last as long as Meta and Info did. I
think it’s a good place to use a typeface like Kievit. It really
shows how neutral it can be, but it also shows that in the
right environment it can take on a bit of personality.
9
JC: On the Method site, you mentioned some of your goals
with Kievit: to produce a face without character...to achieve
extreme legibility. I imagine that this would require a great
deal of discipline and restraint. How did you manage to
keep focused on the canonical forms, and were any letters/
styles especially difficult?
MA: The typeface Frutiger was an inspiration for Kievit. It
has the same kind of restraint that I wanted to achieve. I just
wanted to add the humanist (oldstyle) characteristics and
proportions to improve legibility.
A digital lifestyle magazine/newspaper called DE:BUG in
Germany uses Kievit for all the text, and when I saw they
used 6pt text it was still very legible. It was nice to see
it in the context of something real. It was the first time
I saw Kievit used in such a text heavy format. Christian
Schwartz recently told me that he and Roger Black used it
for headlines and text in the redesign of ADWEEK as well,
so I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks/works in that
setting. I think DE:BUG and ADWEEK will be good case
studies for Kievit. It really shows the legible nature of the
face.
While designing Kievit the focus was on the stroke of the
letterforms; I just tried to keep each letter free of elements
other than a somewhat even, simple stroke. I always like
to think of it as having the skeleton of an old style, but the
flesh of a modernist typeface (like Frutiger). I really learned
a lot about drawing letters digitally because Kievit needed
to be refined to achieve the goals for its modern side. The
humanist side was less challenging since it was more about
the basic shape and structure.
JC: The path to Kievit’s release was perhaps somewhat
sinuous. Could you describe: (a) the decision to hire Font
Bureau (FB) to assist in completing the face, (b) your
interaction with Christian Schwartz, and (c) your eventual
10
decision to release the face through Font Shop International
(FSI)?
MA: I don’t think of it as sinuous; it was just a matter of
finding help to complete the font for a client that was
interested in using it as their corporate typeface. Kievit
was complete in the regular weight (roman, italic, small
caps, and italic small caps) and needed a black version
to interpolate some other weights. The only way to get
the font done for the client was to get help and FB was
recommended to me by Tobias Frere-Jones. I chose FB
over FSI because they were more cost effective at the time.
Christian was a major help of course, and my interaction
with Christian was good; I only got a little frustrated early
on in the process. As you can imagine, it’s not easy to talk
about the details of a letterform over the phone. Overall,
it was a good experience and one I would like to continue
with other fonts, but it’s probably not the kind of work
Christian wants to do.
My final decision for FSI came in the end; I had worked
at MetaDesign for three years and Erik Spiekermann had
encouraged me to get the font finished for FSI. He had
seen the progress on Kievit for years and was hoping to
have it in the FSI collection. There was also a time when I
thought I would release it myself and start a foundry with
another friend of mine (Josh Distler), but in the end I went
with FSI. I still struggle over this idea with Josh; part of
me wants to have a foundry, but going with someone like
FSI makes it a bit easier on the workload. I never really
discussed releasing Kievit with FB although they asked what
my intentions were when Kievit was done. At the time I was
not sure and that’s what I told them.
JC: The shiftype site currently shows an interesting sample
of some of your recent work. Could you tell us more about
it?
MA: I have a font in progress that I’m calling Router. It has a
11
long way to go, but I’m hoping I can get something out to
the public next year. I’m excited about this one and I hope
it turns out well. It’s based on some routed letters I’ve seen
on address and name plates in the Netherlands. There will
be a sans and serif version if I can ever get the time to finish
it. I’m further along with a font called Milo, which should be
finished in the next 6–8 months. It’s quite a utilitarian letter
with short ascenders and descenders. The forms are a bit
more mechanical and stiff, but with a hint of character this
time.
JC: How has your the nature of your work changed since
you moved to Apple, and in what ways do you interact with
type there?
MA: Primarily I’ve been working on packaging for hardware
and software, but have done some other typographic
related things since I’ve been here; unfortunately it’s
not something I can talk about in detail right now. The
packaging is starting to get out there (like the new black
Powerbook boxes). There is a great team here now and
we’re trying to do our best to improve graphic design.
You may have noticed the recent change to Myriad as the
corporate font, instead of Garamond. This has led to a
specific design challenge within the company as you can
imagine. A sans serif is a big step for Apple!
Overall, however, I don’t think the nature of my work has
changed. I just wish I had more time to focus on letterform
design. I’m very anxious to finish Router and Milo and move
on to an oldstyle Kievit. Which reminds me, there is also a
slab Kievit in the works and that may be out within the next
year (if I’m lucky).
06-June 2003
12
requests for font recommendations get me a little excited
You say you need a sans and a serif for your students one
for book work and the other for poster work well you’ve
come to just the right person for I’m nothing if not decisive
on these matters now let’s see beginning with the sans I
really do like Solex though it hasn’t got the small caps and I
do like fonts with all the parts but that may be moot for
poster work geez is it good however and darn thoughtful of
Gunnar to put Licko at the top what a long thread too right
gutsy of him I daresay but it is true she keeps advancing the
field and deserves more nods than she gets although selling
her pottery online was truly sad but then there’s possibly
the most underrated sans of them all which is Academia
Jesus Christ I just remembered that the Tiro boys have
basically shut down shop for awhile but maybe if you beg
pitifully they might bend the rules and sell it to you on the
QT and oh shit that means their serifs Plantagenet and
Manticore are no longer in the running why oh why did I not
act on time major regret then there’s Syntax of course and
no I don’t mean the Adobe version I mean that CD with the
newly-issued small caps and text figures say what is the
difference between the cheaper version and that gold
edition they sell for about $300 more is it like those gold
albums once-upon-a-time that were remastered now Kievit
there’s a typeface six weights all the f-ligatures and text
figures it may be the most complete sans of them all more
to say about this later oh my God Gill Sans why did I not
mention this one first and here again you have to be choosy
and go with Monotype because there’s text numerals and
small caps to consider but Meta is really comprehensive too
and just keeps getting bigger but it is rather ubiquitous isn’t
it which is perhaps a solid argument for Info that’s a
beautiful typeface although I’m not crazy about the Info
Office stuff they’ve done recently now Jonathan’s
unbelievable Knockout who can argue with that for your
sans choice one for the ages Gotham too Tobias is a fucking
machine emphasis on machine you silly-billy and he’s pretty
13
smart I’d like to hear his music send me some of your tunes
Tobias and Scala Sans is timeless high on the omnipresence
factor though with a bit more character than most of these
Avenir has a little less character but more true grace than
almost any sans I know it’s just blissful Scene is striking but
then you know how I feel about that one Sebastian Lester is
about as nice and skilled as they come speaking of skilled
Christian Schwartz’s Bau is stunning I remember oh so well
seeing Lines & Splines set in it and wondering what the hell
it was and good thing Andy had an About section because
it told me then and there you know he still uses it on New
Series do you care for Quadraat Sans I sure do quirky as all
get out and Bringhurst praises it to the heavens in version
2.5 you know he likes Charlotte Sans an awful lot and so do
I but have you ever tried to use Charlotte Serif in text I just
can’t make it work for me they used to use it on the menu
board at Caribou Coffee and I said to the dour barista there
oh you changed your typeface on the menu board and he
just gave me a funny sort of look and I said yes it used to be
in a font called Charlotte Serif which really looked quite
good at 200 pt but now you use one called Agency and it
does condense real nicely he just asked if I’d like whipped
cream on my white chocolate mocha but while I’m thinking
Font Bureau I should mention Agenda it’s incomplete too
why can’t they issue text numerals but it’s grown bigger
recently and has a bit of that Gill Sansiness to it oh is price
an issue because Caspari is a thing of beauty but wait
before I move on to the serifs I would be entirely remiss if I
did not mention the sans of 2002 which you know to be
Neutraface can I have that in OpenType format with a pillow
and a chair please okay switch gears a good seriffed text
face you know who uses Clifford well somebody should I
mean optical scaling and the borders and all my goodness
someday and that’d better be soon it will get the
recognition it deserves along those stylistic lines you’ve got
Hoefler Text heck if you’re going to use the text weight you
could get the display weight too for the bigger stuff but
14
perhaps I’m getting carried away you know Janson Text fits
neatly into that category as well and you could make your
own double f-ligatures if you’re fussy and have some time
on your hands why does Linotype have so few digitizations
with double f-ligatures is it just laziness I’ll have to say I’m
underwhelmed by the digitized Monotype serifs Garamond
Fournier VanDijck Walbaum they’re just too light on the
page but Dante is one exception there’s something funny
about the way the small caps work with the rest of the font
but I suppose I could get over that did I say optical scaling
well then Celeste fits the bill too with that new small text
weight but how’d that kerning snafu get into the FontFont
2000 catalog well I just looked and I saw that it was fixed for
2002 and Matthew Carter’s Miller is breathtaking you know
I heard he draws right in Fontographer oh I just thought of
one more sans Angie Sans darn nice just two hairs away
from regular ol’ Angie now is that one a sans or a serif on
the fence I suppose I hear they call them hybrids and now
that I’m thinking of JFP I demand to know why the hell no
one uses Apolline in this country it’s wonderful I’ve worn out
his specimen book ogling it do you think he’d send me a
new one and Sabon but should you buy Monotype or
Linotype or Linotype-Porchez gosh do you think Linotype
will ever sell those gold editions at a lower price or will they
sell the faces in single weights how long I repeat how long
will they hold these fonts hostage okay I’ve calmed down
now of course Scala and Quadraat and oh now that Fred’s
on my mind once again will Arnhem ever become available
is it available now and then if you have the cash there’s
Renard full sample in Counterpunch you know Dean Allen
called it something like the first fully realized typeface of the
PostScript era I think I know what he meant but I’m not
completely sure maybe something about that threedimensionality say if you write to Peter Matthias Noordzij
he’ll send you gorgeous samples of all that TEFF stuff and
you get Peter’s own handwriting on the big envelope and
it’s really nice he actually writes text figures mine’s so shitty
15
by comparison should we petition him to release Romanée
and at the other Dutch foundry one of my absolute favorites
is Dorian again pricey but may be worth it for the italic
alone print those PDFs and dream away baby Fedra Serif I
like the B myself but I’ve always been big on generous
ascenders I think they’re sexy maybe I should read some of
that Steven Heller typoerotica and get it out of my system
and did you see Fedra Greek my he publishes a journal runs
a downright scholarly website and makes superbly crafted
typefaces did the Raelians clone him too hey what do you
think of Eidetic Neo Rod designed it in a car darn novel
face and that unicase might offer all kinds of possibilities
the tragically underused Stone Cycles Sumner still has no
website but Gerard Unger does anyhow you can see it in
Type 2 Number 1 kind of a wider Stone Print oh yeah Andy
already said that wait what do you think of types by The
Foundry for some unknown reason I overlook them but
Foundry Wilson is especially pretty the Thesis family sure is
versatile serif and sans and half-and-half Hi Luc(as) I’m
Jon(athon) nice to meet you but now I’m also overlooking
the truly ubiquitous that must be my word of the day
Adobe Garamond and Caslon and Minion those relatively
transparent faces could really challenge the kids to be
creative no I don’t mean to be insulting to Robert and Carol
where are you Carol you saw Jeremy Tankard’s project
Adobe Caslon from beginning to end yet just completely
wowed me and I really liked Warnock too when it first came
out it’s got everything and more but I’m still peeved at
Adobe for no upgrade deals on their OpenType fonts which
is why in the final analysis the faces you need to use are
Locator and Proforma I hope I’m being clear but I may
change my mind tomorrow.
24-May 2003
16
daidala?
A few months ago, a colleague asked me, “What is the
basis for your interest in typography?” Two thoughts
immediately and simultaneously raced through my mind:
(1) My basis? What the fuck does he mean by that? (2)
This is a question, once I get around to figuring out what
he’s asking, that I should perhaps think long and hard
about. Well, I thought, and then I thought some more,
and I’m happy to announce that the time is nigh; I have an
explication, and while I’m at it, I may as well say something
about this daidala business as well. Why daidala, and what
does it signify?
As you shall shortly see, I’m letting the original sources
handle the job; no middleman wanted or needed here. Run
a Google search on daidala and you may learn that we link
this term denoting artful or skillfully wrought works with
one, particular legendary character called Daedalus, the
Greek artist and craftsman of archaic times. But I prefer to
assign equal, if not greater, weight to a Daedalus – nay, to
spell it out properly, a Dedalus – of our time.
As for the former, an entry from Robert Graves, The Greek
Myths, 92a–l:
a. The parentage of Daedalus is disputed. His mother is
named Alcippe by some; by others, Merope; by still others,
Iphinoë; and all give him a different father, though it is
generally agreed that he belonged to the royal house of
Athens, which claimed descent from Erechtheus. He was
a wonderful smith, having been instructed in his art by
Athene herself.
b. One of his apprentices, Talos the son of his sister
Polycaste, or Perdix, had already surpassed him in
craftsmanship while only twelve years old. Talos happened
one day to pick up the jawbone of a serpent or, some say,
of a fish’s spine; and, finding that he could use it to cut
17
a stick in half, copied it in iron and thereby invented the
saw. This, and other inventions of his – such as the potter’s
wheel, and the compass for marking out circles – secured
him a great reputation at Athens, and Daedalus, who
claimed himself to have forged the first saw, soon grew
unbearably jealous. Leading Talos up to the roof of Athene’s
temple on the Acropolis, he pointed out certain distant
sights, and suddenly toppled him over the edge. Yet, for
all his jealousy, he would have done Talos no harm had he
not suspected him of incestuous relations with his mother
Polycaste. Daedalus then hurried down to the foot of the
Acropolis, and thrust Talos’s corpse into a bag, proposing
to bury it secretly. When challenged by passers-by, he
explained that he had piously taken up a dead serpent, as
the law required – which was not altogether untrue, Talos
being an Erechtheid – but there were bloodstains on the
bag, and his crime did not escape detection, whereupon
the Areiopagus banished him for murder. According to
another account he fled before the trial could take place.
c. Now, the soul of Talos – whom some call Calus, Circinus,
or Tantalus – flew off in the form of a partridge, but his
body was buried where it had fallen. Polycaste hanged
herself when she heard of his death, and the Athenians built
a sanctuary in her honour beside the Acropolis.
d. Daedalus took refuge in one of the Attic demes, whose
people are named Daedalids after him; and then in Cretan
Cnossus, where King Minos delighted to welcome so skilled
a craftsman. He lived there for some time, at peace and
in high favour, until Minos, learning that he had helped
Pasiphaë to couple with Poseidon’s white bull, locked him
up for a while in the Labyrinth, together with his son Icarus,
whose mother, Naucrate, was one of Minos’s slaves; but
Pasiphaë freed them both.
e. It was not easy, however, to escape from Crete, since
Minos kept all his ships under military guard, and now
18
offered a large reward for his apprehension. But Daedalus
made a pair of wings for himself, and another for Icarus,
the quill feathers of which were threaded together, but the
smaller ones held in place by wax. Having tied on Icarus’s
pair for him, he said with tears in his eyes: ‘My son, be
warned! Neither soar too high, lest the sun melt the wax;
nor swoop too low, lest the feathers be wetted by the sea.’
Then he slipped his arms into his own pair of wings and
they flew off. ‘Follow me closely,’ he cried, ‘do not set your
own course!’
As they sped away from the island in a north-easterly
direction, flapping their wings, the fishermen, shepherds,
and ploughmen who gazed upward mistook them for gods.
f. They had left Naxos, Delos, and Paros behind them on
the left hand, and were leaving Lebynthos and Calymne
behind on the right, when Icarus disobeyed his father’s
instructions and began soaring towards the sun, rejoiced
by the lift of his great sweeping wings. Presently, when
Daedalus looked over his shoulder, he could no longer see
Icarus; but scattered feathers floated on the waves below.
The heat of the sun had melted the wax, and Icarus had
fallen into the sea and drowned. Daedalus circled around,
until the corpse rose to the surface, and then carried it to
the near-by island now called Icaria, where he buried it.
A partridge sat perched on a holm-oak and watched him,
chattering for delight – the soul of his sister Polycaste, at
last avenged. This island has now given its name to the
surrounding sea.
g. But some, disbelieving the story, say that Daedalus fled
from Crete in a boat provided by Pasiphaë; and that, on
their way to Sicily, they were about to disembark at a small
island, when Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. They
add that it was Heracles who buried Icarus; in gratitude
for which, Daedalus made so lifelike a statue of him at
Pisa that Heracles mistook it for a rival and felled it with a
19
stone. Others say that Daedalus invented sails, not wings,
as a means of outstripping Minos’s galleys; and that Icarus,
steering carelessly, was drowned when their boat capsized.
h. Daedalus flew westward until, alighting at Cumae near
Naples, he dedicated his wings to Apollo there, and
built him a golden-roofed temple. Afterwards, he visited
Camicus in Sicily, where he was hospitably received by King
Cocalus, and lived among the Sicilians, enjoying great fame
and erecting many fine buildings.
i. Meanwhile, Minos had raised a considerable fleet, and
set out in search of Daedalus. He brought with him a Triton
shell, and wherever he went promised to reward anyone
who could pass a linen thread thorough it: a problem
which, he knew, Daedalus alone would be able to solve.
Arrived at Camicus, he offered the shell to Cocalus, who
undertook to have it threaded; and, sure enough, Daedalus
found out how to do this. Fastening a gossamer thread to
an ant, he bored a hole at the point of the shell and lured
the ant up the spirals by smearing honey on the edges of
the hole. Then he tied the linen thread to the other end
of the gossamer and drew that through as well. Cocalus
returned the threaded shell, claiming the reward, and
Minos, assured that he had at last found Daedalus’s hidingplace, demanded his surrender. But Cocalus’s daughters
were loth to lose Daedalus, who made them such beautiful
toys, and with his help they concocted a plot. Daedalus
led a pipe through the roof of the bathroom, down which
they poured boiling water or, some say, pitch upon Minos,
while he luxuriated in a warm bath. Cocalus, who may well
have been implicated in the plot, returned the corpse to
the Cretans, saying that Minos had stumbled over a rug and
fallen into a cauldron of boiling water.
j. Minos’s followers buried him with great pomp, and Zeus
made him a judge of the dead in Tartarus, with his brother
Rhadamanthys and his enemy Aeacus as colleagues. Since
20
Minos’s tomb occupied the centre of Aphrodite’s temple at
Camicus, he was honoured there for many generations by
great crowds of Sicilians who came to worship Aphrodite.
In the end, his bones were returned to Crete by Theron, the
tyrant of Acragas.
k. After Minos’s death the Cretans fell into complete
disorder, because their main fleet was burned by the
Sicilians. Of the crews who were forced to remain overseas,
some built the city of Minoa, close to the beach where
they had landed; others, the city of Hyria in Messapia; still
others, marching into the centre of Sicily, fortified a hill
which became the city of Enguos, so called from a spring
which flows close by. There they built a temple of the
Mothers, whom they continued to honour greatly, as in their
native Crete.
l. But Daedalus left Sicily to join Iolaus, the nephew and
charioteer of Tirynthian Heracles, who led a body of
Athenians and Thespians to Sardinia. Many of his works
survive to this day in Sardinia; they are called Daedaleia [or
Daidala].
And the latter, you may already know, was James Joyce’s
Dedalus – Stephen Dedalus, that is – whose canvas and clay
were simply his own mind and body.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Viking Centennial
Edition), we see the chalk applied to Stephen’s blank slate
from first thoughts...
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His
mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell. (p7)
Through the confusion, unfairness, and isolation that
accompany childhood...
— Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go
to bed?
21
Stephen answered:
— I do.
Wells turned to the other fellows and said:
— O, I say, here’s a fellow says he doesn’t kiss his mother
before he goes to bed.
They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them.
He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment.
What was the right answer to the question? He had given
two and still Wells laughed. But Wells must know the right
answer for he was in third of grammar. He tried to think
of Wells’s mother but he did not dare to raise his eyes to
Wells’s face. He did not like Wells’s face. It was Wells who
had shouldered him into the square ditch the day before
because he would not swop his little snuffbox for Wells’s
seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty. It was a
mean thing to do; all the fellows said it was. And how cold
and slimy the water had been! And a fellow had once seen
a big rat jump plop into the scum.
