Book on how to design type

[William Berkson]

>the Irish scribes introduced the word space in the middle ages, thereby enabling immersive reading for the first time.

I read this in Noordzij, but it seems to me to be poppycock. Is there anyone else who says this? The dead sea scrolls have word spacing, and they are more than 500 years earlier. And as there were Christian Hebraists, so the Irish clerics would have know about this. Do we have any roman letter manuscripts from earlier? Is there any reason to think that the Romans never word spaced in manuscript (as opposed to stone inscriptions)? How about cuneiform - was there ever word spacing?

I think the big change was from reading aloud - which was normal because there would be many students or worshipers to one manuscript - to silent reading, which I believe came some time in the middle ages.

>Well, it certainly can't make a huge difference for most of the world's population.
Nothing related to type can.

Written language has been fundamental to the growth of civilization. You can't have law without it, for example. And universal education, the foundation of economic growth can't take place without it.


>improvement via dynamic and non-linear techniques. My hunch is that in an ideal setup 50% is not unrealistic.

What do you mean by 'dynamic and non-linear techniques'? Why to you think such dramatic improvement is possible? Can you name one change in typography in the past 500 years that actually sped up reading with comprehension?

I hope you're right, but I just don't see it.

[hrant]

> chirographic type is a dying art, mainly limited to display at this point.

I think you're overestimating the degree to which type has "matured" in this way.

BTW, just so we're clear: I'm not some cold robot - I value "humanism" very much, it's just that since the conveyance of the hand in type is in the end a losing battle, it simply distracts us from the things we can do regain some of the humanity we've been losing since the so-called Englightenment. And I love expressing myself - it's just instead of tangible shapes made by hand, I'm turned on by expressing my thoughts - often in the form of glyphs. When I make a glyph like the "d" in my Patria, I'm expressing something to some extent very personal, even though I didn't use the arm/hand/pen system. And I even enjoy using my hands, although I admit I don't do that sort of thing often enough - I think most of the West doesn't.

And is this amazing individual somehow acultural?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3253168.stm

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BTW, about the "M": there are some textish fonts with have the outside stems thick and the inside diagonals thin. How can we know that's less readable?

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> poppycock

?
There's a whole book about it: Saenger's "Space between words".

I don't know about Hebrew, but Latin was in fact devoid of word spaces before those Irish monks invented it, improving the act of reading immenselty. Why is it so uncomfortable realizing that the level of quality in typography generally improves over time? Do you think it sprung out of some Supreme Being fully formed and perfect?

> the big change was from reading aloud

Which was precisely enabled by the invention of the word space!
Without it reading silently is much slower than reading aloud.

> Written language has been fundamental to the growth of civilization.

But contrary to what Noordzij would have us believe, its absense does not preclude civilization. In fact I would point out that the most uncivilized behavior seems to come from people who have been literate the longest!

> Can you name one change in typography in the past 500
> years that actually sped up reading with comprehension?

Nope. The time is ripe! Maybe we can invent something as huge as the word space?

The idea of dynamic and non-linear type isn't anything fancy. One idea is to display text on a screen in one spot and refresh the display intelligently. This would remove saccades from the act of reading, thus greatly increasingly comfort. Huge. Keep an open mind, that's the only way to progress.

How do you think we advanced from using scrolls to using books?

hhp

[William Berkson]

>I don't know about Hebrew

Now you do know about word spaces in Hebrew, as least as old as this Dead Sea Scroll:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/images/psalm-b.jpg

The Irish may have introduced word spaces to Latin, but frankly I am skeptical. In any case it is ridiculous to to call an 'invention' what Hebrew had been doing likely for a thousand years, and which the monks had reason to be well aware of.

Hrant, my mind is open on the improvements. I am skeptical, but I am happy that you are taking on the challenge.

[hrant]

Can you provide a close-up view of that scroll? Preferably with some transliteration of a snippet of it.
I have a feeling the spaces might be something besides word spaces, but I'm just guessing.

Anyway, even if I agree that "invention" might not be the best word (kinda like Gutenberg didn't invent jack :-), I can't know if the Irish monks were working from a precendent or not, but I have no reason to doubt Saenger as to the origins of the word space in Latin (and I can't think of any good reasons you should either), and in the context of this discussion it doesn't really matter who did it first: the point is that reading in Latin went through an upheaval between the time words spaces were not used (as we know they were not for over a thousand years), and the time they were (whenever that was, but apparently in the early Middle Ages).

Most to the point, there's no reason to doubt that other such
leaps in functionality are possible, especially now that we can:
1) understand reading much better than before;
2) display text dynamically;
3) customize the typography to the user;
4) track eye movements realtime.

hhp

[setmajer]

sayeth Randy Jones:
On a seperate note: It is still important to trace over Bodoni with a chisel nibbed pen.

Firstly, by 'chisel nibbed' you mean something more or less like this, no? If so, for purposes of the current discussion does it differ significantly from, say, a good broad-nibbed fountain pen or the flat tips used with the quill-style pen holders I remember from art classes?

If not, then according to the Underware workshop linked from this thread, Bodoni is the result of varying pressure with a sharp-tipped pen, rather than varying orientation with a flat-tipped pen. Or am I missing something?

continued Randy:
I would also encourage you Setmajer, even if you dive headlong in to a bezier program, don't forget your pencil. You can mess with handles for hours trying for something a pencil would give you in 5 minutes.

