Nathan Willis To modern ears, the term “automation” might suggest computer software, but craftspeople in the world of type design and printing have sought to systematize and accelerate portions of their design workflow since long before the days of silicon. Letter-fitting tasks, from finding individual side bearings to determining optimal kerning groups, are no exception.
Based on the speaker’s PhD research (University of Reading 2024), this session will detail the efforts explored by type designers and type manufacturers from the early days of printing up through the present and illustrate how modern endeavors fit into that continuum. The session proposes that attempts to automate some or all of the letter-fitting job should be seen not as inventions that strive to replace the designer, but as incremental advances in an ongoing search to understand the rules and constraints that describe acceptable fitting.
The historical viewpoint has practical value in the present day. By looking at contemporary, software-based undertakings in this deeper context, type designers can re-evaluate various attempts at automating or partially automating letter-fitting tasks. When fitting is viewed not as a rote chore to be handed off to some time-saving appliance, it can be explored as a multi-faceted pursuit. Type designers and font engineers can assess algorithms for letter-fitting not just on somewhat nebulous factors like correctness, but on how they relate to practitioners’ individual workflows and how they reflect relevant ideas about fitting for any particular typeface.