The cold slime of the ditch covered his whole body; and
when the bell rang for study and the lines filed out of the
playrooms, he felt the cold air of the corridor and staircase
inside his clothes. He still tried to think what was the right
answer. Was it right to kiss his mother or wrong to kiss his
mother? What did that mean, to kiss? You put your face
up like that to say goodnight and then his mother put her
face down. That was to kiss. His mother put her lips on his
cheek; her lips were soft and they wetted his cheek; and
they made a tiny little noise: kiss. Why did people do that
with their two faces? (pp14–15)
Through Stephen’s transgression and associated guilt...
His blood was in revolt. He wandered up and down the
dark slimy streets peering into the gloom of lanes and
doorways, listening for any sound. He moaned to himself
like some baffled prowling beast. He wanted to sin with
22
another of his kind, to force another being to sin with him
and to exult with her in sin. He felt some dark presence
moving irresistibly upon him from the darkness, a presence
subtle and murmurous as a flood filling him wholly with
itself. Its murmur besieged his ears like the murmur of some
multitude in sleep; its subtle streams penetrated his being.
His hands clenched convulsively and his teeth set together
as he suffered the agony of its penetration. He stretched
out his arms in the street to hold fast the frail swooning
form that eluded him and incited him: and the cry that he
had strangled for so long in his throat issued from his lips. It
broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell of sufferers
and died in a wail of furious entreaty, a cry for an iniquitous
abandonment, a cry which was but the echo of an obscene
scrawl which he had read on the oozing wall of a urinal.
He had wandered into a maze of narrow and dirty streets.
From the foul laneways he heard bursts of hoarse riot and
wrangling and the drawling of drunken singers. He walked
onward, undismayed, wondering whether he had strayed
into the quarter of the jews. Women and girls dressed in
long vivid gowns traversed the street from house to house.
They were leisurely and perfumed. A trembling seized
him and his eyes grew dim. The yellow gasflames arose
before his troubled vision against the vapoury sky, burning
as if before an altar. Before the doors and in the lighted
halls groups were gathered arrayed as for some rite. He
was in another world: he had awakened from a slumber of
centuries.
He stood still in the middle of the roadway, his heart
clamouring against his bosom in a tumult. A young woman
dressed in a long pink gown laid her hand on his arm to
detain him and gazed into his face. She said gaily:
— Good night, Willie dear!
Her room was warm and lightsome. A huge doll sat with
her legs apart in the copious easychair beside the bed. He
23
tried to bid his tongue speak that he might seem at ease,
watching her as she undid her gown, noting the proud
conscious movements of her perfumed head.
As he stood silent in the middle of the room she came over
to him and embraced him gaily and gravely. Her round arms
held him firmly to her and he, seeing her face lifted to him
in serious calm and feeling the warm calm rise and fall of
her breast, all but burst into hysterical weeping. Tears of joy
and relief shone in his delighted eyes and his lips parted
though they would not speak. (pp99–101)
Every word of it was for him. Against his sin, foul and secret,
the whole wrath of God was aimed. The preacher’s knife
had probed deeply into his diseased conscious and he felt
now that his soul was festering in sin. Yes, the preacher was
right. God’s turn had come. Like a beast in its lair his soul
had lain down in its own filth but the blasts of the angel’s
trumpet had driven him forth from the darkness of sin into
the light. The words of doom cried by the angel shattered
in an instant his presumptuous peace. The wind of the last
day blew through his mind; his sins, the jeweleyed harlots
of his imagination, fled before the hurricane, squeaking like
mice in their terror and huddled under a mane of hair.
As he crossed the square, walking homeward, the light
laughter of a girl reached his burning ear. The frail gay
sound smote his heart more strongly than a trumpetblast,
and, not daring to lift his eyes, he turned aside and gazed,
as he walked, into the shadow of the tangled shrubs. Shame
rose from his smitten heart and flooded his whole being.
The image of Emma appeared before him and, under her
eyes, the flood of shame rushed forth anew from his heart.
If she knew to what his mind had subjected her or how his
brutelike lust had torn and trampled upon her innocence!
Was that boyish love? Was that chivalry? Was that poetry?
The sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils:
the sootcoated packet of pictures which he had hidden
24
in the flue of the fireplace and in the presence of whose
shameless or bashful wantonness he lay for hours sinning
in thought and deed; his monstrous dreams, peopled by
apelike creatures and by harlots with gleaming jewel eyes;
the foul long letters he had written in the joy of guilty
confession and carried secretly for days and days only to
throw them under the cover of night among the grass in the
corner of a field or beneath some hingeless door or in some
niche in the hedges where a girl might come upon them as
she walked by and read them secretly. Mad! Mad! Was it
possible he had done these things? A cold sweat broke out
upon his forehead as the foul memories condensed within
his brain. (pp115–116)
Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done those
things? His conscious sighed in answer. Yes, he had done
them, secretly, filthily, time after time, and, hardened in
sinful impenitence, he had dared to wear the mask of
holiness before the tabernacle itself while his soul within
was a living mass of corruption. How came it that God
had not struck him dead? The leprous company of his sins
closed about him, breathing upon him, bending over him
from all sides. He strove to forget them in an act of prayer,
huddling his limbs closer together and binding down his
eyelids: but the senses of his soul would not be bound and,
though his eyes were shut fast, he saw the places where
he had sinned and, though his ears were tightly covered,
he heard. He desired with all his will not to hear or see. He
desired till his frame shook under the strain of his desire
and until the senses of his soul closed. (p137)
And, upon his confession and absolution, his misguided
drive toward self-perfection...
Each of his senses was brought under a rigorous discipline.
In order to mortify the sense of sight he made it his rule
to walk in the street with downcast eyes, glancing neither
to right nor left and never behind him. His eyes shunned
25
every encounter with the eyes of women. From time to
time also he balked them by a sudden effort of the will,
as by lifting them suddenly in the middle of an unfinished
sentence and closing the book. To mortify his hearing he
exerted no control over his voice which was then breaking,
neither sang nor whistled and made no attempt to flee from
noises which caused him painful nervous irritation such as
the sharpening of knives on the knifeboard, the gathering
of cinders on the fireshovel and the twigging of the carpet.
To mortify his sense of smell was more difficult as he found
in himself no instinctive repugnance to bad odours of the
outdoor world such as those of dung and tar or the odours
of his own person among which he had made many curious
comparisons and experiments. He found in the end that the
only odour against which his sense of smell revolted was
a certain stale fishy stink like that of longstanding urine:
and whenever it was possible he subjected himself to this
unpleasant odour. To mortify the taste he practised strict
habits at table, observed to the letter all the fasts of the
church and sought by distraction to divert his mind from the
savours of different foods. But it was to the mortification
of touch that he brought the most assiduous ingenuity of
inventiveness. He never consciously changed his position
in bed, sat in the most uncomfortable positions, suffered
patiently every itch and pain, kept away from the fire,
remained on his knees all through the mass except at the
gospels, left parts of his neck and face undried so that
air might sting them and, whenever he was not saying his
beads, carried his arms stiffly at his sides like a runner and
never in his pockets or clasped behind him. (pp150–151)
Finally, his release from self-imprisonment and his freedom
to love...
She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt
his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned
to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or
wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then
26
quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards
the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and
thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke
the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells
of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither: and a faint
flame trembled on her cheek.
— Heavenly God! cried Stephen’s soul, in an outburst of
profane joy.
He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the
strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his
limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode,
far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to
greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word
had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had
called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err,
to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel
had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty,
an envoy from the fair course of life, to throw open before
him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error
and glory. On and on and on and on! (pp171–172)
A glow of desire kindled again his soul and fired and
fulfilled all his body. Conscious of his desire she was waking
from odorous sleep, the temptress of his villanelle. Her
eyes, dark and with a look of languor, were opening to his
eyes. Her nakedness yielded to him, radiant, warm, odorous
and lavish-limbed, enfolded him like a shining cloud,
enfolded him like water with a liquid life: and like a cloud of
vapour or like waters circumfluent in space the liquid letters
of speech, symbols of the element of mystery, flowed forth
over his brain.
Are you not weary of ardent ways,
Lure of the fallen seraphim?
Tell no more of enchanted days.
27
Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze
And you have had your will of him.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Above the flame the smoke of praise
Goes up from ocean rim to rim.
Tell no more of enchanted days.
Our broken cries and mournful lays
Rise in one eucharistic hymn.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
While sacrificing hands upraise
The chalice flowing to the brim,
Tell no more of enchanted days.
And still you hold our longing gaze
With languorous look and lavish limb!
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Tell no more of enchanted days. (pp223–224)
But what has any of all this to do with type? Well, the
answer lies, I believe, on a continuum bounded by
everything and nothing. Beginning with the latter, type
lives hidden away, for the most part, in the workaday
world, whether our work be in the more traditional sense or
merely in the work of living. (One ponders, for a moment,
the incredible irony in the theme of this year’s St. Bride’s
Conference, for surely to the vast majority of people, all
typography is hidden!) There, type is ultimately literal,
and it pulls few punches. It tells us how late we are for
meetings, the number of fat grams in our ice cream, and if
a crash is currently blocking the left lane. It is the symbolic
manifestation of language, and in using it, we transcend the
linearity and temporal confinements of oral communication;
type enables us to “speak” with many at once, and to a
certain extent, therefore, enables us to cheat time and
space.
28
But on the other hand, type is much more than printed
or pixellated language; type and art – whether it be
the ancient objets d’art of Daedalus or the corporeal
reinvention of his literary namesake – are inextricably
intertwined. Indeed, type is art; or at least there is much art
to be found in type. In a material sense, it is all there in the
stems and serifs, the counters and bowls, and, in the digital
era, in the hinting and the kerning pairs.
I don’t make type myself, at least not yet. Oh, I do try; I
have Illustrator and Fontographer, and I’ve spent many
an hour attempting to draw letterforms, but I entirely lack
the skill of a Daedalus. To say the truth, I suck. Others do
possess such talent, however, and their output is quite often
the subject of daidala.
Given this, then, wherefore Stephen Dedalus? Well,
Stephen was an artist of a very different kind. His art lay
in the journey of his life – in his tortuous, and sometimes,
torturous – search for himself. A weblog is the very diary of
a personal journey, too, albeit a very public one, and this
is why daidala might derive more from Dedalus than from
Daedalus. Indeed, our lives comprise a parallel series of
such journeys, and one of mine focuses on type.
The long and the short of it – and, an answer to my
colleague’s question – lies in two statements to which I
strongly subscribe. The first is Spiekermann’s and Ginger’s,
“There is no bad type.” Truly, I detest such sweeping
declarations as “Helvetica sucks.” What a waste of words!
There is only type that is inconsistent with the content it
conveys. The second is Tobias Frere-Jones’s thoughtful
pronouncement, “The day we stop needing new type will
be the same day that we stop needing new stories and
new songs.” This implies progress and permanence, both
of which are inherent traits of typography. Type continually
evolves, and it is immortal; Gotham will long outlive you
and me.
29
And so, from Daedalus and Dedalus to this, or at least
its moniker. My attempt to learn something about – and
to tell others about – the typographic arts. Sometimes
successfully, other times not, and more than occasionally,
straying far from the subject. But always about finelywrought or well-made work. Always another step on the
way. Always about...daidala.
06-May 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
the elements of junk english
In the spring of 1991, my undergraduate neuroscience
adviser assigned me a most challenging and unusual task.
In addition to sectioning rat spinal cord on the microtome,
in addition to writing papers and preparing posters, and in
addition to running the local computer network, I was to
teach English to the lab’s newest post-docs, whose native
language was Chinese.
Both had adopted “American” names in anticipation of
their arrival in the United States and, in my opinion, were
already proficient enough with English. Indeed, Joan’s and
Angie’s TOEFL scores were as high as I had ever seen. But
my adviser demanded a thorough knowledge of English
usage on their part – not mere fluency – and so one day, he
handed me Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and
blurted, “I’m certain you’re familiar with this book. I want
you to teach Joan and Angie straight out of it – cover to
cover.”
It was, of course, the first time I had laid eyes on the slim
text. I went directly to the library and devoted the next few
hours to it. I had thought, at the time, that I was a fairly
decent writer and speaker, but here were so many new rules
and guidelines. Waves of fear ran through me as I read; how
many grievous offenses had I unknowingly committed? How
30
many infinitives had I split? How many times had I said that
when I meant which and which when I meant that or farther
when I meant further or vice-versa? And how often had I
used between when I should have said among?
In the space of two months, Joan, Angie, and I made it
through the whole of Strunk and White, and I’d like to
think that our tutorials had a positive and lasting effect. I
remember few of the details of our sessions, save those
of the last, when we closed the pithy paperback for the
final time and worked through some examples. After two
or three, Angie suddenly said, “May I ask a question? This
word – fuck – I seem to hear it a lot. When and how should
I use it?” I tried to craft an answer as calmly, honestly, and
thoroughly as I could. I explained the verb form first, and
illustrated with some usage examples. I continued with
adverbial and adjectival uses and had moved onto fuck-asnoun before our hour was up. I was astonished to find that
I had written out 43 examples of the word in short phrases
and was somewhat saddened at the prospect of necessarily
erasing them from the whiteboard.
Profane as fuck may seem, it is innocuous according to the
standards by which I now judge the English language, or at
least corporate English as spoken in America.
— Let’s all think outside the box and incent the customer to
grab the low-hanging fruit.
— We’re just not on the same page; I’m not tracking on any
of your key learnings.
A confused jumble of clichés, jargon, and heretofore
nonexistent or incorrect syntax and semantics now
permeates and pollutes the language at a seemingly
increasing rate. And to me, this is far more profane than any
form of fuck. I have known this, at least at a subconscious
level, for several years now, but it didn’t cross my threshold
of full awareness until I read Ken Smith’s recently-published
31
Junk English. Upon doing so, I had the very same reaction
as I did when I read Strunk and White, for I realized that
Junk was the very dialect I spoke each day. I floated from
euphemism to abstract adjective, from one to another of
Smith’s “flaccid” or “fat-ass” phrases. I generated things,
employed methodologies, and went on fact-finding
missions. Pretty impressive for a data analyst.
Smith’s book is a variant of Strunk and White that pays
greater attention to the times than to the eternities, and it
is much more an enumeration of mistakes than of rules. And
although more focused, one could argue that it is no less
important, for it delivers the same message as the nearly
70 year-old work: Speak and write with clarity. Each entry
in Smith’s book hits a nerve with me; nearly each muddle
makes me wince, because I’ve so often been guilty. Favorite
(and most frequently committed, by me at least) offenses
from Junk English:
(1) Cheapened Words
“There’s nothing wrong with describing the rise of Joan
of Arc as a miracle, the Eiffel Tower unique, Leonardo
da Vinci’s Last Supper a masterpiece, the discovery of
penicillin a breakthrough, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture a
classic...When every executive is a visionary, every product
revolutionary, every instance of mismanagement a crisis,
every idea innovative, every unsolicited offer exclusive, by
what names will we know the true articles when they come
along?” (p30)
(2) The Default Dozen
“...the default dozen are twelve words that come to mind
automatically when we neglect to think of better ways to
say what we mean. They are: factor, focus, function, impact,
issue, level, major, positive, process, quality, serious, and
significant...” (p36)
(3) Machine Language
“Some people have had their English so debased
32
– possibly it was never based to begin with – that they
write and talk as if they were robots. Sometimes machine
language is deliberate, an effort to lull the reader into
oversight...Sentences such as Specific partnership
objectives include promoting sustainable development in
designs and project administration... deaden rather than
awaken interest, as if they had been assembled from a
series of binary equations.” (p80)
Strangely, fuck has almost taken on the status of a charming
anachronism, for it is far too genuine, precise (despite its
varied uses), and succinct for our times. Your company may
have been fucked in the 1990s, but in 2003, the company
for which you work is now sustaining a prolonged and
necessary phase of right-sizing and streamlining.
But those of us who have read The Elements of Style and
Junk English will have swallowed a bittersweet pill, for we
know that if we take the advice of Strunk and White while
avoiding Smith’s Junk, we may appear almost boring – not
at all colorful, and certainly not nearly as persuasive as
the new marketing manager who spews forth junk English
as though it were his mother tongue. Yet we will speak
and write clearly and honestly, and that may still be worth
something to somebody, right? Seems like low-hanging fruit
to me, anyway.
18-April 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
typing out loud
Occasionally I’ll just go hog wild with the magazines.
Heaped before me at the moment are fresh copies of Eye,
Frieze, How, CMYK, Print, Step, and I.D. Good Lord! But
wait a moment...did I say “magazines?”
I had a teacher in college who referred to Rolling Stone
– quite often, as a matter of fact – as a “journal.” He was
33
a professor in the Department of American Studies who
specialized in popular culture, so to him, the periodical was
a legitimate subject for scholarly investigation. His issues,
which dated to the early 1970s, were arranged neatly and
in perfect chronological order on two bookshelves in his
cramped office.
My 22 year-old sensibility invariably found it to be quite
funny – and not a little pathetic – whenever he brought a
copy to class and read from it at length, and my cynicism
led me to question whether my four credits at $44.50 a
pop were a good investment in the liberal arts. For this was
the same magazine to which I subscribed: A sensationalist,
sense-numbing biweekly that struck me as the Euclidean
mean of People, Esquire, and Life, but lacking the focus
of any of these; a confused jumble of music news, record
reviews, and Q&As, with an investigative report thrown in
here and there. Fodder, then, for the laundromat, the auto
repair, or the trashbin, but certainly not the classroom.
Thirteen years hence, I’ve mellowed considerably, but
I still wonder whether there is some sort of dichotomy
that differentiates journal from magazine, or if printed
periodicals lie on more of a continuum in this regard.
Perhaps, more simply, it’s just relative to the reader.
Certain cases are easy to define, of course; you won’t find
Lancet, for example, at the local beauty salon. Bringing
the question much closer to home, which of the several
periodicals related to typography and graphic design are
magazines and which are journals?
But is this even a legitimate question to ask? It seems that,
before we attempt an answer, we must distinguish journal
from magazine. The latter is certainly a broader category
and would appear to comprise any periodically printed
material that attempts to inform or entertain a more-or-less
broad, nonspecialist audience. Time, Popular Science, and
Q are all magazines by this definition, and so may be even
34
Science and Nature, although they perhaps ride the line.
To me, a journal, then, is a periodical whose readership
consists almost exclusively of specialists and whose intent
is to advance scholarly investigation of the discipline to
which it is devoted. And herein we come to the second fork
in the road, for what distinguishes scholarly investigation
from non-scholarly investigation? Or more generally, what is
scholarship?
Consultation of my Webster’s proves disappointing; a
scholar is merely “a learned person...one who has done
advanced study in a special field” and scholarship is
therefore “the character, qualities, or attainments” thereof.
Frustrated, I then ask my wife, who, in the space of two
minutes, crafts a definition as parsimonious and faultless as
I could hope for: “The earnest pursuit of understanding as
an end in itself.” Words like expertise, exhaustiveness, and
context work their way into the subsequent discussion; they
are all implied, too, of course.
Having established a definition, I nonetheless attempt to
poke holes:
Ego: If I have read all of Jane Austen’s novels – novels
as fine as any ever written – and know them well, am I a
scholar?
Alterego: No, I am merely a fan of Jane Austen.
Ego: Hmmm. Okay, if I have read each issue of Rolling
Stone over the past thirty years, and know them all well,
and have attempted to understand the role and function
of the magazine – of this genre of literature vis-à-vis other,
similar periodicals as well as relative to popular culture, am
I a scholar?
Alterego: Yes, absolutely. This implies studies of
comparative literature and of American history – both
perhaps being loosely defined, of course.
35
Touché, and only thirteen years to come full circle on this.
Oh well, chalk one up for the professor.
