The Arabic script has been a long developing writing system, and its diacritics constitute a visually rich and complex in dimension. There are points that differentiate consonants that have similar forms known as niqāṭ, vocalization marks known as tashkyl, Qur’an accents to aid in recitation, and decorative marks. What is the history and relevance of… Continue reading Diacritics in the Arabic Script
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
This is the story behind a pretty special navigation typeface designed for a city in the southwestern part of Russia, Belgorod (the name means White City) that has a long and dramatic history. Starting as a Slavic dwelling in the eighth century, and became an important fortress defending the state border from numerous enemy attacks… Continue reading An Incise for City Navigation
Discussion and exploration of existing, new, and emerging tools, techniques, problems, and solutions for automatic kerning and spacing in font engineering. Panelists include Tim Ahrens, Jérémie Hornus, Igino Marini, and Toshi Omagari.
Variable fonts have rapidly been rising in popularity. So what should an ideal variable font specimen look like? Since the movable type revolution, the font catalog barely changed its appearance, not even with the transition to the virtual sphere. As variable fonts span complex design spaces, users need intuitive navigation tools to accompany them. Such… Continue reading Intuitive Design for Variable Font Specimens
To date, optically scaled variants of typefaces have always been created by eye; indeed, there is a widespread feeling that it is impossible to fully automate this process, as there are so many seemingly unrelated guidelines that need to be followed. In this session, Siva Kalyan will present a unified, automated approach to optically scaling… Continue reading Results of an Automated Approach to Optically Scaling Letterforms
Five-pixel height is all you need to deliver the entire English alphabet, but what size canvas is needed, and how many pixels are required to construct a Chinese character, called a Hanzi? The strokes in each Hanzi vary in number, direction, width, contrast, and style. At the first sight, it seems impossible to fit Hanzi… Continue reading Bitmapping Chinese
Huai is a bilingual typeface which stands in between Thai script, Latin script, Thai Latinized and conventional. Most of the contemporary loop-less Thai typefaces obtained some Latin letterforms when crafting Thai alphabets. If Thai alphabets can borrow the form from Latin letterforms, what might happen when Latin alphabets are influenced by those original Thai letterforms?… Continue reading Inversion of Thai Latinized
Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CJK) characters’ ancestors had a lot in common. However, CJK areas now have their own typographic history, context, and sense of type design. This presentation will look at a number of typographic terms that are being used in East Asian countries. It will also consider how they became so different and what… Continue reading CJK Typefaces: Friendly Neighbors Far, Far Away