The design of a typeface is a complex process, but it follows a logic that can be formalized by constructive elements, such as the module, that can respond to an appearance based on the strokes created with a tool or in standardized geometric shapes. A selection of these elements can be established by a series… Continue reading Typographic Stencils as a Creative and Didactic Tool
How do you design your country’s national font? That’s what Wayne Thompson was asked to do by Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, whose charter mandates the delivery of content which contributes to the national identity. They asked for a type family which unifies their digital presence across multiple platforms, is best-in-class for legibility and accessibility,… Continue reading How To Design Your Country’s National Font
With a focus on Francesco Griffo’s first work, this presentation shows the development of a typeface that contemplates three variables: roman, italic, and an italic with connections. With this typeface, it is possible to make a comparison between the simple italic and de-connected italic in order to understand it. The loss of connections between letters… Continue reading Rescate de las itálicas de Griffo: Un estudio de la puesta en página de poesías / NEW SESSION!
One aspect of type design is firmly rooted in revivals. While revivals have incredible educational value, the practice of using them as a main pillar of the course work has several disadvantages. For one, it creates the impression that old typefaces are inherently good. Secondly, this isolates a certain demographic—white European men—as the creator of… Continue reading Reconsidering Revivals
In a retrospective view of Swiss graphic designer Karl Gerstner, it’s clear that his systematic and programmatic approach is frequently associated with contemporary digital design methods. In 2012, the Federal Office of Culture in Bern, Switzerland (Schweizer Bundesamt für Kultur), awarded Gerstner the Swiss Grand Prix for Design. The agency lauded Gerstner’s ability to seemingly… Continue reading Karl Gerstner—A precursor of digital graphics?
Notions around Chinese type design tend to be elusive and lacking in sense. Inspired by Erik van Blokland’s TypeCooker project, we analyzed and located the crucial parameters in Chinese type design and created a TypeCooker for Hanzi or Chinese characters. Hanzi shares a few parameters with Latin: width, weight, contrast, and decorative parts. But to… Continue reading Hanzi Cooker
Constructed type and lettering projects are popular assignments in design and typography studio courses, and with good reason. Students find preliminary exercises and examples engaging, and common tools like Fontstruct and F%NT are accessible and easy to use. Not only that, the products are visually appealing and can be applied in many ways. Using historical… Continue reading Constructed Letters in the Classroom: Methods, Creativity, and Meaning
As a type designer and teacher, for the last ten years, Carolina Giovagnoli used to write a diary of her projects, trying to define the method of her work. These chronicles are the bridge between design as a craft and design as a project discipline. In this presentation, Giovagnoli will take a look into the… Continue reading 4 Souls
No font can do everything, nor should it! However, discovering the performance envelope of your font is particularly valuable if you can discover it early and use it to inform and refine the design of your typeface. This is why it’s important to create sequential tests that include but go beyond abstract testing ( glyphs… Continue reading Sample Design for Font Testing in EQX