Deep learning is a big trend in computer science these days. The deep-learning methods developed for the games Go and Shogi are well known, but there are successful cases in design, too. Typeface design is no stranger to deep learning, and multiple studies of automated design processes are currently underway. CJK is an area in… Continue reading Machine Learning and Type Design
Fontworks is collaborating with Hirose/Tanikawa/Narumi labs in the department of Computer Science at Tokyo University and Hirota labs in the department of Information Engineering at the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, on research into optimal typography for augmented reality (AR). Despite its short name, a lot of consideration needs to go into AR because of devices… Continue reading Toward Better Guidelines for AR Typography
This talk presents a comparison of two type-revival projects published in the book Reviving Type by Céline Hurka and Nóra Békés (written under the supervision of Frank E. Blokland). Two studies, which started out as a university assignment and then evolved into an independent research project, are woven together into a single volume: one study… Continue reading Two Revivals
45 Days of Khmer Type, inspired by the popular 36 Days of Type, is a new project that aims to promote Khmer type design, lettering, and calligraphy. In its first year, it received around six hundred submissions from more than twenty designers, who were interviewed by five different press outlets. 45 Days of Khmer Type… Continue reading 45 Days of Khmer Type
2019 is the year of the next Modern Cyrillic type design competition. The competition used to be very infrequent (the previous one was Modern Cyrillic 2014, and before that, Modern Cyrillic 2009), and many Cyrillic typefaces have been designed and released since the previous contest. Because the script is still developing (mostly in very detailed… Continue reading The Quest for Modern Cyrillic
In 2015, on flyingV (Taiwan’s Kickstarter), the company justfont proposed the Jin Xuan (金萱) font project. By the time the campaign closed, it had garnered nearly 26 million NTD (about $860,000), making it one of the most successful crowdfunding projects in Taiwan. It was almost an impossible story. Taiwan’s type industry had been suffering from… Continue reading Jin Xuan: The World’s First Crowdfunded East Asian Ideographic Typeface
In 2018, the ATypI Board commissioned John D. Berry to begin researching and writing the first of a series of publications on the history of the organization. The Association was launched in 1957, but there was very little in the archives about the first ten years or so of ATypI’s existence. And there are vanishingly… Continue reading In Search of ATypI
Older readers are more affected by suboptimal designs of typefaces, are more easily distracted by irrelevant elements in the text, are more sensitive to low contrast between foreground and background, and have greater difficulty tuning in to a specific typeface style. With growing age often comes some level of cognitive decrease, which is associated with… Continue reading Age-Related Deficits and Their Effects on Reading
With the goal of developing a typeface capable of performing well in children’s books, Dafne Martínez and Sandra García conducted an analysis of fonts used in reading-instruction books distributed in Mexican public schools. The pair based their research on prior studies, which indicated that the biggest hurdles children face when learning to read are presented… Continue reading Typography for New and Better Readers: A Study of the Identification of Typographic Forms among Early Readers
As a result of social and political changes in the early eighteenth century, Meetei Mayek (the indigenous script used in Manipur, a northeastern state of India) was replaced by the Bengali script for writing Meeteilon (the official language of Manipur). Nearly three hundred years later in 2005, this was reversed when Meetei Mayek was reinstated,… Continue reading Meetei Mayek: A Work in Progress