At this point, I had better confess that I had originally
planned to write a little opinion piece with the aim of
persuading you that really, only one (and you may feel free
to guess which) of the aforementioned design periodicals
deserves to be considered a journal, and that the rest
are merely magazines. But all of this fell apart because
I began to worry about definitions. And now I see that
this derailment cuts two ways. In one respect I am more
muddled than ever; I must conclude that one person’s
journal is apparently another’s magazine. Any persuasive
attempt ultimately would have been futile; it is indeed
relative to the reader.
But in another respect, my notion is absolutely clear: It is
time to do more than feel the paper, look at the ads, and
envy the design competition winners. I had better get
reading, and I had better try to read as much as I can.
06-April 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
ff super grotesk: 15 of 20
An exchange between a colleague and me yesterday
morning:
— I was at Barnes and Noble last night and I thought of
you. I saw a kickass book on fonts.
— Oh really? Do you remember what it was called?
— Uh, it was big and blue and had “typography” in large,
white letters on the side.
— Ah, yes. That book is called Typography, and it is kickass
indeed.
36
And then I made a mental note: Please, Self, you really must
reincorporate “kickass” into your vocabulary, for your use
of it fell to the wayside right about the time you began to
lose interest in Molly Hatchet, Def Leppard, and Loverboy,
and your conversations these twenty years have no doubt
suffered owing to the lack of it.
So last night, when I arrived home from work, I opened up
that kickass, trilingual, ten-pounder, and the first figures
on which I lay my eyes were captioned Drescher, 1936–39,
Arabella; Drescher, 1956, Antiqua 505 Bold.
I attempted to decipher the text at the top of the page: no,
no, German. To the left: Hmmm, French. At the bottom: Ah,
there we are. I’ll get this damn book figured out yet! Then, I
scanned the bio: Arno Drescher, 1882 to 1971 – I should live
so long. Taught at yadda, yadda, et cetera. Fonts: Arabella
and Antiqua 505, just like the examples. But wait – he’s the
original Super Grotesk guy, and there’s no mention of it
here. To the fontfont.com info panel I went.
Now I am, generally, a rather even-tempered person, but
a nice, ol’ geometric sans-serif can make me rather giddy
and not even a little insane. House Industries’ Catalog No.
31 – yeah, the Neutraface one – well, I slept next to it for a
month. This unhealthy behavior had its precedent formed
when the FontFont folks sent me a little brochure nearly
four years ago. It featured, among a few other new faces,
FF Super Grotesk by eBoy’s Svend Smital, and at the time,
this font was an answer to my prayers.
I longed for a Futura with a little flair and flourish, and
Smital’s resurrection of Super Grotesk provided exactly
that. It boasts more than a smattering of standard and
unusual upper- and lowercase ligatures; it contains a nicely
drawn set of text numerals; and it includes a less geometric,
alternate a and g. Here’s a sample.
Drescher’s association with Super Grotesk strengthened
37
in 2001 when Bitstream released Drescher Grotesk BT, by
Nicolai Gogoll. It lacks the bells and whistles of Smital’s
design but is available in twice as many weights as well as a
cut with an enlarged x-height.
With such splendid variants on the canonical form as
FontShop’s and Bitstream’s interpretations of Drescher’s
Super Grotesk, DTL’s and Font Bureau’s (recently expanded)
cuts of Nobel, and now House Industries’ Neutraface, not
to mention The Foundry’s digitized archetype itself, it is
truly a – what’s the word – oh yes, a kickass time to be a
geosans lover.
22-March 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
high point of the day
Compose, check, check again and once more, close eyes
and pray, and then hit “send.” Kaboom!
(Stagehand cues Alamogordo test film.)
Broadcast email: Such raw, awesome power; such reach,
such breadth. A chorus of dings and clicks; chairs swivel
and eyes train. Read receipts flicker up the screen like
ocean over the bow of the Titanic, and replies constitute
second, third, and fourth waves, battering, and ultimately
puncturing, my hull.
“I look forward to your training course.”
“I will be out of town that week. Could you offer your
course on another date?”
“I do not have time to attend. Could you just send the
PowerPoint deck?”
(Exit protagonist. Fade to black.)
17-March 2003
38
psychic squabble
Ego: ...you know, Indie Fonts – it’s that book featuring
the work of independent type foundries. I simply haven’t
had the time to scrutinize it like I should. Do you two
think you’re up to the task? Now as usual, I’m taking the
weekend off. Let’s see what kind of progress you can make
by Monday morning...
Id: Independent? Foundry...? Ha! Two great big
anachronisms, where type is concerned. Nobody’s
independent anymore, and foundries no longer exist.
And to feature the work of these so-called independent
foundries in a book? Catalogued schmaltz, I say!
Superego: Guided by instinct, as usual, Id. Please explain
yourself.
Id: Let’s begin with independent, shall we? Well, everybody
and his dog is selling their wares on possessiveadjectivef
onts.com or is hooked in through the Creative Whatever,
which in turn is arm in arm with the granddaddy of them
all. (Singing: Do you know the way to San Jose...?) Besides,
you do know that independent is just a euphemism for
small, don’t you? That’s right, in this context, independent
simply implies secretly wishing one’s enterprise were
bigger. Independent – such a noble thing to be in these
organic-eatin’, hybrid-drivin’, tree-huggin’ times of ours.
And foundry! Sheesh, foundry harkens back to the days of
punchcutters and matrices and casters and such. Making
type these days means a couple of kids sittin’ around
in their underwear playing connect the dots with Bézier
curves. And a book to show these types in? Have these
Indie people ever heard of the Internet?
Superego: Completely irrational, and not funny in the least.
Let me cross-examine you; where were you last Friday
afternoon?
39
Id: Huh? Whaddya mean?
Superego: Were you not along for the ride with Our
Master?
Id: Hey, I’m predestined to be unconscious most of the time
and you know it. Not fair!
Superego: Let me refresh your apparently nonexistent
memory. Master drove over to the Chank Company to pick
up the Indie Fonts book. The company is headquartered
in the beautiful, old California building in Northeast
Minneapolis – a converted warehouse – not in some shiny,
sterile office complex in the suburbs. This is independent.
Master was then greeted by Chank himself, book in hand,
and the two of them had a dandy chat over large lattes.
When was the last time John Warnock met Master for
coffee and handed over a book? This is what it means to
be independent. Chank then proceeded to show Master
some of his fonts in said book, fonts whose development
and production were dictated neither by the whim of the
disinterested wealthy who sit on corporate boards nor
by the rising and falling fractions of a share price, but
rather, by personal interest and passion. This epitomizes
independence! And as for type foundry, did you bother
to check the glossary in the back of the Indie Fonts book?
No, because you’re illiterate and entirely preoccupied with
carnal desire. It says, “Literally, a place for the manufacture
of type...in modern terminology, a designer or company
that creates and/or distributes digital typefaces may...be
called a type foundry.” To your penultimate point, we have
no evidence whatsoever that Gutenberg did not set the 42
line bible in his underwear. (You had to mention underwear,
didn’t you.) Besides, I don’t care whether Chank drew
Chunder in his underwear or Matthew designed Miller
completely naked! You’re obsessing on nomenclature and
missing the point as a result. Finally, to address your tired,
old, screen vs. print argument, try as you might to keep
40
up with the happenings of independent foundries and to
stay abreast of their new releases, not to mention marking
the appearance of new foundries themselves – well, it’s an
undeniably Sisyphean task. Not all independent foundries
have websites, and those that do are largely limited to
displaying their typefaces as GIF images. Are you really fully
satisfied by a collection of GIFs?
Id: Me? I’m never satisfied! Heh heh...
Superego: Get serious! People who use type print. And
people who consider purchasing a typeface will scrutinize
a sample – far preferably a printed one – before spending
the money. There simply is no substitute for high-resolution,
printed output. You’ve taken a look at the book; honestly,
did you ever see the faces of LettError, Psy/Ops, and Test
Pilot Collective look so good?
Id: Um, no. But...
Superego: But nothing! The work of independent type
foundries needs and deserves to be celebrated, collected,
and catalogued for the simple reason that it is done in a
spirit of independence – free from all the constraints that
corporations and their trappings can impose. Look around
you – type is everywhere. On everything from street signs
to cereal boxes, from storefronts to solicitations. And much
of the best of that type was produced by independent
foundries.
Id: Alright, alright, you’ve convinced me. Shiny gold star for
you. But we’ve still got a book to read.
Superego: Indeed we do – let’s get on with it! Now, what
did Master say? Oh yes, “Let’s see what kind of progress
you can make by Monday morning...”
13-March 2003
41
on the misidentification of typefaces and the
embarrassment, shame, and chagrin associated therewith: a
case study in brief
Oh, Trade Gothic, where have you been all my... I-I mean
News Gothic... Wait, who are you again?
I hate to lose face, but I dislike not knowing the truth
even more, so when Eric Olson was kind enough to email
recently and inform me, in the gentlest of ways, that what I
thought was Trade Gothic on the pages of the DWR catalog
was actually Bitstream’s cut of News Gothic, I smiled and
quietly spouted, “Oh. (Sigh, pause). Shit.” A necessary
lesson in humility and type ID all in one.
At least it wasn’t nearly as bad as the time, awhile back,
I confused (in correspondence with Eric, no less) Process
Grotesque with Bureau Grotesque. Oh crikey, God-whathave-I-done, triple-shit-on-a-stick (it’s a Minnesota thing),
that was. Thankfully, he bore no grudge and hasn’t even
mentioned it since!
Eric is right, of course, about DWR’s main text face, and
for the purpose of verification, check the scan here against
Trade Gothic and Bitstream News Gothic.
I may have been close, but alas, I smoke no cigar.
25-February 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
kindly delay a month, will you...?
Quousque tandem abutere, Mr Allen, patientia nostra?
Pulchrae Minneapolis vivendum est!
At least until the end of March, for the annual Insights
lecture series at the Walker Art Center is not to be missed.
According to the mailer, “This year’s theme – Double Vision
– examines the creative partnerships of design practitioners,
42
whether spouses, business partners, or both.”
The schedule:
Tuesday, March 4
Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel
Winterhouse, Falls Village, Connecticut
Tuesday, March 11
Rick Valicenti and chester
Thirst and Thirstype, Chicago
Tuesday, March 18
Nikki Gonnissen and Thomas Widdershoven
Thonik, Amsterdam
Tuesday, March 25
Charles S. Anderson and Laurie DeMartino
CSA and Studio d, Minneapolis
I shall take copious notes.
24-February 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
exceptions: from the naïve to the bellicose
The canonical responses aren’t all-inclusive, of course. There
are those to whom you’ll mention your interest in type, and
upon hearing this, will exclaim, “Oh, me too! I just love, um
– what’s it called – oh yes, Financial. I use it for everything!”
Loathe though you may be to admit it, these persons
constitute a collection of remote yet kindred spirits;
not nearly ready for the big leagues, they nonetheless
pique your interest and bring a sparkle to your eyes. This
is because, at the very least, they seem to be paying
attention; they transcend basic awareness of a font menu
and know just what they like.
43
The sparkle is duly doused when you realize, as you have
so many times before, that they’re not wannabes and have
no interest in the big leagues, for to their way of thinking,
they’ve already arrived.
So sure are they in their expertise, they’ll publish funeral
announcements for the former VP of Human Resources
in Tekton because “it’s friendly and comforting;” so
determined are they to “do something different,” they’ll
distribute last week’s meeting minutes in Garamond italic,
and next week’s in Baskerville bold; and so impactful do
they wish to be that they will compose the cafeteria menu
in, well, Impact.
In their own minds, they know as much as you do, you
realize; and to the few who willingly admit that you
know more, you are a fool for accumulating such a store
of useless knowledge. Don’t tell these people that you
purchase fonts; an even greater fool will you instantly
become.
But the sad truth is – and you well know it – most of them
actually do know more than you! Their grasp of fonts
comprises only a small subset of their design-related
knowledge base. They have mastered all mundacities
(should be a word) and intricacies of PowerPoint, including
but not limited to fancy transitions that employ the insertion
of sound clips from old Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals;
they can use more colors in their Excel spreadsheets than
they can actually perceive with their standard-issue video
cards; and they are so proficient in WordArt that, to the
delight of the division president, they’ve successfully
redesigned the division logo using it.
Try to tell these people rule 3.5.1: “Change one parameter
at a time.” Go ahead – I dare you. You’ll receive a swift kick
in the ass in the form of a smile and a brief expulsion of
air through the nostrils that says, in effect, you’re a fuckin’
loony. Push them on 1.1.1 – you know, that balderdash
44
about typography existing to honor content – and you
might get that kick for real.
In a blind attempt at retribution, I attempted a solo coup
at my last job. There, the use of Times New Roman in all
reports was mandated. I snuck Minion in through the back
door; trouble is, no one ever noticed. Some coup. Some
revenge!
The moral of the story is – at least for those of you with one
of those “day jobs” – don’t try to win; you can’t! Just stay
low. Besides, we like our type community small and smart,
don’t we?
22-February 2003
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
questions about requiem for jonathan hoefler
I think in Courier, but I dream in Requiem.
I so clearly remember my first glimpse of it. Never before
had boilerplate Latin appeared so glorious to me. I studied
the hell out of those four HTF catalog pages – or at the
very least, I sure stared at them. The poise and sensuality
of the lower case, roman a; the capriciousness of the little
p, whose bowl nudges nonconformingly past the stem;
the dazzling array of letter combinations in the italic,
comprehensive enough to pacify the most demanding
polyglot. Not only is sauerstoffflaschen a word, apparently,
but it can be set precisely as it deserves.
Designer/author/teacher Jessica Helfand revealed her
passion for Jonathan Hoefler’s Requiem in an email
exchange: “Requiem...is nothing short of perfection. I
would be perfectly happy to use it for everything I ever
design the rest of my life. Period.” I suspect that more than
a few other designers and users feel the same way.
45
Perhaps I am more of an ascetic than most. I approach
Requiem like I do fettucine alfredo: they’re both so
delicious that I feel I must save them for only the best of
occasions. In treating myself so infrequently, however, I’ve
not come to know Requiem like I should, so I decided to
ask Jonathan a few questions. And he was kind enough to
answer.
JC: For me, Requiem closed a gap that I perceived among
types in this genre. For my work, I needed something like
a Centaur, but a superior cut, and I needed a better, more
optically correct Bembo; Requiem fit the bill perfectly. Did
you see a void as well, and was Requiem your attempt to fill
it?
JH: I wish I could say that Requiem had such lofty
beginnings, but alas it didn’t: like most of my studio’s work,
it began with a practical request from a client.
In 1990, Fred Woodward at Rolling Stone faxed me a page
of initials that he liked, and wanted to see developed
as a typeface – these were the Arrighi capitals from Il
Modo, which have been variously reproduced. By the
time I’d finished some other obligations and got around
to developing a prototype, the folks at Rolling Stone had
discovered Adobe’s new “Trajan” typeface, and thought
it suitable enough for their purposes. But a few years
later, the project was revived when Giovanni Russo at
Travel & Leisure inquired about having a custom typeface
developed. It was then that the font gained a lowercase,
and ultimately an italic. The ornaments, italic ligatures, and
“optical size” masters for small sizes (Text) and very large
sizes (Fine) were done as a labor of love, in preparation for
bringing the fonts to market in 1999.
JC: The type is, as you state, “derived from a set of
inscriptional capitals in Il Modo de Temperare le Penne.”
Furthermore, Arrighi’s chancery italic is revived in that of
Requiem. But what was your precedent for the roman? How
46
much of it was derived from historical interpolation vs. your
own preferences for a compatible roman?
JH: The roman lowercase is basically caprice, as I really
couldn’t find a suitable historical model. Arrighi did draw
the occasional bit of roman lowercase, in both Il Modo
and La Operina, but I find them to be overly calligraphic
and generally contrived. [I’ve included some scans, which
are very old and therefore pitiful by today’s standards,
but they’re hopefully better than nothing. Here, see
Arrighi.] In the beginning of the project, I spent some time
experimenting with Cresci’s lowercases [Cresci], but found
them a little too bitter to go with Arrighi’s saucy caps
– there’s a staid, “constructed’ quality to Cresci’s lettering
that seems at odds with Arrighi’s esprit.
I did see a model that I liked at the British Museum, which
has a marvelous collection of sixteenth century manuscripts.
One of them, Marcantonio Flaminio’s La Paraphrasi [Ruano],
is especially sparkling. It seems to bridge the gap between
the typographic and the calligraphic very smartly, and in
a useful and unexpected turn, it demonstrates capitals,
upper- and lowercase roman, and italics all on the same
page – a rare example of a modern typographic family,
rendered in pure calligraphy.
In the end, there wasn’t much in Flaminio’s lettering that
made it into the Requiem lowercase, though studying it
did help me diagnose one of my font’s early problems.
Most printing types designed in upper- and lowercase
presume that the primary function of capital letters is to
serve as initials, and that the bulk of what is read will be
printed in lowercase. The widths of these lowercase letters
differ greatly, so that their composition produces a sort of
modulated effect. Aside from obvious outliers like I and M
which are bound by their basic design, most of the capitals
hew to a narrow range of widths.
But in alphabets which have no lowercase, this modulation
47
must be effected through the capitals themselves.
Inscriptional letters such as those found on the Trajan
column exhibit wildly different character widths: Es and
Ss are nearly half the width of Ns and Rs, so that capital
inscriptions (“SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVM”) can
achieve the varying rhythm which is apparently most
comfortable for reading.
The difficulty in outfitting a font of capitals with a
lowercase is that caps of dramatically different widths
aren’t particularly comfortable with the same lowercase. A
lowercase ‘n’ designed to accomodate a narrow cap S will
be dwarfed by a wide cap H, or vice versa. (Most of the
various Trajan-with-a-lowercase fonts suffer this problem as
a fundamental design defect.) The problem is exacerbated
by a small x-height, which is a characteristic of renaissance
letters such as Arrighi’s.
Flaminio cleverly sidestepped the problem by combining
his capitals with a lowercase of unusually large x-height:
a sufficiently large lowercase ‘n’ is at home with both a
narrow ‘S’ and a wide ‘H’. I borrowed this strategy for
Requiem, additionally lengthening the font’s ascenders and
descenders to help camouflage the large x-height, and give
the font the grace that Arrighi’s caps deserve. Of course,
a large body is exactly what you don’t want in a chancery
italic, and it wasn’t long after Requiem’s roman was
completed that the order came in for an italic. Reconciling
Requiem’s roman and italic required a bit of chicanery, as
close admirers of the font might have discovered.
JC: A requiem is most commonly known as a musical
composition or chant in honor of the dead. Is the face
meant to be a typographic requiem of sorts?
JH: I suppose it’s as elegiac as any other historical revival.
Something about the name Requiem seemed in keeping
with the spirit of the typeface, and I’m especially fond of
musical names for typefaces: somewhere on the drawing
48
board are Oratorio, Novena and Plainsong, as well as a
medieval thing I’ve been calling Burana. Incidentally, quite
a few type designers are also musicians, most locally my
partner Tobias Frere-Jones, who manages to move between
Bezier curves and waveforms with annoying effortlessness.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll also admit to having
settled on “Requiem” because it contains a few of the font’s
signature letters, R, E and Q among them. If at all possible
I’d have snuck a Y in there as well.
JC: A few years have elapsed, now, since Requiem was
released. No doubt, you’ve had an opportunity to see it
used in a variety of settings, from signage to book covers,
to extended text. Are there some applications of it that
have especially pleased you, and conversely, are there some
that you have found to be simply egregious?
JH: Maybe it’s because I’m especially pleased with the font
itself, but I tend to be especially happy seeing Requiem in
use. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen the ornaments and
cartouches used much: designers who visit our web site
seem to single these out for praise, though I think I’ve only
seen them in print once. But I regularly see the font being
used with great aplomb: lots of carefully spaced capitals,
thoughtfully leaded text settings, and judicious use of the
decorative end of the family.
Somehow Requiem seems to have escaped the sorts of
violations I’ve witnessed of the other fonts, though I’m sure
it’s only a matter of time before I see fake caps-and-smallcaps, scaled 60%, and slanted. But rest assured that the
designers in my office are awaiting this offense, with ticket
books in hand.
07-February 2003
49
confession
I’ve been having an affair, you see.
And my wife has known about it right from the start. At
first, she tolerated it, even as its markers made themselves
manifest around the house at a steadily increasing rate. It
went on like this for a year or so.
Then – and I found this to be most puzzling – she began to
encourage it here and there. Curiously, her reaction served
to revitalize the affair, to provide it with a newfound lustre,
at a point when its thrill had just begun to wane.
And now? Well, I have to laugh, because at present, she
actually condones it, and even helps to fund it. She’ll
occasionally ask, “What’s new? Anything I don’t know
about?” And at that, I’ll haul out the evidence, pictures and
all, and she’ll just page through with a wide smile on her
face.
You must realize, dear reader, that it is all harmless, really,
though it does occasionally keep me up late and distracts
me to no end. It’s only an affair of sorts, and if you must
know, the object of my after-hours amour is...the Design
Within Reach (DWR) catalog.
After everyone else has gone to bed, it’s just the catalog
and me, and oh, how I pore over its pages! It, and
everything in it, is exactly what I want.
Invariably, during the course of one of our late-night
rendezvous, I will close my eyes and see: my big butt
planted firmly in an Eames Lounge Chair; my scores
of inscrutable jottings, together with used Kleenexes,
intertwined atop a Prism Table; my slumbering, five-footnine-inch frame, sprawled like a dead fish across a Leggero
Bed; my muddled thoughts measured and diagrammed in
CAD, and writ large in (nicely leaded) Trade Gothic. (Oh,
Trade Gothic – how I have long ignored you! What have I
50
been thinking?)
Only part catalog, really, it is the best of its kind (although
its kind are truly few), and like the pieces it sells, it is art.
Part catalog, you ask? Oh yes, it is catalog cum designer
biography cum interior design journal cum brief history of
furniture design in the 20th century.
The classical masters are all represented: a recent issue
features the Eames Management Chair on the cover
and pieces by Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Breuer,
Noguchi, and Nelson throughout. But some of the
best pagespace is reserved for up-and-comers as well
as prominent designers of the present such as Richard
Holbrook, Philippe Starck, Eric Pfeiffer, Nani Marquina, and
the firms Stua and BLU DOT.
All of this might sound stiff and sterile, but indeed, it is
not. Pieces are photographed in offices and homes (check
out that staircase in the Nabashima/Kahle residence), and
models are used on an increasing basis; for more than
ample evidence, see the cover of the “Modern in the
mix” issue. Go online and request the periodic “Design
Notes” emails, and you’ll receive updates from founder/
globetrotter Rob Forbes that read like postcards from a
friend.
Speaking of online, and thanks to the involvement of image
technologists Scene 7, you can design your future furniture
on the site, substituting color swatches and enlarging
pieces. And speaking of image, that of DWR was firmly
established and continues to be well honed by uberfirm
Pentagram.
Some of the design is clearly without reach: readers
may balk at spending US$3500 for the Grand Confort
Sofa, upholstered in cotton twill, no less. And $595 for a
Vipp trash can? Riiight. But you will find much of it to be
affordable; nay, in some cases, surprisingly so. The Kyoto
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chair is one of the finest around for its purpose; a bargain
at $60. And as a personal testimonial, I’m here to tell you
that the Transporte 2.0 table (under $500) is all you could
ever hope for in a workspace. The thing is huge (more room
than ever for those Kleenexes); in addition, it rolls, has two
grommets for cables, and thus far, has proved itself to be
one strong mother. It will outlast me by a longshot.
If you live on the West Coast, you can see the stuff in
person – eight retail stores and growing. Stuck here in the
heartland? Well, the relationship will just have to continue
long-distance. At least for a little while.
Oh, it’s a selfish, foolish thing I’ve got going, this affair.
Many a dinner table conversation has been compromised
upon a new catalog arriving in the mail. And many a
facetious floor plan has been drawn up using DWR pieces
I will never own. But on the other hand, it’s the most
innocuous of affairs, really. My fantasies focus on what
is best in modern home design, and I so remain pure in
thought, word, and deed. Even when those thoughts
wander off to words spoken and deeds done on the supple,
black leather of the Mies Day Bed.
26-January 2003
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sebastian lester discusses scene
“Amongst all existing type faces only Grotesque fits
spiritually into our time,” wrote Tschichold 75 years ago,
and though he relaxed his view seven years later, it seems
the sentiment might apply just as strongly now as then.
We appear to be living through another great age for the
sans-serif form; though the archetypes have not faded away
– Futura, Gill Sans, Helvetica, and Univers continue to be
used widely – several, prominent designs have recently
been issued. These include, among others, FF Bau, ITC
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Conduit, FF DIN, Gotham, Knockout, FF Scala Sans, and
Solex.
An important addition to this group is Sebastian Lester’s
Scene. An amalgam of sorts; kith and kin of DIN, and more
distantly, Eurostile, it is less affected than either, and quite
probably, more versatile. Available in regular and italic in six
weights, and accompanied by an assortment of alternate
forms, Scene is – just as advertised – eminently clean, open,
and highly legible.
I was fortunate enough to discuss with Sebastian his latest
release; my questions and his answers follow.
JC: What factors might be responsible for the renaissance
of the industrial sans, and where does Scene fit in?
SL: I guess the renaissance is partly a backlash to the
popularity of extremely experimental aesthetics in type
design that spanned most of the 90’s. But I think it’s also
about functionality. Generally speaking, sans serif designs
tend to be better choices for use on screen than most serif
or “grungey” counterparts for example. They’re inherently
more robust and versatile in this environment.
There is something grounded and direct about sans serifs
as well. They’re perceived, with some justification, as
conveying “modern”, “professional” and “reliable” values
well. Some do this better than others.
I think Scene fits comfortably into this genre. It was a two
year labour of love. If you design type 8 hours a day for
a living and then sometimes work 8 hours a day doing it
recreationally afterwards then it can’t really be anything
else!
The constraints I imposed on myself meant that the
typeface was never going to push any boundaries. It was
intended to be a clean, modern, highly legible, easyto-use, and aesthetically pleasing typeface family. That
53
was the intention. Whether it’s achieved these things is
something for conjecture. I’m personally very happy with
the design. I got a lot of honest feedback from some very
talented people whose opinion I respect a great deal in the
development process, which was invaluable.
I’d cite its main influences as Boo Gothic (a custom typeface
designed at Monotype by Robin Nicholas), the ubiquitous
DIN and various other designs I’ve grown to appreciate
over time. Someone told me they thought that it looked
like a modern take on News Gothic, which I can see.
JC: What design process did you follow in Scene’s
development?
SL: I wrote a list of all the qualities I’d want in a typeface for
corporate identity use. I then set about figuring out how to
achieve them. I started with sketches. I’ve been immersed
in corporate typeface design on a daily basis for quite some
time now, so I’m constantly confronted with what clients
want and don’t want from typefaces intended for this kind
of use. It’s been illuminating and helpful.
JC: Your previous faces – Equipoize Sans and Serif, Cuban,
and Zoroaster – are relatively adventurous when compared
to Scene. Was it difficult to design and produce a more
restrained face, or was it a welcome new direction?
SL: I saw it as a welcome new direction certainly. Sans
serifs are deceptively simple in appearance as you know.
You can’t hide bad drawing or structural flaws in a design
behind elaborate serifs or pseudo experimental aesthetics.
You have to work towards a real purity of form.
JC: Scene is an expansive family. Nonetheless, are there
any immediate plans to extend the face even further (e.g.,
additional widths, small caps, extra characters)?
SL: Yep. In fact I’m currently developing symptoms of sleep
deprivation and a nervous twitch working on two other
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widths of Scene – condensed and compressed. I’m really
happy with how they’re shaping up.
I spent a great deal of time deliberating about the overall
width of the characters. An “economy of space” over
“maximum legibility” conundrum, effectively. I settled on
designing three widths and releasing the widest version
first.
Scene is available through Agfa-Monotype.
20-January 2003
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apollo: 14 of 20
Rosalind Franklin: Robbed intellectually and spiritually
without recourse, she died tragically at a young age
and was subsequently forgotten, only to be resurrected
a decade later as a laughingstock by the unrepentant
thief. A painstakingly methodical molecular biologist, her
astoundingly clear x-ray crystallographs of DNA led directly
to the elucidation of the molecule’s structure.
The second major work on Franklin’s life was published this
year, and as good fortune would have it, I found my copy
under the tree. The book is one of only a few I’ve seen set
in Apollo. Originally designed in 1962 as one of the first
faces for photocomposition, Apollo is elegant, easy-to-read,
and just a tad quirky. One doesn’t necessarily expect to
find a Berling-esque, beaked f in the midst of an otherwise
classical old face, nor a j that seems poised to reel in any
ascender below that dares venture astray.
In the digital era, Adrian Frutiger and Linotype appear to be
inextricably linked. Yet here is a Monotype offering from the
Swiss designer – one of his earliest serifed designs – and
unlike any of his other digitized forms save one (Linotype
Didot), it comes with all the trimmings: small caps, text
55
numerals, and an extended f-ligature set.
If there is any nagging fault apparent in the digitization, it
is in the spine of the lower case s, which is just a touch too
heavy. Squint, and you will see the s’s pop out here and
there on the page. Small criticism, however, for a face that
is so crisp, so stately, and so sadly underused.
Apollo is named for the god of, among other things,
logic, reason, and intellect. He was strikingly handsome
and passionately romantic, yet was perpetually unlucky in
love. Logic, reason, and a strong intellect served to guide
Rosalind Franklin throughout her short-lived, scientific
career. And like Apollo, she too was spurned by love; the
only men in whom she was ever interested were already
married.
An appropriately chosen typeface, then, for the biography
of such an extraordinary person.
06-January 2003
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the three canonical responses...
Part one: The wind-up
I had a very uneventful flight to New York – probably 15%
full. Okay, I’m a statistician – I attempted to count them.
I thought that the big airline companies hired people to
make complicated models to predict what a director at my
last company daintily called “butts in seats.” Somebody
modeled poorly.
So in LaGuardia, just like in the movies, there’s a limo driver
(Mimi) waiting there at baggage claim holding a sign that
says, “J Coltz.” I’m thinking that this is pretty ridiculous and
that someone is perhaps playing a joke on me. Someone IS
playing a joke on me, because as we exchange pleasantries,
Mimi informs me that this is her first night on the job alone
56
(she formerly drove a taxi, only in Manhattan) and that she
has no directions to Long Island. She follows by expressing
the hope that I have a lot of time on my hands. You know
me – too nice. “Sure, no problem at all. I’m in no hurry
tonight!” The truth is, I have to pee badly and am dying of
hunger.
Anyway, the driver combined in her demeanor some of the
features I have come to know and love in my cubicle mates
over the years, albeit with added profanity and a Jersey
accent. Loud, aggressive, has all the answers, and a laugh
that could kill small vermin. I had to converse with her for
about an hour as we proceeded, stop and go, down Grand
Central Parkway. Well, she did most of the talking, actually,
and at the end of the trip, she inexplicably stated, “I’m a
good listener, aren’t I.” Some gems from her monologue:
Mimi: I’m really gettin’ into classical music. But shit, y’know,
I know what I like, y’know? (Loud laugh)
Me: Well, are there any composers or musicians that you
particularly enjoy?
Mimi: There was this song on the radio, but shit, I only
heard the first half of it. I never got the name of it because
my kid starts screamin’....
Mimi: I like you – you talk to me. They either don’t talk at
all, or they talk way too much, tellin’ me where to turn and
shit like that. But you know what the worst ones are?
Me: Uh...no. What are they?
Mimi: The ones that just sit in the back seat and fart. They
yak away on their cell phones, shift to one side and fart
away. How rude is that? But do you wanna know what’s
even more disgusting?
Me: (Sigh) Uh, no. I-I mean, sure.
Mimi: The fat guys who get in the car, fall asleep in like, 15
seconds, and just fart in their sleep all the way out to Jersey.
Silent but deadly, y’know. (That laugh again) Gotta roll them
windows down to get some air. Silent but deadly. SBD.
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Mimi: I only do this drivin’ shit for fun – my REAL job is in
e-commerce.
Me: And what do you do in e-commerce?
Mimi: I teach people how to make six-figure incomes on the
Internet.
Me: Wow! You know how to make a six-figure income on
the Internet?
Mimi: That’s what I said, didn’t I? Is that not what I just said?
Some of my students have become multi-millionaires.
Me: Um...have you ever put your teachings to your own, uh,
personal use?
Mimi: Nah...I’m not really interested in making money
myself, really, although it’s been a shitty year for me. I didn’t
even make enough to buy my kids Christmas presents.
Me: Oh, um, I’m sorry. You accept tips, right?
Part two: The punch
Mimi: So, like, you got any hobbies?
Me: Um, yes actually. I’m into typography – you know, fonts.
Mimi: (Silence. This brings Mimi’s monologue to a dead
halt.)
Silence is the first canonical response you receive when
discussing typography with someone whom you do not
know. It is strongly advised that you discuss your passion for
type only with those whom you trust.
Me: Like, computer fonts. Times New Roman, for example,
or Arial.
Mimi: Oh, I never really gave much thought to it. Shit, I
just figured they were sittin’ there on the computer and
machines just made ‘em or somethin’.
“I never really thought much about it” is the second
canonical response. People have either thought deeply
about type or not at all.
Me: Yeah, I actually run a little website on type. On the
fonts themselves and a bit on the people who design and
58
produce them.
Mimi: Can you make any money at that – makin’ fonts?
This is the third canonical response. People want to know if
making typefaces is a viable or even lucrative career option.
Your answer will invariably disappoint them.
Me: Some people do. But for many, I think it’s beside the
point.
Mimi: Huh. (Then silence, which brings us right back to
canonical response number one.)
29-December 2002
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well, what do you talk about?
Husband: New Smithsonian’s on the table. Seems they
finally made a decision.
Wife: About what?
Husband: Well, y’know how it used to be just Village and
Caecilia – Village for text and Caecilia for captions. And
then they put Helvetica on the cover that month, and then
Relay, and then Hoefler Text. Really screwed around....
Wife: Well, what are they using now?
Husband: Been completely Hoeflerized. Or make that
Hoefler-Frere-Jonesed. Here – the new AD proclaims, “I am
a fan of classic, clean typefaces,” but he doesn’t mention
them or their designers by name. Typical.
Wife: Hoeflerized...? Is that a bad thing?
Husband. Good God, look at this. Once again – fake small
caps and no ligatures.... What’s so frickin’ hard about
ligatures?
Wife: That’s your business, dear. But again, this
59
“Hoeflerization” – is this a bad thing?
Husband: Well...not in the case of the sans – Gotham.
Apparently a distinctly “American” face. When Tobias spoke
at the Walker, he talked about wandering around New York
City and taking pictures of signage, and then basing a face
on the letters he saw. He said it was like birdwatching, and
then Jonathan added, “but less geeky.”
Wife: Hmmm...maybe more geeky. But what about the
other font? Why isn’t it American? Anyway, there is no
“American style” of typography yet, is there?
Husband: It’s just sooo European....
Wife: Well isn’t Hoefler American? That should be close
enough....
Husband: They’re using Hoefler Text, which looks kinda
like a cross between Caslon and Janson. Or Kis – I guess
we’re supposed to be calling it Kis. “Commerce has no
conscience,” after all.
Wife: Thanks Bob. So why isn’t that appropriate for
Smithsonian?
Husband: Shouldn’t Smithsonian in this new millennium
be forward-thinking, forward-looking? Why regress to
a European, 18th century look? Why couldn’t they have
called Font Bureau and just ordered up something new like
everyone else seems to do?
Wife: But isn’t Smithsonian about the American heritage,
which essentially began in the 18th century? And isn’t it
often about the world’s heritage? What could be more
appropriate for Smithsonian in the new millennium than
a relatively new typeface by a young American designer?
Besides, James Smithson was of European heritage – I
don’t know much about his motives and methods, but
The Smithsonian is a museum of America in all of its times
60
and forms in the context of the rest of the world. I can
understand your point, but I don’t see how it’s a bad choice.
If Hoefler developed a typeface that captures the essence
of Smithson’s original intent, then jeez, quit bitchin’ about
it and go with it. (Flipping thru magazine) I mean, look, it’s
beautiful. Lately, the articles have been kinda sucky, though.
They should be writing pieces on the sort of thing Martha is
writing about.
Husband: You mean like, “The integral role of matching
blue enamelware in the explorations of Lewis and
Clark,” brought to you by the Hoefler Type Foundry and
Smithsonian?
Wife: Don’t be an ass. That’s not what I meant and you
know it.
Husband: Good thing we get both magazines....
27-December 2002
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bandolino angel...
Her name, oddly enough, was Michelle.
Pretty name for a pretty French girl...the name of a young,
blonde Homecoming Queen in the American 1980s,
perhaps...but not for her.
Michelle was no one’s queen, and her high school days – if
indeed she had any – came two decades earlier.
She was punctual and predictable. Each morning, as
the front gate of the shoe store was lifted, Michelle
materialized, feet first.
Once-black shoes, reinforced with electrical tape, then
loose, torn nylons, then cherry-red polyester pants. Tightly
folded hands, a shirt that matched pants in hue and fabric,
61
and didn’t quite cover her vigorously rocking torso. Her
wide, tense smile in the middle of a round face, framed by
peppery, greasy hair.
Gate fully open, Michelle fully revealed, she gave me a
ceremonious nod, rose from her bench, and began to pace.
Normally ten laps across the main floor of Calhoun Square.
A surprisingly sprightly, proud, erect gait for a borderline
obese woman in her mid 40s.
Walk completed, she entered the store, and I began the
ritual. Bandolinos. Sensible, two-inch pumps, size nine.
Red...of course. Though I had shoes in hand, she invariably
went to the shelf, pointed, and giggled softly, “Those.”
Shoes on both feet, back and forth, back and forth across
the carpet. And then she handed them back without a
word, and I’d thank her for coming in.
This went on for the better part of a year. Michelle rocking,
pacing, trying on the red Bandolinos. And as she got more
comfortable with me, she requested additional pairs, never
extending her monologue past “those.” Sometimes five or
ten pairs in a sitting. I never minded, though. Her toenails
were easily the longest I had ever seen; her body odor
was, at times, unbearable; she undoubtedly suffered from
schizophrenia. But she, unlike so many of my patrons, was
constant in her softness and pleasantness.
Some of my best patrons, you see, were also my rudest.
One, upon finding she could not return a pair of worn, yearold open-toes, actually called mall security on me. From
my phone. Another hurled a stiletto at me from across the
store just to get my attention. And a third – the wife of a
prominent, Minneapolis attorney – had me hold her poodle
(a fashion accessory, no doubt) while she tried on the
metallics of the season.
But Michelle and I had a relationship of mutual respect. She
62
knew that I would bring out the shoes and place them on
her feet, and I knew that she would always be gracious and
thankful in return.
Rumor had it she lived in a halfway house three blocks
south of the mall. She was undoubtedly without work, but
she must have had some source of income. I’d see her
occasionally downing a can of Coke or devouring a Baby
Ruth. But the unchanged shirt, pants, and shoes she wore
summer and winter told me that there must not have been
much in the bank.
Twelve months in, retail was taking its toll; the commissions
were nice, but the work served no more purpose than to
get me through college, and so I gave notice. I had landed
a research position at the U of M that would teach me
something useful as well as provide income. It wouldn’t hurt
my graduate school chances, either.
So I quit selling shoes, knowing I’d soon miss the crowds of
beautiful people with money, the smells of the restaurants,
and the stores to visit and patronize on break. Half vacant
now, the mall was much different, then.
About a week before I left, the unthinkable happened.
Michelle and I did the customary Bandolino dance, but this
time, instead of asking to see another pair or leaving, she
walked to the counter, smiling wider than usual. Coins of
every denomination, along with a few crumpled bills, were
pulled from her pockets. Over the course of ten minutes
I counted as she watched attentively. The shoes cost $55,
and she had the exact amount. She wore them home.
It was THE story for the rest of that Saturday. “Can you
fucking believe it? She actually bought them.” A great
victory had been won – for her of course; for me and my
coworkers as well.
I wasn’t at all surprised when she returned the very next
63
day, set the shoes back on the counter, and shook her head.
It wasn’t policy to give cash back on returns; I did. It wasn’t
policy to take back obviously worn shoes; I did. Michelle
couldn’t afford them, and it would have been wrong for me
to do anything else.
She was far from pretty, young, or queenly; she was
anything but a commission-generating customer. She was
but one of thousands of de-institutionalized schizophrenics
whom life and law had dealt a poor hand. Yet she was a
sweet distraction who, paradoxically, brought sanity to my
often insane, retail-riddled world.
What gave rise to Michelle’s demeanor? Was it conscious
action on her part, or was it just delivered blindly from deep
within her brain? It didn’t really matter. The point is not her
“goodness.” Rather, it is simply that she existed.
She struck me, during my tenure at the shoe store, as the
epitome of a walking paradox. But was she? She had the
same wants as the sea of wealthy shoppers who kept my
store afloat. And in the end, she bought shoes, just like my
best customers; and in the end, she returned shoes, just like
my best customers.
Michelle wanted to be them – the proud, who spent money,
who spent their time in Calhoun Square, who wore red.
And so she was.
16-December 2002
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nine for the year, randomly
1 Decomposed Subsonic - Gradients
Deep deutsch house; the transcendent Etoile bleue, with
vocals by Olivia Steyaert, makes you smile and moves your
body.
64
2 Swayzak - Dirty dancing
Paraphrasing F Scott Fitzgerald, the very cool are different
from you and me; Make up your mind is their current theme
song.
3 Various - Disco not disco 2
White horse and Problemes d’amour back to back...? You
tell me.
4 DJ Hell - Electronicbody-housemusic
Mix of the year. Double CD that digs deep: multiple tracks
by Front 242 and the underrated Nitzer Ebb on the one,
and the best of Underground Resistance and Metro Area on
the other.
5 The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi battles the pink robots
On everyone’s list and should be; camped out in my player
for a month. Gorgeous; our generation’s Rumours (in the
best sense)?
6 Timo Maas - Loud
Kelis and MC Chickaboo over incredible trance. Help me,
Manga, and Shifter are standouts.
7 Various - Soundtrack: 24 hour party people
Reminisce and reenjoy the title track and Voodoo ray; Here
to stay is a pleasant if somewhat banal surprise.
8 Various - Digital disco
Buy; any one of Data 80’s Baby I can forgive, Mathias
Schaffhauser’s Musik ohne bass, or Metro Area’s Miura is
worth the price.
9 ATB - Dedicated
Sanitized trance from Mr Tanneberger. Current retro single:
You’re not alone. Favorite: Halcyon.
13-December 2002
65
words on...music?
The first was a $100 Casio two-octave monophonic. The
second – another Casio – took one-second samples and
provided four pads on which to play them. But these were
toys, and therefore I could not be taken seriously.
Any attempt at “seriously” meant synthesizers, drum
machines, effects processors, and lots of cables to MIDI
everything together. Which meant a huge investment of
time and money.
I began to shop where Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and even
Prince shopped; I listened to an interminable stream of
sales pitches; I pressed the keys on just about everything.
Thus, the third was a Roland Juno-106: Rows of knobs
and levers – even something called a “bender” – could
be configured to produce phat analog sounds. Very acid
house, although I didn’t know it at the time. An Ensoniq
SQ-80, along with said drum and reverb boxes, completed
the picture.
The mixer. Um, actually, no. No mixer. My strategy curiously
channeled $3000 worth of equipment into a $59 Panasonic
stereo. Adapter into adapter into plug and onto cassette
tape for posterity.
I recorded hundreds of “songs” in my bedroom studio from
1989–1992. Here is one; here is another.
11-December 2002
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so where’d he go?
I want things.
And I want them when I want them. Which is usually now.
66
My desire to live for the moment – for instant gratification
– somehow keeps me from attaining my long-term goals,
one of which was to organize this poorly tailored fat man of
a blog.
See, I took this little test at work; the results showed me
to be a creator. So of course, that’s what I am. Not an
advancer, not a refiner, not an executor. I just get the ball
moving; let someone else guide its path.
Children live for the moment, too. They’re just not into
maintenance. They create, and they absorb; that’s their job,
really. They build and draw, and then demolish and erase
moments later. They see and hear everything, even when
they appear to be asleep.
They soak in, and oh yes, they spit back out. Needless to
say, I’ve had to curb my language more than a bit for fear
of my son dropping an exclamatory “Goddammit!” during
Sunday School.
Little sponges that attract sights, sounds, and...germs,
too. Those who ascribe to the tabula rasa theory may be
interested to find that it holds for the toddlerian immune
system as well. Children catch – and transmit – all viruses
and bacterial infections. In the last month, I have contracted
– from my son and daughter – two colds, the stomach flu,
and pinkeye. Remember pinkeye? During the night, your
eyes become glued – snotted – shut, and during the day
you simply appear to have smoked massive, bad geef.
Not well, and hence, no posts.
But on the comeback trail, I decided to do something about
maintenance. The site was hard to read and navigate – poor
leading among other things – and for the longest time, I
could not get myself to read anything on cascading style
sheets (CSS). But there is a point between sick and well at
which your consciousness is best applied in reading. So I
67
read a little here, and copied a little there. All the while, the
voice of Stephen Coles (which I have never actually heard),
who kindly suggested that I look into CSS, was spurring me
on. And then I wrote a little external file, cleaned up the
html a slight bit, and now we have leading as well as links to
each post.
I feel some embarrassment in reporting that maintenance
feels good. But I’d still rather have had someone just do it
for me when I wasn’t looking...
09-December 2002
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columbus: 13 of 20
Beautiful text faces are released each year. Some of these
survive and prosper, basking in their uniqueness and
usefulness. They appear in newspapers, magazines, and
books, on logotypes and signage, and even on the sides of
city buses. Others – inexplicably – fall rapidly into obscurity.
Underrated type almost deserves extra attention, primarily
because it is good type, and secondarily because it is
– curiously – unseen and unused. I’ve compiled a list of
underrated faces, and at the top rests Columbus, designed
by Patricia Saunders and issued by Monotype in 1993.
Slightly heavy yet well-honed, Columbus is a hybrid of
cultures and centuries, in that the Roman appears to derive
from Venetian types of the late 1400s, whereas the italic
(at least in the lower case) seems more a descendant of
French letterforms of the early 16th century. But the mix is
harmonious; the interplay among roman, italic, small caps,
and numerals is exceptionally fluid. Moreover, full sets of
ligatures are supplied, as are text and lining numerals as
well as borders and fleurons.
This begs the obvious question: Why, a decade after its
68
release, is Columbus so little known and so rarely seen?
Several factors could contribute: Like another Monotype
digitization of the 1990s – Pastonchi – it is under-marketed;
unlike other Monotype faces, it has not been given away as
a part of an operating system; maybe most people do not
find it as beautiful or useful as I do.
At the very least, Columbus is well-made, thoughtfully
equipped, and relatively inexpensive to license. Surely all
typefaces should boast as much.
16-November 2002
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tex ramblings 3: from tex to typography (a tutorial on using
postscript typefaces with latex)
So now that you have it installed and can process
documents, you find yourself getting impatient. After all,
you are a typographer, no? Computer Modern, which is
Knuth’s interpretation of Monotype Modern No. 8a, is
beautiful and versatile, but it only takes you so far. Simply
put, you want to use other fonts. Specifically, you want to
see the PostScript typefaces for which you shelled out hardearned cash come to life within TeX.
Well, you can, and the purpose of this entry is to show you
how. I’ll focus on LaTeX, actually, and I’ll begin with the
PostScript faces freely available with TeX. Then, I’ll take you
through an easy installation of Adobe Garamond (with the
expert set) using pre-built files. Finally, I’ll show how the
same face can be installed “from scratch” and how text
numerals can be used.
Before launching in, however, I should say that the best
print references for using PostScript fonts with TeX are
(1) Goosens, Rahtz, and Mittelbach, The LaTeX Graphics
Companion; and (2) Hoenig, TeX Unbound; this post is no
substitute. I’ll add that everything below applies to TeX
69
(MiKTeX) running under Microsoft Windows.
Part 1
Using the standard PostScript typefaces
There is a wonderful command for loading LaTeX
packages, whether they be packages that call typefaces,
specify leading or character spacing, or load graphics.
It is called \usepackage, and it is placed somewhere
between \documentclass{...} and \begin{document}.
Open the file called sample2e.tex and place the command
\usepackage{times} on the line above \begin{document}.
Process, and view the result using YAP (Yet Another
Previewer), GSView, or Acrobat Reader. See what
happened? The typeface, with the exception of the
mathematics, was changed from Computer Modern to
Times Roman.
Times is one of “the 35 PostScript fonts” you may have
heard about. These fonts were distributed with the Apple
LaserWriter Plus in the mid-1980’s and are standard issue
with TeX. Eight typefaces comprise these 35 variants, which
are: Times Roman, Palatino, New Century Schoolbook,
AvantGarde, Bookman, Helvetica, Courier, and Zapf
Chancery.
Now try Palatino; voila, you get Palatino. This seems easy;
let’s try New Century Schoolbook. What? “LaTeX Error: File
‘NewCenturySchoolbook.sty’ not found.”
Well, sometimes the font name is abbreviated. But
abbreviated to what? How would you know? Take a look
in /tex/latex/psnfss; you find times.sty. Scrolling back to
the n section, you find newcent.sty; and sure enough, \
usepackage{newcent} works! But you look deeper, and you
find .sty files for a wide variety of typefaces: Apollo, Imprint,
and Octavian, just to name a few. In fact, you find .sty files
for many more than the 35 basic fonts.
70
A confession: When I was new to TeX, and before I knew
anything about type, I tried for hours in vain to get the face
Apollo to appear in my document. I hadn’t yet realized
that the distribution was helpful in providing some of the
architecture to make Apollo work, but not so helpful that it
would hand over the actual typeface for me. I had to license
typefaces to get them to work. Who knew?
Now, these 35 PostScript fonts are resident, and by
specifying the typefaces that comprise them with the
\usepackage command, you will call them whether you
process your file with YAP, dvips, or pdfLaTeX. But when
you wish to reach beyond these fonts – and you will – things
become more complicated, albeit not much more so. Let’s
install Adobe Garamond, replete with expert characters,
using the files and formats already supplied for us, and
let’s make it work such that you can view the output with
GSView and Acrobat Reader.
Part 2
Using other PostScript typefaces with LaTeX: Pre-assembled
files
So what does the call to \usepackage actually do? In order
to answer this question, you’ll have to start looking at some
files. Let’s begin with xagaramon.sty; it may be found within
tex/latex/psnfss. And if not, you’ll get it shortly. There’s
really not much to this file: four lines that specify something
called “padx” as the default roman face. Yes, to make
matters a bit confusing, PostScript faces are not called by
their real names. Rather, they are given three- or sometimes
four-letter abbreviations. The first letter represents the
supplier; p is Adobe’s designation. The following two letters
denote the typeface: ad is Adobe’s version of Garamond.
And the x stands for expert.
But how do you get from padx to the actual font file to
output in Adobe Garamond? Well, by the time you call
xagaramon in your LaTeX file, you have to make sure that
71
all the supporting files – as well as the fonts themselves
– are in their correct places. Let’s begin with the fonts that
constitute Adobe Garamond; take a look at the names
of your font binary (.pfb) files. Three, four, or five letters,
followed by some underscores, to make a total of eight
characters. Unfortunately, these names just won’t do
where LaTeX is concerned. You’ll have to change them; go
to /fontname/adobe.map. Scroll down to faces 100 and
101; these numbers refer to the basic and the expert sets,
respectively. You’ll notice that the first entry is AGaramondBold; this is Adobe’s font name. And whereas its Windows
name is gdb_____, its TeX name is padb8a. Select this
section and print it, and then proceed to copy all of your
Adobe Garamond .pfb files to /fonts/type1/adobe and
place in a folder called xagaramon. Now, rename them
(e.g., change gdb_____.pfb to padb8a and so on).
You’re actually much of the way there! But there are several
more files you need to have in place before you’re good to
go. The first of these is a font definition (.fd) file, which links
the font name to the encoding to the style (roman, italic,
etc.). Then there are the virtual font (.vf) files, which are read
by the driver and often contain information on remapping
characters in a font, as well as the TeX font metric (.tfm)
files, which specify each character’s dimensions. Finally,
there is the .map file, with which you’ve already dealt. Not
only do you need this for renaming your .pfb files, but
you need to make sure that the section of the .map file
pertaining to your typeface – in this case, Adobe Garamond
– is present in the driver files.
Fortunately, all of these files have been pre-assembled for
Adobe Garamond as well as for fonts from several other
vendors and are freely available via the CTAN page (or one
of its mirrors) on the Internet. Go to http://ctan.tug.org and
then navigate to /fonts/psfonts/xadobe/agaramon/. The x
in xadobe denotes “expert” (note that most of the TeX files
for Adobe faces are found in the plain adobe directory). You
72
will see four subdirectories: dvips, tex, tfm, and vf. Copy the
.fd and .sty files from the tex subdirectory to your psnfss
folder (under /tex/latex). Next, copy all of the .tfm files from
the tfm subdirectory to /fonts/tfm/adobe/xagaramon (you
will have to create the new folder, xagaramon). Similarly,
copy all of the .vf files from the vf subdirectory to /fonts/
vf/adobe/xagaramon. Finally, in order to process your file
using dvips as well as pdfLaTeX, copy the text from the
.map file, which is in the dvips subdirectory, anywhere into
/dvips/config/ psfonts.map as well as into /pdftex/config/
psfonts.map, if this text is not already there. You will notice
that some of the .map code specifies a SlantFont option; if
used, a slanted, upright form of the face is printed. Why in
God’s name anyone would want to do this is beyond me,
although Knuth makes substantial use of slanted Computer
Modern. So, to summarize, perform the following
operations to use Adobe Garamond with LaTeX:
1. Copy .pfb files to type1 folder; rename
2. Copy .fd files and the .sty file to the psnfss folder
3. Copy .tfm files to tfm folder
4. Copy .vf files to vf folder
5. Copy applicable section of .map file to psfonts.map
folders
Be sure to refresh your filename database, and then run
LaTeX on sample2e.tex, with \usepackage{xagaramon}.
Then, process using dvips and view with GSView, or process
using pdfLaTeX and view with Acrobat Reader. You should
see your text in Adobe Garamond. Although the math
remains in Computer Modern, the ligatures are there, and if
you set off a word or phrase in small caps, using \textsc{...},
you have small caps. Life is good!
But wait, what’s that – all lining figures? There must be
an easy way to switch to text or oldstyle numerals – some
simple command, right? Wrong. You can access the
text figure, seven, for example, by calling the package
73
textcomp (available on CTAN) and then by using the
command \textsevenoldstyle. But using text numerals by
default requires a different set of LaTeX files. These are not
supplied; you must generate them anew, and this is the
topic of the next section.
Part 3
Using other PostScript typefaces with LaTeX: Generating
your own LaTeX files
This is a bit more laborious, but oh-so-gratifying, once you
see the final result. You will use a program called fontinst,
along with two others, pltotf and vptovf, to generate the
.fd, .tfm, and .vf files. If the fontinst directory is not part of
your LaTeX package, copy it to /tex/latex. To make things
easier, copy the pltotf and vptovf executables from /bin to
/tex/latex/ fontinst/inputs/ tex. To generate the TeX font
metric information yourself, you will need to use Adobe
Garamond’s .afm files. Copy these also to /tex/latex/
fontinst/inputs/tex. Just as you changed the names of your
.pfb files, you will have to change the designators of the
.afm files to make them LaTeX-readable. Thus, gdb_____
.afm becomes padb8a.afm and so on.
Now comes the file generation part. Copy fontinst.sty
and fontinst.ini to the same folder and then run LaTeX on
fontinst.sty. At the asterisk prompt, type \latinfamily{padj}{}
\bye. The \latinfamily command is a simple way to turn .afm
files into the required LaTeX files; the j appended to pad
specifies text figures. The program runs for more than a few
seconds, and after completing, you’ll notice that you now
have a collection of .fd, .mtx, .pl, and .vpl files. The .pl and
.vpl files are simply the .tfm and .vf files in readable form.
You will use the programs pltotf and vptovf to convert the
.pl and .vpl files into binary format. Running these programs
in a DOS window, you will type, for example, pltotf
padb9c.pl padb9c.tfm for one of the .pl to .tfm conversions
and vptovf padb9c.vpl padb9c.vf padb9c.tfm for one of the
74
.vpl to .vf conversions. Yes, you will run this on each of the
.pl and .vpl files, one by one! I know that this operation can
be batch processed in other systems, and I’m sure it can be
in Windows; I just don’t know how.
When you’ve finished the conversions, move the newlycreated .tfm and .vf files to their respective folders in the
fonts directory; move the .fd files to the psnfss folder as
well. You may delete the .pl, .vpl, and .mtx files. Create a
new .sty file by saving xagaramon.sty as xagaramonj.sty
and changing the contents to read {padj} instead of {padx}.
Again, refresh the filename database, and run LaTeX on
sample2e.tex, this time using your xagaramonj package.
You should now see text figures as default.
It will not be as straightforward as described; some
tinkering will undoubtedly be necessary. It helps to know
a TeX-pert, too. I am not one, myself; I have come this far
only through much trial and error, and with a great deal of
banging my head against the wall. But I hope that this short
tutorial will be of some use to those of you who want to try
to use your PostScript typefaces with LaTeX; the journey
may be arduous, but the reward is great!
12-November 2002
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
alpha to omega, with stops in-between
So, who uses Greek fonts, anyway?
Well, there are the people who read and write in Greek
for starters: approximately 10.6 million in Greece and
thousands more around the world. Then there are the
classicists: scholars who read ancient Greek and who
study myth, language, and literature. Finally, there are
the mathematicians, statisticians, and scientists, who use
Greek letters as symbols that denote particular constants or
variables.
75
The recent rise in the production and the increase in quality
of Greek typefaces gives all three groups reason to rejoice;
with relatively new releases by Adobe, Bitstream, and
FontShop International, there is unprecedented flexibility
in typesetting Greek. The exercise of matching Greek and
Latin faces (see Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic
Style, 2nd ed, pp106–113) is gradually approaching
obsolescence.
The first “really good Greek font with accents” (Updike,
Printing Types: Their History, Forms & Use, 3rd ed, p191)
appeared in 1528 and was the work of the French printer,
Simon de Colines. But perhaps the most well-known, early
Greek faces were those of Claude Garamond: les grecs du
roi – literally, the royal types – which were produced under
the guidance of Robert Estienne and modeled on the hand
of the scribe to Francois I, about a decade after the type
of Colines. The grecs du roi were cast in three sizes (from
largest to smallest, the gros-parangon, the gros-romain, and
the Cicero) and were first used in 1544 in an edition of the
Præparatio Evangelica of Eusebius (see Updike, pp234–239
for a detailed description and samples; see also Chappell
and Bringhurst, A Short History of the Printed Word, p113).
Greek types produced in the last century continued to
be based largely on – or at least were designed to be
compatible with – existing letterforms: Matthew Carter’s
Optima Greek on Hermann Zapf’s Optima, Zapf’s Attika on
Wilhelm Pischner’s Neuzeit, Adrian Frutiger’s Univers Greek
on his own Univers, and so on (see Livingston, “Sidenote on
Greek Type” in Fine Print on Type, pp114–116).
Two of the most beautiful of the 20th century Greek
types were those of the book and type designer, Jan van
Krimpen. Antigone (1928), designed for compatibility with
van Krimpen’s Lutetia (produced four years earlier) was
intended for use in mathematical texts, but its calligraphic
nature led Walter Tracy to conclude that “it is better suited
76
to literary...texts” (Tracy, Letters of Credit, pp105–106).
Van Krimpen later designed a Greek companion to his
Romulus (originally released in 1936; now produced
by the Dutch Type Library). This design was based on
van Krimpen’s belief that “there should be as little
differentiation [between Roman and Greek] forms as
possible” (Tracy, p112). Some of the serifed as well as
unfamiliar features led Tracy to suggest that van Krimpen
“allow[ed] theory to overset practical sense” and to
conclude that “Romulus Greek mixed with Romulus Roman
does not harmonize with it; it becomes confused with it”
(p113). I disagree with Tracy’s analysis and feel that, in the
example shown on p113, roman and Greek are ideally
compatible. But then I am admittedly rather poor at mixing
roman and Greek and have nothing like Tracy’s expertise.
A renaissance in the production of Greek types began in
the 1970s, when Mergenthaler Linotype, at the urging of
Costas Chryssochoides, produced Baskerville, Century
Schoolbook, Helvetica, Optima, Souvenir, and Times Roman
Greeks (Livingston, p114). A look at Precision Type’s Font
Reference Guide (v5), issued in 1995, shows that, sadly, this
selection had not appreciably expanded for nearly 25 years.
But in the mid-to-late 1990s, with the implementation of
the expanded character set prescribed by Unicode, perhaps
coupled with a desire of some vendors to produce highquality, Greek fonts that were compatible with existing
Romans, yet another Renaissance would occur. TrueType
faces with Greek characters would include Georgia,
Tahoma, Trebuchet, and Verdana. And PostScript Greek
fonts included, among many others, the digital version of
Chris Brand’s Albertina, Robert Slimbach’s Minion (issued as
a component of Minion’s OpenType variant) and Warnock,
Bitstream’s digitization of Antique Olive, Optima, and
Univers, as well as several others.
The company that currently seems to emphasize the
77
production of Greek faces to the largest extent is FSI.
Recently, under the FontFont imprint, it has released Greek
versions of Celeste, DIN, Isonorm, Meta, and Providence;
and as part of the “Instant Types” family of Just van
Rossum, it has issued Greek variants of Confidential,
Dynamoe, Flightcase, Karton, and Stamp Gothic. And with
release 31 of the FontFont library, Greek types are now
available in all weights of Meta, as well as for Alega and
Elementa.
All of the Greek fonts issued by FontFont, as well as most
by Bitstream and others, are monotonic – literally, of
single pitch – but meaning that the vowels in the Greek
alphabet are accompanied by few diacritical marks. Indeed,
practically speaking, modern Greek does not use them, but
classical Greek does. Greek alphabets that include them are
referred to as polytonic; the aforementioned TrueType faces
include the polytonic variants, as do several of the Linotype
faces adapted in the 1970s.
To be more specific, and perhaps more clear, these
polytonic faces are distinguished by their diacritical marks,
which may be classified into four groups:
1. accents: acute, circumflex, and grave
2. breathing marks: rough and smooth
3. the iota subscript
4. the diaersis
The polytonic alphabet also may include special characters,
such as the lunate and final sigma.
One vendor deserves special mention in conjunction with
polytonic faces, and that is the Greek Font Society, based
in Athens. It has recently issued polytonic variants of
Bodoni and Didot as well as the more commonly known
Porson Greek and New (or Neo) Hellenic. Porson Greek
– an elegant, sloped Greek face – was actually designed in
the early 19th century by the classicist, Richard Porson. In
78
the 20th century it became associated with the texts of the
Loeb Classical Library, the Oxford Classical Texts series, and
the Greek texts of St. Martin’s Press, to name a few. Victor
Scholderer’s subtly serifed New Hellenic is the standard
face of the Cambridge Classics series. For more detailed
descriptions and samples of these latter two faces in text,
see Bringhurst, pp108–109, 256–261. I should add that
some versions of Greek Font Society faces are designed
specifically for use with a specialized typesetting program
for scholars, called GreekKeys.
In the digital age, the purview of type design has expanded
to include mathematicians and computer scientists. Twenty
years ago, Donald Knuth produced a sloped Greek face as
a part of his Computer Modern family for use with TeX (see
Knuth, The TeXbook; see also Knuth’s Digital Typography,
1999). Knuth also collaborated with Hermann Zapf to
produce AMS Euler, a calligraphic Greek commissioned
by the American Mathematical Society, and designed to
be compatible with Knuth’s Concrete Roman (see Knuth,
Digital Typography, pp339–365 for an interesting account
of this collaboration).
The MathTime face, a collection of Greek characters and
mathematical symbols, was issued in the early 1990s by
Y&Y and was designed to work with Linotype Times in the
typesetting systems TeX or LaTeX. Mathematicians have
used MathTime with other Roman faces as well (see Hoenig,
TeX Unbound, pp316–344 for examples). I have found that
MathTime works particularly well, requiring few necessary
adjustments, with Linotype Janson Text and Linotype
Sabon. And Lucida Greek, designed by Charles Bigelow
and Kris Holmes (see Holmes, “Designing a New Greek
Type” in Fine Print on Type, p130) is available in TrueType
format in standard issue as well as in PostScript format
from Y&Y and has provided mathematical typographers a
bolder alternative to Computer Modern or MathTime. More
adventurous mathematicians can also use faces such as FF
79
Celeste, DIN, or Meta, for mathematical typography that
gets noticed.
I have not described the Cyrillic alphabet, which has
enjoyed similar renaissances, and is perhaps available in an
even wider variety of faces than Greek. This is only because
I have some experience with the Greek alphabet and none
with the Cyrillic. But whether it be a Moscow-based daily
newspaper, a Greek scholar’s dissertation, or a statistician’s
monograph, the rapidly evolving world of digital type, with
its room for expanded character sets, is providing for easier,
more flexible, and ever-clearer written communication.
02-November 2002
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loire: 12 of 20
I wish I knew more about Jean Lochu and his work, for
he created, in my opinion, two of the more elegant, welldesigned faces of the late 1990s. His Selune, in which the
influences of Grandjean and Firmin Didot appear to shine
through, was developed in 1998 and is replete with Greek
and Cyrillic versions. And Loire, released in the previous
year, conveys the spirit of two other French printers and
punchcutters – that of Fournier in the Roman and Granjon
in the italic.
But Lochu is no mere interpreter of his predecessors, nor
does he intend to be. That he is a calligrapher by training
is apparent in Loire; the highly drawn, hybrid numerals, the
extended, abrupt serifs, and the unusually high dots on i
and j are just a few of the features that distinguish it. Loire
and Selune are both available through Agfa-Monotype.
25-October 2002
80
tex 2: slightly more concrete ramblings
But I didn’t tell you where to get it or how to install it and
actually produce documents, did I? Nope.
First, go to the site of CTAN (The Comprehensive TeX
Archive Network). It is everything TeX, and if it’s your first
visit, you will need some direction.
- Click on “Look through,” which will take you to the root
directory.
- Scroll down to “systems” and click. Amiga? Atari? Yes, no
one is left out. Windows users will click on win32, the last
entry, and Mac users will stop at, well, mac.
From here on, I can only write with some knowledge about
Windows. Five percent of you? Less? Is this where you hit
the back button on your browser?
(Yes, it all happened long ago, and under duress. I’ll see
you back on the other side before long, however. I know
nothing about using TeX/LaTeX on a Mac but this: OzTeX
installs very easily and is a breeze to use (on CTAN under
systems/mac), and Textures is appealing largely because of
its on-the-fly DVI processing. Request the demo.)
So, now that we’re a much smaller group – oh, it’s just you?
- Click on win32, then click on miktex, which is, as the
caption states, “a free [and very complete] TeX distribution
for MS-Windows32.” This has evolved over the years into
an amazing package. Christian Schenk should get some
kind of damn big prize for his continual expansion and
improvement of it.
- Click on setup. Oh, by the way, are you an instructionreader? (What is your Myers-Briggs profile?) If so, read
install.html or install.pdf; if not, proceed directly to
setup.exe and save to disk.
- Select the “Download only” radio button, hit next, and
then select “Small.” It ain’t so small, really. Here, small is
81
pretty huge, but the world of TeX has grown so incredibly
over the past few years that “Large” is simply freaking
incomprehensible.
- Proceed onward and pick a country. Yes, your own. Finally,
pick a folder to which you will download.
- Let the setupwiz application take you where it will.
At this point, you are good to go – that is, if you are content
to use Wordpad or Notepad as a text editor. If you want
something more – something with a customizable interface
that is tailored to TeX – you may wish to try WinEdt. It’s a
shareware program; if you like it and want to keep using it,
you pay $30–$70 after the 31-day trial period has elapsed.
The “customizable” part has a steep learning curve, but I
view the application as indispensable. You may download
here or from CTAN under /systems/winedt.
Delay no longer; set some text. Within miktex/tex/latex/
base is a file called sample2e.tex. Process it using LaTeX,
and then view the result using YAP (or, if using WinEdt, hit
the DVI or PDFLaTeX buttons). You’re well on your way.
Finally, you’ll need a book. The one to which I invariably
return is Lamport’s LaTeX: A Document Preparation System
(2nd ed.). Slim but dense; doesn’t include all of the latest
refinements, but serves as an excellent base. If you want to
use PostScript fonts right away, seek out Alan Hoenig’s TeX
Unbound or The LaTeX Graphics Companion, by Goosens,
Rahtz, and Mittelbach.
22-October 2002
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month, date, and type...
I was getting a little anxious.
Suddenly it was October – time to tear down the previous
month and to wonder once again whether I should fold
82
carefully and archive, and to lament once again the fact that
I didn’t order two.
Just ITC New Baskerville, Walker, and Bodoni Poster left,
and then what? Would my conversation piece – my sole
on-the-job connection to typography – leave a permanent
lacuna?
No! A new one is on its way, courtesy of Kit Hinrichs
at Pentagram. But why should I get so excited about a
calendar?
Well, in a discipline in which control, restraint, and subtlety
have their rightful place, something that shouts and
celebrates is a welcome addition. And nothing quite sings
the praises of typography like Pentagram’s Typographic
Calendar. The 2003 version – Hinrichs’s third – is on sale
soon at Crate & Barrel, SFMOMA, and Design Within
Reach, and is available for the first time in large and small
sizes.
You can have your times and your eternities, too.... Buy one
for the moment; save one for posterity.
17-October 2002
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
interesting...
A few weeks back, I wrote that the lower case, roman a is
the most useful letter in the alphabet when attempting to
identify a typeface; I justified this on the basis that it is “the
most visually interesting and complex letter...”
Huh?
Had my 11th grade English teacher read this post, she
would have printed it off, circled offending, unsubstantiated
claim in broad, red, felt-tip ink, and screamed, “SO WHAT?”
And so I’ll try again; call this a second draft. Or at least an
83
attempt at a clarifying footnote.
Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style begins
with a “historical synopsis” – four pages in which eight
typefaces, each of which is representative of a time and
genre, are dissected into their constituent characteristics.
Bringhurst focuses on five:
(1) aperture: the openings in letters such as a, e, and s
(2) axis (or stress): the angle of the pen
(3) contrast: the ratio of stroke thickness to thinness
(4) serif: the stroke that may be added to a stem, arm, or
tail
(5) terminal: the ending of the arm in letters such as a, f,
and r
Taken together, these five features aid us in attempting to
identify typefaces; I propose here that of the letters in the
roman lower case, only the letter a can potentially provide
information about all five. This is certainly not true of all
typefaces; indeed, it perhaps holds only for some serifed
faces.
Let’s try an experiment. I show here, in the roman lower
case of Christopher Burke’s FF Celeste, all five of these
characteristics in the letter a. I also attempt to show if, and
in what number, they are present in the other letters. For
example, three of them are present in b: axis, contrast, and
serif. And only one characterizes l: serif.
The point I wish to reinforce is that, while there are types
of characters (think Plato: versions of b, of k, and so on),
the roman lower case a, from an information-content
standpoint, best illustrates the character of the type. It is
the face of the alphabetic corpus, the richest source of each
font’s physiognomy. And perhaps of each font’s personality,
84
too; but personality is a topic for another time, another
post.
15-October 2002
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
homage...
So, I finally got my act together the other night and made
some time for 24 Hour Party People. It was my Forrest
Gump; a big-time nostalgia trip through my Anglophilic,
particularly Mancunian, musical past (save Happy Mondays).
While Billy Squier, David Lee Roth, and Steve Perry
inexplicably touched the hearts and minds of my peers,
they had nothing to say to me. But Ian Curtis – and Bernard
Sumner, in Curtis’s wake – did.
But it wasn’t just the words or the music of Joy Division
and New Order; it was the whole package. You see, what I
felt upon opening a new Factory records release can only
inadequately be described as a kind of Gestalt, visuotactile
adrenalin surge. Carefully working through layers of plastic,
cardboard, and adhesive, the sacred, Schliemannian ritual
began with the removal of transparent tape from the clear,
plastic sleeve (the sure badge of an import) that enveloped
said cardboard. Separation of plastic and paper yielded
only another, inner layer of plastic – this one semi-opaque
– that was the static-charged conduit to the grooves
themselves.
Label was checked for proper turntable rate, and that
having been set, needle hit vinyl. Oh yes, back then, an
album or dance single meant a record – a 12-inch, vinyl disc
– and the cardboard encasement therefore provided a large
canvas for cover art.
This canvas was what one looked at, admired, and
interpreted while listening to the music. Of the three
senses that Joy Division and New Order could conceivably
85
penetrate, one was affected through words and music;
the other two, through sight and touch. And the person
responsible for shaping what we saw and felt, for defining
and honing the Factory image, is a designer named Peter
Saville.
Saville (his character, that is) has a small part in the onscreen account, but those who followed the Factory saga
know that his real role was an essential one; image was
tantamount to music according to the Wilsonian credo.
Indeed, every Factory action, whether it be a New Order
release, the Hacienda opening, or the Hannett settlement,
was enumerated, and a Saville creation accompanied most
of these.
But what was it about Saville’s work for Factory that is
worth remembering? During a period of cover design that
embraced the spacey (think Boston), the silly (think Devo),
the hokey (think Supertramp), the otherworldly (think
anything 4AD), Saville simply chose the thoughtful and the
beautiful.
As an example of the former, consider the cover of New
Order’s 1984 single, Confusion. The importance of the
numeric index was writ large and in violet; eight-inch high
Gill Sans figures told those in the know that this was release
93. But it was reiterated subtly; the color strip on the upper
right edge spells “FAC93” in a code created by Saville (see
the back of the previous year’s Power, Corruption & Lies
for the decoder wheel). And the bitmapped title was, well,
confusing indeed. The C could just as well be an O or an N;
the O might be a B; the N approached H or W; and so on.
And as for the latter, the design of the aforementioned
album was a risky departure: a still-life painting by Henri
Fantin-Latour. Said Saville in a 1995 Eye interview, “In 1983,
when I put flowers on the cover of Power, Corruption &
Lies, we hadn’t seen flowers in pop culture since the 1960s.
But fashion designer Scott Crolla was buying Sanderson
86
fabric and Georgina Godley was running it up into dresses
and there was this buzz about Flower Power coming back.”
There is a resurgence of interest in Saville; he is enjoying
what Neil Tennant might call a second “imperial” phase:
The movie, a forthcoming book by Emily King, and a recent
article in The New York Times.
The floral metaphor of annuals and perennials has been
extended to typefaces (see Michael Twyman’s quote in
King’s dissertation), and so too may it apply more generally
to graphic design. The work of Peter Saville reminds us,
perennially, of the powerful role design plays in our lives.
Other links:
(1) Eye interview with Rick Poynor
(2) Dennis Remmer’s Factory Records Discography
(3) New York Times article by Horacio Silva
08-October 2002
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themix: 11 of 20
I brake for Aveda ads. No, it’s not the thought of having an
auto-aromatherapeutic experience. No, it’s not the flow,
shape, or color of the coiffures. Rather, it’s the type, which
happens to be...TheMix. A third of the Thesis triumvirate
– halfway between TheSans and TheSerif – TheMix remains
spanking-fresh and vital eight years after its release. The
version shown is TheMix Office, which includes normal and
bold weights as well as hybrid figures. Designed by Luc(as)
de Groot and available through his LucasFonts.com.
07-October 2002
87
eureka: 10 of 20
Released by FSI in 1998, Peter Bilak’s FF Eureka is the
abruptly-serifed cornerstone of a font family that also
comprises sans, sans condensed, monospaced, and
monospaced condensed variants. Top prize winner at
the 19th International Biennale of Graphic Design, this
excellent, economical face is reminiscent of typewritten
letterforms yet contains elements of Venetian and Garalde
oldstyles. See also the designer’s rapidly expanding Fedra
family.
02-October 2002
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interview with jessica helfand
The topic of notable book jackets came and went on TYPOL a few months back, and I regret that I did not cast my
vote for the work of Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel
on Econometrics, by Fumio Hayashi. It’s certainly my
favorite jacket in my home library, whether the subject be
statistics/econometrics, design, or otherwise.
I recently asked Ms Helfand about the design of
Econometrics, as well as about her new book,
Reinventing the Wheel. My questions and her answers
follow:
JC: At what point did you realize that the author’s name
– Fumio Hayashi – and the title – Econometrics – had the
same number of characters (and that O was the fifth letter),
and that you could incorporate this into the design?
JH: It is, I think, fairly typical for designers to engage in an
exploratory sketching process when beginning to imagine a
potential design solution, and this is exactly what happened
here. As my knowledge of economics is fairly limited, I
thought it best to try and work with what I had: a long title
88
and byline can sometimes be untenable, but in this case it
was fortuitous.
JC: What is it about the design – specifically, the colors, the
type, the fine grid around the title and author’s name – that
might be linked to the field of econometrics?
JH: Let me be the first to admit that my knowledge of
mathematics and statistics is rather limited. However, to the
extent that design can approximate an idea, the justified
alignments were thought to loosely represent something
quantifiable and resolved – as opposed to, say, chaos
theory.
JC: How did you come to choose the typeface – FF Marten?
JH: FF Marten was designed by Martin Wenzel, a German
type designer who studied in the Netherlands. It’s very
geometric and elegant, yet quite readable as well. “Less is
more,” explains Wenzel in decribing his formal intentions
with this typeface. “Use it for ‘Loud and Clear.’” I thought
it provided a good balance between pragmatism and
expressiveness, a slightly more decorative take on the
practical.
JC: Could you describe your choice of the colors of the
letters in the title – mint, peach, and bronze – and their
interplay?
JH: The use of color in Japan is quite different than
in the west, and colors there have strong and specific
connotations. While Hayashi’s book is in English, I felt
that the fact that he is Japanese needed to somehow be
reflected on the cover. So the colors are, I suppose, an
attempt to create a harmonious palette that combines both
Eastern and Western sensibilities. I have to confess, though,
that the author and his wife are close personal friends of
mine: knowing them as I do, I had a sense that they would
like these color choices.
89
JC: I’m enjoying your new book, Reinventing the Wheel,
and I especially like the cover illustration, which is derived
from “The Wheel of Life,” on p 8. I also like your choice of
typefaces (Knockout, by Jonathan Hoefler, and Hightower,
by Tobias Frere-Jones). What led you to use them?
JH: In our studio we are big fans of Jonathan and of
Tobias, who teaches with me at Yale. (Let me take this
opportunity to say that Jonathan Hoefler’s new typeface,
Requiem, is nothing short of perfection. I would be
perfectly happy to use it for everything I ever design the
rest of my life. Period.) Knockout was originally designed
for Sports Illustrated, and included a suite of weights that
were intended for editorial display. These fonts condense
beautifully, and although the average viewer wouldn’t know
it, they are identified by qualifying titles wittily adapted
from the boxing ring (Welterweight, Heavyweight, etc.).
We felt that Knockout contrasted well with the quiet
elegance of Hightower, which was originally developed, as
I understand it, for the American Institute of Graphic Arts
and named for its former director, Carolyn Hightower. It’s
one of my favorites.
JC: Many of the wheels serve to provide objective,
quantitative answers to discrete questions. Others, such
as Arnold Palmer’s “Dial Your Problem” Golf Fixer (p 132)
or the Handwriting Analysis Wheel (p 134), provide more
nebulous, speculative solutions to qualitative questions.
In your experience, do you find that design questions or
problems can sometimes be reduced to formulaic solutions
such as those that a wheel might offer, or is there simply no
wheel big enough?
JH: In spite of the fact that all designers strive to resolve
ideas to the best of their abilities, I can’t say that design
solutions operate on the basis of finding a formula to arrive
at a solution. In fact, formulaic solutions to design problems
tend to restrict the kind of original thinking that makes
90
design worth doing in the first place. While design can and
does benefit from certain kinds of strategic thinking – the
modular systems that Le Corbusier introduced in his postwar architecture come to mind, patterns of modules that
repeated yet through variation and permutation, allowed
for different domestic needs to be met – I wouldn’t liken
this to the kind of finite, quantifiable evidence represented
in information wheels, or volvelles. But I still love them.
27-September 2002
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type spotlight: ff avance
While new typefaces appear with ever-increasing frequency,
few are truly novel. I consider Evert Bloemsma’s FF Avance
to be a pathbreaking typeface, due in large part to the
asymmetrical placement of the serifs, and I find his theory
and motivation behind it – as described on the FontFont
site – to be most compelling.
I recently asked Mr Bloemsma a few questions about
Avance and about his approach to type design via email.
My questions, and his answers to them, follow:
JC: The information piece about Avance on the FontFont
site is unique in that it presents a mini-theory of (serifed)
type design. But what was your primary goal with Avance?
To investigate the possibilities of a new serifed roman? Or
more generally, to produce a distinctive text face?
EB: My primary goal was to design a typeface suited for
long texts, containing small details like serifs for the eye
to hold, and with a fine/detailed visual appearance as
serifed type usually has. This is what I wrote about it: “First
I hesitated drawing serifs. The serif has many purposes
and possible origins, and it took some months before I
felt ready to handle this item. The serif may carry a burden
of outdated conventions, so applying serifs is risky when
91
trying to avoid the swamp of traditions. An expression of
static monumentality and ornament/decoration should be
avoided in contemporary type design.”
JC: Gerrit Noordzij writes “There is no essential difference
between typography and handwriting.” Fred Smeijers, on
the other hand, states: ”Writing, lettering, and typography
have in fact very little in common with each other, except
that all three processes use the signs that we call letters.”
Do you see Avance as an abstraction of an unusually written
face, or as more of a drawn face, relatively unconnected
with handwriting?
EB: I see it as relatively unconnected with handwriting. The
shape and direction of the serifs goes beyond the actual
origin of handwriting.
JC: There are some similarities between Avance and your
earlier sans-serif face, Balance; for example, the ratio of
cap height to x-height, the unique form of the roman s,
which seems wider at the top than at the bottom, and
the relatively large aperatures. Was Avance in any sense
intended to serve as a serifed companion to Balance?
EB: No, this must be due to my “personal style”. The
roman s of FF Avance is not really wider at the top as it is
with Balance; it may look like it but that is just because our
perception is very conditioned by conventions.
JC: Under whom did you train in type design, and where?
EB: Jan Vermeulen taught us some writing with the broad
nib and Alexander Verberne inspired me although I did not
participate in his lessons. All together I discovered most
aspects of type design myself. I studied the Art Academy in
Arnhem, The Netherlands, from 1976 to 1981.
JC: What tools do you use in type design?
EB: Fontographer.
92
JC: What are you working on now?
EB: Several special assignments concerning type design
and one new idea for a display typeface; it looks quite
commercial I must say; something I did not expect.
JC: What is your ideal project?
EB: To establish a whole new contemporary typographical
expression leaving all conventions behind but still selfevident and “natural”; a freedom like the modernist
architects created/discovered in the early 1900s.
On a related point, Bloemsma also has this to say: “Desktop
publishing (DTP) has lifted type to the meta-level of
digital media. Type is now cut off from its physical origins,
the roots that determined its shapes: handwriting and
letterpress. The return of features like ligatures and ‘oldstyle’ figures, the revival of monospaced fonts, and the
use of ‘rough’ types like Interstate and Bell Gothic for text
demonstrate our emotional desire for tradition, rooted
in limitations and a certain characteristic imperfection.
Paradoxically, DTP intended to liberate us from all
this. These contradictions present a dilemma in which
contemporary type design has to find its way.”
FF Avance is available in two weights (regular and bold),
and comes equipped with small caps and both text
and lining figures. Bloemsma has also designed the
aforementioned FF Balance and has recently expanded his
FF Cocon typeface.
25-September 2002
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typeface identification: it begins – and ends – with the
letter a
Take this quiz: Of the b’s shown in this palette, how
93
many do you know? If you’re a true typophile, you fared
respectably.
But when attempting to identify a typeface, is the b the
Rosetta stone that links feature to name? Probably not.
While the lower case f and g say a lot, the a tells the whole
story; but why so?
I would simply suggest that the lower case a is the most
visually interesting and complex letter in the alphabet.
There is so much room for variation in the overhang and
bowl; indeed, while one can do only so much with the
strokes of the other letters, it seems that those of the a can
assume myriad forms.
In Counterpunch, Fred Smeijers begins with some support
for this idea: “Why would the punchcutter make three
[a’s]? Maybe because this is a weak punch that breaks
easily? I do not think so...I think the reason could be this:
the punchcutter just liked to make these a’s. Just as these
days a young type designer might love to draw an a in idle
moments....”
Take the quiz again; same typefaces, same order. How’d
you do this time?
Answers (left to right):
Avenir
ITC New Baskerville
Berling
Centaur
Century Schoolbook
Courier New
Dante
Ehrhardt
Simoncini Garamond
Gill Sans
Linotype Janson Text
Joanna
94
Linotype Syntax
Meta
Minion
PMN Caecilia
Perpetua
Linotype Sabon
Scala Sans
Times New Roman
20-September 2002
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meta: 9 of 20
Meta is everywhere, and why not? The highly readable
“Helvetica of the 1990s” is available in normal and
condensed widths in five weights, and over an eight-year
span, has been expanded to include CE, Turkish, Baltic,
Greek, and Cyrillic versions. Designed by Erik Spiekermann;
see also his Officina Sans and (with Ole Schaefer) Info.
16-September 2002
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tex ramblings...
Didn’t really think about type until 1994. Due to graduate
studies, I was accumulating statistics books – mostly small
and green (Chapman and Hall), big and yellow (Springer).
Varied colors and sizes, but just one type. Light, clean, and
nowhere on my PC. What was it?
The copyright page provided a clue: “Camera-ready copy
from the author’s TeX files.” I naively and impulsively got
VTeX and embarked on an odyssey of trial and error. Much
error, and so I bought two books: Arvind Borde’s TeX by
Example and Donald Knuth’s The TeXBook. The first was
exactly what I needed – a guidebook containing code of
95
varied complexity and length. Copy, change to suit, and
correct. The second book – by the program’s author – made
me laugh, left me awestruck, and provided a glimpse into
the world of typography.
I learned that there were different flavors – plain TeX, LaTeX
– and that it didn’t need to be bought. Right there for free
on CTAN. With MiKTeX on the back end and WinEdt on the
front, I could produce clean, mathematical copy. For me, at
that time, TeX was more about logic and practicality than
about typography.
Turned out I didn’t yet know what typography was. But four
summers later – hot and sleepless – my newborn son David
needed to be held 24 hours a day. And I needed something
to read during his intermittent slumber. It was Bringhurst; I
read and reread, and learned about the art of typography.
Much more than the mechanics of getting the right letter
to appear on the page. To this day, my only truly dog-eared
book. Own two copies.
Marrying Bringhurst and Knuth wasn’t easy. Transcending
Computer Modern and incorporating PostScript fonts
required Alan Hoenig’s TeX Unbound. Fontinst, pltotf,
and vptovf, and I was using MathTime with everything
from Adobe Garamond (the La Bohéme of type?) to Scala.
Incorporated text figures (j-option) and ligatures. Tried
– and failed miserably – at Hoenig’s MathInst; cheated by
simply changing the style file. But I had moved from typing
to setting type.
All in all, I used TeX to set 10 papers in the neurosciences,
several more in Devanagari and Greek with my wife for her
work in the humanities, and countless variations on cover
letters and resumes as I ventured out into the “real world.”
I still use TeX at work a little, but not so much any more
at home; InDesign has made it all too easy. But when I
have time, I try new bits of code. There is such power and
96
economy to TeX – small, device-independent files, and not
an extra penny to Mr Gates. Amazing things can be done
with it – take a look at Don Hosek’s work on Serif.
Have you thought about getting TeX going on your system?
If so, but unsure of where to start, drop me a line. I’d be
happy to help.
07-September 2002
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he cried his eyes out
I worked with Linotype Janson Text and Linotype Sabon
yesterday. Doubleheader, and I went two for two. What a
privilege to set type using a couple of the most beautiful
text faces in existence! No pretense, no eccentricities – just
regal strength. And a strength that was preserved and even
reinforced in the transition from metal to bits.
What a letdown I had today, then, to use another Linotype
digitization.
Electra – in metal – is one of my favorite book faces of all.
Somehow so distinctive and so transparent. Pick up a few
American books of the 50s and you’ll find Electra and will
feel the force of it. A pioneering design, and one of the few
original faces of the 20th century. But surely Dwiggins is
rolling now, and for good reason. For his first serifed face
became emaciated upon digitization and there is little hope
of it fattening up anytime soon.
Bringhurst writes of digital translations that are too faithful
to the originals. The translation of Electra is perhaps faithful
to the metal matrices, but not to the impression of ink into
paper.
But never mind that. Eager to build your type library,
you recall the letterpress-induced robustness of it in your
97
parents’ college texts, you see the anti-aliased gifs of its
digitized version at 72 pt, and then...the music begins to
play. One of the strangest medleys you’ve ever heard, too:
A bizarre mix of “God Bless America,” “Misty,” and “Feelin’
Massachusetts.” Swooning and dizzy, you license.
You fire up InDesign (and wait...and wait a little more) and
proceed to set some text. You print at increasingly large
sizes. Twelve point isn’t quite dark enough; neither are 14 or
16 or 18. You attempt to diagnose; where is the problem?
Do you need a new ink cartridge? Were you using some
kind of light weight that you didn’t know about? After
fifteen minutes of fretting, fussing, and unsuccessful fixing,
you begin your procession through the five stages of grief.
1. Denial: “I didn’t really just...did I? No, couldn’t have. I’m
sure I cancelled at the last minute again. Logged right off, I
did. Yup.”
2. Anger: “Goddammit, who the hell digitized this? If I
spoke even a shred of intelligible German, I would call up
Linotype right now and give them a piece of my mind, I
would...!”
3. Bargaining: “Dear God, if I take a little coffee break and
my new font looks heavier when I come back, I’ll start going
to church again.”
4. Depression: “Just...just screw this whole typography
thing. Nobody really notices this stuff anyway, do they?
Real small caps, fake small caps...lining numerals, old style
numerals...hyphens, en dashes...who cares? Besides, Times
New Roman isn’t all that bad.”
5. Acceptance: “Yes, I bought versions 1 and 2. Display type
included, along with those Caravan border thingies. Oh
98
well, it’s a piece of history, right?”
Don’t get me started on Granjon.
01-September 2002
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bit behind, i am
FontFont 2002 catalogue arrived in the mail on Friday. Um,
yeah...you’ve had yours for half a year now. Truth is, I wrote
in to request a copy of font 002 and the catalogue tagged
along. This is a good thing; looking at the fonts online
is nice, but seeing them on paper is a necessity. You’ve
already formulated your thoughts; here are a few of mine.
The first thing I noticed is that the catalogue is thicker (no
surprise), expanding from 144 to 192 pages. The second is
that it’s roomier; more white space, and some of the stock
samples are now large enough to be useful.
Third, the categories – once a bit arbitrary – have been
reduced in number from nine to six. Gone are Geometric,
Intelligent, and Destructive, and several of the faces
formerly therein have found their way into Typographic.
One could still make some arguments for misidentification
(Why aren’t Hardcase, Maverick, Karbid, and Schulbuch
typographic?), but overall, the arrangement makes sense.
Fourth, larger font families are now supplemented with
matrices of weight by style, providing for a quick read on
the combinations available.
Fifth, and finally, the notes are now in Mike Abbink’s Kievit
(2001), replacing Spiekermann and Schaefer’s Info. I’ve
developed a new appreciation for this open, unserifed face.
Kievit might conjure up Myriad or Frutiger, though it is
not as restrained as either. It’s available in six weights and
includes text figures and expert characters. It is just one of
99
the several new faces issued semiannually by FSI that make
the FontFont 2002 catalogue a necessary part of one’s
specimen book library and the FontFont collection the most
comprehensive – and perhaps the most important – series
of new types today.
19-August 2002
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mrs eaves: 8 of 20
Of course; it’s ubiquitous, after all. Plant yourself anywhere
in a Barnes and Noble, swivel, and you’ll spot this
Baskerville revival/parody gracing a cover or two. You won’t
likely find it on the pages, however; it’s a face that demands
attention, rather than one that invites reading.
The crown jewel of the Emigre empire – and IMHO, one of
the outstanding offerings of the 90s – is now available in
OpenType format. Those 213 ligatures should be easier to
implement than ever before.
19-August 2002
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a whole slew of ‘em
A few weeks ago, I wrote that the new Linotype Syntax,
with its added weights, small caps, and text figures, was
the best deal in type. A close second must be Bitstream’s
Cambridge Collection. For under $200US you get, among
others, Bitstream Amerigo, Arrus, Charter, and Iowan Old
Style, 18 weights/widths of Futura, Oranda, Serifa, and
Venetian 301 (Centaur). Alas, no expert sets here; you’ll
have to supplement as needed. (Parenthetical double
alas: Bitstream apparently no longer sells its 500 Font CD,
which I obtained two years ago for a ridiculously low price.)
Nonetheless, if you want to want to get your hands on a
100
few styles of two of the most underrated typefaces in recent
memory – yes, Arrus and Iowan Old Style (both recently
expanded) – and then some, this is the CD (dual platform)
for you.
14-August 2002
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comparing typefaces 2: seria and scala
Template Gothic was not the face of the 1990s (see
Blackwell, p144); Scala was. Designed and expanded
throughout the decade by Martin Majoor, Scala is a
cohesive Joanna – a fresh, elegant slab-serif face that is
deservedly well-used.
I had used Scala and its unserifed companion successfully
in several text applications in the late 1990s, and so when I
opened my FontFont 2000 catalog to find a new face from
Majoor – called Seria – I did not hesitate to download and
start setting text.
I quickly realized that Seria was a beautiful, complex
typeface, yet I was unsatisfied with the printed output and
didn’t quite know why. And to this day – still somewhat
puzzled – I have yet to find the “right” application for it.
And so I am beginning to investigate...
At first glance, Scala and Seria are essentially the same face
by the same artist; one might conclude initially that several
of the lower case romans appear to differ only in the extent
of the ascender or descender. A closer look, however,
reveals that the faces are more like cousins than twins – of
the same pedigree yet distinct in physiognomy. To compare
the two in a sentence, Scala is a chiseled, neoclassical
face with a relatively large x-height; Seria is a humanistRenaissance hybrid with its long ascenders and descenders
and its modulated stroke. And to compare them more
systematically and in more detail, I have made some lists of
101
points of differentiation and have included figures for each
major component of both faces.
Lower case roman
In this figure, the lower case romans of Scala and Seria
are shown normalized to x-height. Doing so requires that
Seria be multiplied by about 25%. After normalization, the
strokes of Seria are 15–20% heavier, the letters are 5–15%
wider, and the ascenders and descenders are around 45–
55% longer.
But it is not the dimension of Seria’s lower case roman
that defines its character. Rather, it is a motif that is seen
throughout the face – a motif that is established and
repeated in the counters. Begin with c, d, e, and p; you will
see that the top-center regions of the counters are relatively
horizontal and straight. As you move to the left, you see
that the bowl thickness sharply increases to form a counter
angle of around 60–70°. A more comprehensive look will
reveal this motif in the ascender of the f and the descender
of the j; indeed, it is present in all letters but b, i, k, l, t, and
v–z.
Another prominent difference between Scala and Seria is
in the serifs. Whereas those of Scala are defined largely
by 90° angles, the serifs of Seria have a concave base with
a convex join to the stroke; the letter k shows this clearly,
both in arm and leg.
Other notable features:
- the crossbar of the f also shows the concavity/ convexity
- the rightmost strokes of h, m, and n are not vertical;
rather, they curve inward
- in contrast to Scala, the bowls of b and q completely close
the counters
- the first two stems of w are joined by an extended serif
102
Lower case italic
“It is true that most romans are upright and most italics
slope to the right – but flow, not slope, is what really
differentiates the two,” writes Robert Bringhurst (p56). The
italics of Seria serve as a case in point. While the italics of
Scala slope at about 8°, those of Seria do so at only about
1–2°; nonetheless, there is no mistaking them for roman
forms.
One similarity between the italics of the two faces is the
distinctive lower case y, in which the stem of the letter
lies to the left, rather than the right, and the descender is
roughly centered. A notable difference between the two,
however, is seen in the letter f, in which that of Seria breaks
away from Scala’s form by extending a straight, serifed
descender below the baseline in a manner a la Jan van
Krimpen’s Romanee.
The form of the counters links Seria’s italic to its roman; the
aforementioned motif is preserved and is seen in all letters
save i, k, l, s, t, and v–z.
Upper case roman
The upper case roman in Scala seems to be about right
angles; indeed, stems and serifs in E, F, H, I, L, and T
combine to create perpendicular forms. As expected,
there is more curvature in the upper case romans of Seria.
Compare the Ks; in Seria the arm and leg gracefully curve
away from the stem; those of Scala shoot out linearly. And
compare the Rs; the leg of the R in Seria extends, tapers,
and ends well below the baseline. Finally, note that the
angular-counter motif is absent in the upper case.
Also:
- the serifs are more prominent in Seria than in Scala; on
letters such as B and D, they stretch relatively far to the left
of the stem
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- to achieve equal cap height, Seria must be enlarged by
about 15%
- while the bowl of the P is open in Scala, it is closed
completely in Seria
Upper case italic
In Scala, the major distinguishing feature of the italic caps is
the slant; in Seria, the italic caps do not slant at all but are
marked by increased curvature, and some letters approach
swash form – see J, K, N, T, and Y. Note also the prominent
tail in Q.
Numerals
The roman numerals in Scala and Seria are very similar;
a major difference is the modulated stroke of the zero in
Seria.
Comparing the italics, those of Seria have more ornate
forms – notice the curl of the descenders of 5 and 7 and the
open counters in 8. Compare also the numeral 1, which is
bilaterally serifed in Seria and unilaterally so in Scala.
Andy Crewdson wrote about Scala and Seria several months
back. I forget some of the particulars, but I do recall his
praise for the new face. I also recall that, as I read, there
was no hint of disappointment in Mr Crewdson’s experience
with it. I felt a bit stupid as a result; why hadn’t I been
satisfied with any of my attempts to set text in Seria?
I believe that the answer may lie in the relationship between
the angular beauty of the face and the conditions under
which I normally print. One of Bringhurst’s principles (6.1.3,
p94) is: “Choose faces that will survive, and if possible
prosper, under the final printing conditions.” Twelve pt at
600 dpi – while perfectly sufficient for Scala – will simply not
do for Seria.
The angular motif, the subtle tapers, and the curvature of
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Seria’s letterforms are all there for a reason – to be seen,
not smudged. And to be seen adequately requires high
quality in both printer and paper; this is a typeface that
deserves to be treated with the same care that the designer
applied in its creation.
Somewhat equipped with an answer, I’ll continue to
investigate, more aware of Seria’s limitations, and more
aware also that its limitations derive from its exquisite form.
11-August 2002
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interview with eric olson
Eric Olson is a Minneapolis-based type designer whose
studio – Process Type Foundry – specializes in fonts for
custom and retail use.
I recently asked Mr Olson to discuss his philosophy and
practice:
JC: What is your training in typography?
EO: While studying graphic design at the University of
Minnesota, I had very little formal typographic training.
In general, we studied the mechanics of the trade-page
layout, color theory, print production, mark-making, etc...
For better or worse, I learned much of what I know about
typography and type design through independent study.
My greatest resources for learning have been specimen
books, typefaces, and other designers, not to mention
trial and error. It was several years after designing my first
typeface that I actually released a font. Although a digital
typeface can be created very rapidly, I spent those years
developing a solid understanding of letterforms, spacing,
kerning and font production.
JC: Your typefaces – Elderkin and Process Grotesque,
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in particular – draw inspiration from late 19th/early 20th
century grotesques. Why this class of typefaces?
EO: I didn’t consider either face on these terms. I’m a
big fan of solid and straightforward typefaces with a little
something extra to offer. The original grotesques have that
extra something so their influence on my work is inevitable.
JC: Who do you design type for (i.e., who is your intended
user or audience)?
EO: Because I was trained both academically and
professionally as a graphic designer, I design what I think I
would use or need. I work within the parameters of actual
projects and think, would I actually use this?
I’m also interested in creating typefaces for designers who
are actively shaping visual culture. The popularity of faces
like Helvetica, Franklin Gothic, Akzidenz Grotesk, and
Univers still amazes me. They are masterful faces, but they
are also tied mechanically and conceptually to a specific era
– regardless of their supposed neutrality. In turn, they have
become out of place in current design because they do not
reflect our time. Eventually, I hope to create typefaces for
work that embodies our current environment.
JC: Why did you choose to distribute the typeface
Indivisible free of charge?
EO: The face was an experiment. I wanted to see if people
would actually use a free typeface regularly. I find monos
really useful, especially for grading student papers and
general utility so I’m curious to see if others will do the
same. It’s unlikely that I’ll keep the face up for very long.
It is something I made to amuse myself while working on
larger type families.
JC: Who is your inspiration/who, among typographers or
designers, do you admire most?
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EO: For type designers my list includes Matthew Carter,
Fred Smeijers, Adrian Frutiger, Gerard Unger, Peter Bilak,
Jonathan Hoefler, Zuzana Licko, Peter Matthias Noordzij,
John Downer – the list goes on and on. There are too many
to name.
Many of my biggest influences, however, are within the
larger field of design. I’m impressed with any well thought
out, functional design object: American automobiles
of the 50s, the furniture of Charles and Ray Eames, the
posters of Josef Müller-Brockmann, the graphic design
of Karel Martens, and the furniture and graphic design of
Foundation 33, just to name a few. I am inspired by work
that seizes the technology, opportunity, and atmosphere of
its time, and channels it into a meaningful design solution.
JC: What are you working on now?
EO: Currently I’m finishing up a yet unnamed typeface
based on the mechanical lettering of the Wrico lettering
system. It will be my first publicly released family of
typefaces containing a full range of weights and alternate
character sets. Additionally, I’m working on a typeface
proposal/commission for the Design Institute at the
University of Minnesota to accompany the Twin Cities
Design Celebration 2003.
JC: What tools do you use in font production?
EO: I try to keep things as simple as possible. All of my
drawing is done in Adobe Illustrator 8. From there I paste
directly into Fontographer 4.1.5. I use Fontographer for
all of my spacing, kerning and testing. I always generate
working beta versions and test them sometimes for several
months. After I have everything tied up and I’m satisfied,
I import the files into Fontlab 3 for hinting and final file
preparation.
JC: What is your ideal type project?
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EO: Something with a conceptual framework and relevance
to current culture and technology. A tall order!
Process Type currently offers five typefaces:
(1) Elderkin - based on early 20th century gothics, (2) FIG inspired by the FIGlet application, (3) Kettler - a revisitation
of and tribute to Howard Kettler’s Courier, (4) Process
Grotesque - an “aggressive” descendant of the Stephenson
and Blake model, and (5) Indivisible - a 10 pitch monospace,
which, as aforementioned, is currently available for free
download.
02-August 2002
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go figure
Sooner or later, you’ll want to (or have to) make a graph.
Many software programs can do this, and many books
tell you how. But if you really care about the appearance
of your graph, and perhaps more importantly, about the
clear communication of the information contained therein,
there is relatively little software flexible enough to give you
ideal control of the parameters, and there are only a few
guidebooks worth reading.
I’ll cover graphing software in more detail in another entry,
and I’ll focus primarily on two programs – called SigmaPlot
and S-Plus (available, unfortunately, only to users of
Microsoft Windows; a freeware program called R, however,
shares many of the features of S-Plus) – that enable the
easy creation of publication-quality graphs of many kinds.
Here, I’ll focus on a few of the guidelines or rules to follow
when making graphs, and I’ll illustrate these rules using
only one kind of plot – the scatterplot. In addition, I’ll pair
bad examples with good ones, and I’ll explain why the rules
work.
These rules aren’t mine; they have been formulated and
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put into practice by many researchers before me. But the
person who has perhaps done the most and best work to
understand the theory and practice of statistical graphs,
and to consolidate and illustrate these rules, is William
Cleveland. His book, The Elements of Graphing Data, is to
graph-makers and statisticians what Robert Bringhurst’s The
Elements of Typographic Style is to typographers. It is a
how-to compendium of graph-making, and is indispensable
to those of us who plot data on a routine basis.
Cleveland’s overarching message is: Draw the eye to
the data; treat the data fairly and carefully. Six of what I
consider Cleveland’s most important rules are:
(1) Use a pair of scale lines for each variable. Cleveland
makes a strong argument for table look-up here – that
“judging the scale value of a point by judging its position
along a scale line...is easier and more accurate as the
distance of the point from the scale line decreases.”
Compare figures 1a and 1b (made-up data set), and notice
how much easier table look-up is when two scale lines are
used for each variable, rather than just one.
(2) Make the data rectangle slightly smaller than the scaleline rectangle. In figure 2a, the data rectangle and the scaleline rectangle are coincident; some data points therefore
fall on the scale lines and are difficult to see. A “padding”
of 5% is added to the data rectangle in figure 2b; all data
points are contained within the scale-line rectangle and are
easily visualized.
(3) Use outward-pointing tick marks. Inward-pointing ticks,
as shown in figure 3a, simply add clutter to the interior of
the graph, and in my opinion, make table look-up more
difficult. Compare to figure 3b.
(4) Avoid slavishly including zero on the axes. Cleveland
here refers to the widely-read book by Darrell Huff – How to
Lie with Statistics – wherein Huff says that a graph without
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a zero line is dishonest. Cleveland argues that to include
zero, however, may result in a waste of space, and more
importantly, may interfere with our judgment of the data
(figure 4a). Therefore, fill the scale-line rectangle with the
data (figure 4b). Cleveland emphasizes: “Assume the viewer
will look at the tick mark labels and understand them.”
(5) Use open rather than filled symbols to mark the data
points. Invariably, some of the data will fall on or close to
the same coordinates; see the points that lie roughly at (26,
7) in figures 5a and 5b. They are hard to distinguish in 5a,
in which filled circles are used to denote the data, but the
overlap can clearly be seen in 5b.
(6) If summarizing the data or drawing the eye to them
with a line, use the line that best fits them. It is tempting to
superimpose a straight-line regression fit to the data – this
is the easiest (or only) option in some graphing programs
– but it may not be fair to the data or to the reader. The
data set used here has some curvature, and the straightline fit shown in figure 6a does not adequately represent
it. A technique called locally-weighted regression (loess
for short) draws a smooth curve to the data by connecting
locally fitted regions of data (figure 6b).
A review of The Elements of Graphing Data in
Meteorological Magazine states, “Ideally, everyone
interested in getting the most out of their data or
presenting data clearly and concisely should have a copy
handy.” My recommendation is no less enthusiastic. Buy,
read, and digest ($52.95US); the quality of your graphs will
improve, and the clarity of the information you convey will
increase dramatically.
23-July 2002
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syntax: 7 of 20
Syntax was designed by Hans Eduard Meier in the late
1960s and expanded in the year 2000 to include two
additional weights as well as small caps and text figures.
The canonical humanist sans-serif; inspired by Sabon. And
perhaps the best deal in type – only $119US for the full set
on hard media. See Sumner Stone’s excellent article in Fine
Print on Type.
18-July 2002
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celeste: 6 of 20
By Christopher Burke, type designer and Scholar. Celeste
was introduced in 1994 and is sold via FontFont; Greek and
small text versions have more recently become available,
making this one of the most versatile faces available.
18-July 2002
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unusual ff ligature...
I recently posted the following question on TYPO-L:
“The ff ligature in MT Pastonchi is unusual in two ways: (1)
the first f is of greater height than the second, and (2) the
ascender of the first leapfrogs well over much of that of the
second.
“I’m looking for a precedent for this and cannot seem
to find one. Was this novel form of the ff ligature a
development of Francesco Pastonchi or of someone else?”
Thanks to Gerald Lange for his interesting and informative
reply to the list, and for his permission to reprint it here:
“I have the original Lanston Monotype specimen book that
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came out with the release of Pastonchi (printed by hand at
the Officina Bodoni), which gives a bit of the history and
intent. I do not think you will find precedent as I believe
this was an attempt to redefine previous typographic
misconceptions of Renaissance letterforms. Truly a
remarkable typeface. I bought a lot of the metal version
for a book I did and the very day I completed printing,
Monotype Typography sent me the beta version. I believe
this was the last face to be issued before they mergered
with Agfa. Found the digital version to be quite exacting
to the original and used it for the letterpress-printed
prospectus for the book!!!
“Many of the combination characters (ligatures and tied
characters) are quite unique. I don’t think Pastonchi proved
to be much of a commercial success for Lanston or for
that matter Agfa Monotype; but it is certainly one of the
great neglected serious typographic investigations of the
twentieth-century.”
12-July 2002
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comparing typefaces 1: a tale of two sabons
The Sabons of Linotype and Monotype are quite similar, but
there are some subtle differences; I’ve made a partial list.
Compared to the Monotype version, the Linotype version:
1. Is slightly heavier
2. Has somewhat lower contrast between thin and thick
strokes
3. Is larger, which is typical for a Linotype-to-Monotype
comparison; to achieve equal x-height, Monotype Sabon
must be enlarged by roughly 7%
4. Has a more angular lower case roman a and f; note the
increased curvature of the ascender in the Monotype roman
f versus the Linotype version; compare also the cross-
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strokes of the f
5. May have a greater axis angle in the italic; compare the
g’s in the example shown; notice also the differences in the
teardrop terminals in this letter
6. Has that extra bit of space – almost too small to measure,
yet discernable enough – after the lower case roman a. Or
perhaps the spacing is a bit off overall. Or perhaps it’s just
my imagination...
11-July 2002
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mendoza: 5 of 20
By Jose Mendoza y Almeida and issued by ITC in 1990.
Mendoza is rugged yet elegant; avoid the fi “ligature,”
however. See the full page sample in Bringhurst (2nd
edition, p108); see also the short article in Carter (pp160–
161).
08-July 2002
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wherefore art thou bembo...?
Dean Allen writes: “In its metal version, Bembo is my
favourite thing to read; with acknowledged subjectivity, it
is the most beautiful and readable text face of all.” I agree
with Mr Allen; I also agree with his opinion on the digital
incarnation, which is indeed thin, wispy, and squat.
We can apparently blame the 8 point size in metal, for
it served as the master from which the digital version
was designed. Walter Tracy, in Letters of Credit, writes
(pp54–55): “When photo-composition became a reality
in the 1950’s the manufacturers of typesetting machines
had to make an important decision: whether or not to
carry forward into the new system the principle of optical
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compensation, when the plain and tempting fact was
that the photographic part of the system was capable of
producing a considerable range of type sizes from just
one font. To abandon the principle altogether was to risk
forfeiting a substantial part of a reputation for typographic
quality.” He continues, “Some [manufacturers] apparently
thought that increasing the x-height of the faces would
be an acceptable alternative. It is not....The Bembo face,
an admirable example of optical compensation by the
Monotype drawing office, demonstrates the point.” Tracy
here refers to a figure in which the metal version of Bembo
at 24, 12, 8, and 6 pt is compared to a film version derived
from the 8 pt – essentially identical to digital Bembo.
While Edward Tufte has admirably continued to use metal
Bembo, what recourse is there for those of us who must
work in the digital realm? One option is to use Poliphilus, a
typeface constructed from tracings of letters in the Dream
of Poliphilo. It has not become obsolete as quickly as
Stanley Morison predicted (see A Tally of Types, pp46–56),
but its faithfulness to the original impressions limits its use.
Another alternative may be found in Jack Yan’s Aetna.
In fact, this face comes as close as anything I’ve seen to
metal Bembo. In the upper half of this figure, metal Bembo
and JY Aetna are shown first and second, respectively,
while in the lower half, the upper and lower case letters,
text figures, and ligatures are displayed at 24 pt in Aetna
Roman. This face cannot be considered a digital incarnation
of metal Bembo at 12 or 24 pt – there are too many subtle
deviations. And not so subtle is the lower case a, in which
the Aetna glyph appears to lack the modulation of stroke
seen in the metal analogue, as well as in several of the
other Aetna glyphs. But you can mourn the lack of a digital
Bembo based on its 12 pt metal antecedent, or you can
compromise. And if you’re willing to compromise, Jack
Yan’s Aetna is perhaps your best bet.
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05-July 2002
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avenir: 4 of 20
was designed by Adrian Frutiger and issued by Linotype
in 1988. Clean as they come; based on Erbar and Futura.
Sebastian Carter describes it as “oddly restrained” – not as
restrained, in my opinion, as Univers or the face that carries
the designer’s name. See Hunziker’s article in Serif 6 (Spring
1998, pp 32–43).
30-June 2002
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orthogonal plane
Have you purchased your very own copy of Gudrun Zapf
von Hesse: Bindings, Handwritten Books, Typefaces,
Examples of Lettering, and Drawings? Yes? Then perhaps
you are as awestruck as I am; much more than the wife of
Hermann Zapf, much more than a typographer, Gudrun
Zapf von Hesse is the consummate book artist, and you –
proud owner – know that this retrospective provides ample
evidence, and that you needn’t read on.
No? Oh dear... Here you are, then. Skip dinner out this
week and hand over the $75 – you will not be sorry.
Nearly half of the 220-page review is devoted to Zapf
von Hesse’s bookbindings; of particular beauty are (1) her
edition of Goethe’s Faust, in which interrupted rules tooled
in gold work to mesmerizing effect, and (2) Das Blumen
ABC, by Hermann Zapf, wherein ornamental stamps crafted
by Zapf von Hesse convey august serenity.
Zapf von Hesse’s mastery of Carolingian, Civilité, Cursive,
Roman, and Uncial script styles is displayed over 30 pages;
the 60+ pages that follow show some of her typefaces –
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with particular emphasis on Diotima, Hallmark Shakespeare,
and Bitstream Carmina – as well as samples of her hand
lettering. While the former are indeed impressive, the latter
are stunning: The alphabet and quotations plate shown
on the website and found on p 193 is just one of many of
her breathtaking watercolor and ink creations. And the
final 15 pages treat the reader to examples of Zapf von
Hesse’s drawings and paintings, which range from simple,
monochromatic geometric shapes, to landscapes in pastel,
to flowers in vivid color.
The volume was designed by Zapf von Hesse and was set
in Nofret by Hermann Zapf. There is little text outside of an
eight-page introduction by Hans A. Halbey. But of course,
this is work that speaks for itself and stands on its own; let
the commentary, critique, and explanation wait for another
time, another place.
29-June 2002
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bit confused...
...I am, about just what the designers at Smithsonian have
been thinking lately. A beautiful, informative, and important
American monthly has become muddled in typographic
experimentation. Formerly eschewing all faces but PMN
Caecilia and FB Village (an unintuitive, albeit harmonious,
marriage), the magazine floated Helvetica (mon Dieux!)
over a downright cute cover shot last October, making me
wonder momentarily if I hadn’t received my neighbor’s issue
of Parenting.
Since then, however intact the marriage has remained, FB
Village has been stretched and compressed nearly beyond
recognition (for example, see cover, March 2002, and
article “Kung Fu U.,” May 2002), and yet another face has
been introduced – FB Relay, by Cyrus Highsmith – which is
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sprinkled on the cover for May and used in titling as well for
July.
One of two “American” typefaces released in recent days
(the other being Tobias Frere-Jones’s Gotham), Relay
is offered in Regular and Italic in five weights and four
widths. It will make you think of Gill Sans, Metro, Nobel,
and perhaps even Tempo and Arta. Yet it is distinct, and
the flexibility of the series, along with its pedigree, should
ensure wide use.
Just don’t tease me with it, Smithsonian. Don’t make
me ask, every few months, “Who are you now?” Divorce
Caecilia from Village, and introduce Relay. Use it generously
and decisively, and for keeps.
28-June 2002
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ehrhardt: 3 of 20
Ehrhardt was produced by the Monotype staff, 1937–
1938. Adapted from the designs of Kis, and named
for the Ehrhardt foundry in Leipzig. Gets short shrift in
contemporary literature on typography, but sees deservedly
frequent use. See Harry Carter’s article in the Appendix of
A Tally of Types; see also D.B. Updike’s Printing Types: Their
History, Forms, and Use, vol 2, pp 43 and 45 for Ehrhardt
foundry specimens c. 1739.
23-June 2002
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pastonchi: 2 of 20
Designed in 1927 by the Italian poet and author, Francesco
Pastonchi, and digitized by Monotype in 1997. Fuller
description in Serif 5 (Fall 1997). Pastonchi is pretty and
ornate; check out the ff ligature in the roman. Potential
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for many uses in titling and text; a PhD thesis, however, is
probably not one of them.
21-June 2002
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dtl love/hate
Seen this? It’s the news page at the Dutch Type Library, and
every once in a while, it gets an update. This time around,
we have a nice specimen book of DTL Paradox, by Gerard
Unger, and a presentation showing off a forthcoming
typeface called DTL Prokyon, by Erhard Kaiser – the
designer of DTL Fleischmann.
We’ve admired Paradox for some time now; what’s not to
like? And according to Mr Blokland, it should be coming
out next year in an OpenType version; we may finally get ff,
ffi, and ffl. But save room in the drool bucket for Prokyon
– this sure ain’t Fleischmann! Rather, an adventurous sansserif that serves purposes of titling and text very well.
Download the show and see. Four weights in roman, italic,
and small caps; text, lining, and hybrid figures; a wider
range of accented characters than is usually included. And
check out the philosophy behind the lower case, roman g:
roman and “italic” forms are compared; in the case of the
former, “...diese g-Form wurde vom Designer verworfen...”
But what will this novel sans-serif cost us? Right – US $100.
That’s per style per weight, folks. Mr Bringhurst tells us that
“commerce knows no conscience,” and he does so in the
case of mis-labeling typefaces. But what about charging
too much for them – I wonder what Bringhurst thinks about
this, and I wonder what, exactly, is Mr Blokland’s philosophy
here? I’d love to buy Caspari, Dorian, Paradox, and the
forthcoming Prokyon as much as anyone, but I simply
cannot afford them. What’s more, compare the prices of
DTL Albertina to MT Albertina... Of DTL Haarlemmer to
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MT Haarlemmer. Same cuts, big difference in price. I think
it simply comes down to a mix of arrogance and ignorance
– in any case, a bad business model. (I work at Great Big
American Company, so I know all about business models.)
Honestly, for every person who will buy a weight and style
of Prokyon at $100 a crack, there are 20 more who would
cave at $40. So, what’ll it be, Mr Blokland, $100 or $800.
Think about it – you could have your conscience and your
commerce...
20-June 2002
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twenty more...
angie: 1 of 20
FF Angie is an early, humanistic face by Jean-Francois
Porchez. Winner of the Brattinga prize at the 1990
Morisawa Awards. Compare to Angie Sans, available
through Porchez’s site. For more information, see
designer’s article in Serif 6 (Spring 1998, pp 24–31) and the
information page at FontFont.
N.B. Please see daidala.com for all links.
© Jon Coltz 2003
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