I agree, of course. I've been working on several things as I have time (logotypes for my own use, nothing of any great interest) and have actually abandoned the computer altogether until I am quite certain what it is I want. Illustrator's pencil tool + a WACOM can be a lovely thing, but I find even that is no substitute for meatspace drawing.

I would quibble just a touch regarding speed: hand drawing is no doubt faster for someone with even modest hand skills, but mine are so poor as to make even a rough sketch of a single letterform an hour-long project. :-(

[aquatoad]

Hi Setmajer.

The point of the excercise with Bodoni is not to the pen or even the results you produce. The point is to really look at bodoni. To really see where the thick parts are, where are the thin parts. How does it transition between the two. Then you are on your way. (But yes that pen would work I'd use something even more chiseled. One that would give you a razor thin thin, and a really thick thick. maybe 1 to 5 ratio).

Randy

[hrant]

> does it differ significantly from, say, a good broad-nibbed fountain pen

Maybe a felt pen can go "backwards" whereas a fountain pen can't?
If so, that's a huge difference.

BTW, in the chirographic workspace there are three "dimensions": translation (movement), expansion (pressure), and rotation.

hhp

[setmajer]

informed Randy Jones:
The point of the excercise with Bodoni is not to the pen or even the results you produce. The point is to really look at bodoni. To really see where the thick parts are, where are the thin parts. How does it transition between the two.

Ahh. Back when I was studying visual communications at NIU (cheap but decent; most profs also taught at the School of the Art Institute and Illinois Tech) they had us tracing a number of faces, including Bodoni. They did not specify a tool, though, and most of us used pencil for comps and Sakura fine point pens for 'finals'. More recently, I've been drawing them over from the old specimen book as my tracing paper seems to have gotten lost on the road from Chicago to NYC to Bonn, and as I'm moving back to Chicago I've not got the Euros to replace it (I'm a web developer by trade, so this is all hobbyist stuff for me).

continued Randy:
But yes that pen would work I'd use something even more chiseled. One that would give you a razor thin thin, and a really thick thick. maybe 1 to 5 ratio

Do you know of a brand offhand? As I said I'm strapped now, but I'm keeping a list of supplies/books/software to purchase as soon as I'm gainfully employed again.

posited Hrant H Papazian:
Maybe a felt pen can go "backwards" whereas a fountain pen can't? If so, that's a huge difference.

True, and a good broad-tipped fountain pen will, as I understand it, increase or decrease line width relative to pressure like a sharp-tipped pen. Still, it seems to me if one is learning the mechanics of the strokes one could just not go backwards. My concern was that there might be characteristics intrinsinc to the tool, rather than techniques one can refrain from using, which make it pointless to try to 'simulate' the tool with something second-best. Naturally, I understand that second-best is, well, second-best. But better second-best than not at all, no?

furthered Hrant:
BTW, in the chirographic workspace there are three "dimensions": translation (movement), expansion (pressure), and rotation.

nod I picked that up from Gerrit Noordzij, mentioned earlier in this thread (I do at least try to pay attention, however thick I may seem :-). But I see translation and rotation as two sides of the same coin: both rely on the orientation of a flat- or chisel-tipped pen relative to stroke direction. Expansion operates independently of the orientation of the pen, and in fact does not rely on the pen having a flat or chisel tip at all. Rather, what seems to be important is that the tip tapers at the end so that increased pressure brings more of the tip in contact with the paper. Is that right?

[hrant]

> they had us tracing a number of faces

But, again: tracing over the edges is totally different than tracing over the body of the Black with a broadpen.

> Expansion operates independently

I wouldn't say so, because its given effect depends on the present angle of rotation (and of course the location of the point).

hhp

[setmajer]

clarified Hrant H Papazian:
But, again: tracing over the edges is totally different than tracing over the body of the Black with a broadpen.

Makes sense. But here the distinction between a broad pen tip and a chisel tip isn't as significant in terms of what you're learning, or? I mean, as far as going backwards, they didn't have felt tips back when Bodoni was designed, did they? So lack of that ability shouldn't matter

[eomine]

BTW, I just noticed this in Bilak's Fedra specimen... There's a small picture showing some of his sketches for different ampersands. His sketching technique, is (I suppose) Noordzij's 'moving counterpoint'.

[hrant]

Bilak is a very interesting designer precisely because he's torn between chirographic and synthetic design, and the battle is producing some most interesting results. My hope is he'll go the Bloemsma way, but the journey is more important.

hhp

[beejay]

fyi, Another workshop in the works

http://www.typeworkshop.com/index.php?id1=Rovaniemi_12_2003&id2=daily&id3=day1

[rs_donsata]

Very nice trhead. About the reading speed improvementI have started questioning out if the mind's comprehension hability can be a limit.

[aquatoad]

Any cheap felt tip is fine. Use what you have.

I continue to point to this resource which shows the modern cap proportions based on the H and E. Also, drawn in a black bodoni for the purposes mentioned. Other tasty tidbits on the chart: decending R foot, cleavage on the R and B, the X ordeal, how to do the thick diagonal on an N, how to do the apex on an A, V+V vs W. Enjoy.

As far as the bodoni tracing, maybe don't even trace it. Try to recreate the letters in the chart above using the broad pen. Do the thicks in one thick stroke, the thins in one thin stroke. Dont worry about pretty letters. These won't win any contest, but at least they are *correct*

Randy

[ric]

Great tips, Randy!

[ghrrrrrrrrrrrrr]

There is an extensive text by Bilak in the latest issue of the Japanese IDEA magazine, where he explains his synthetic approach towards type design. (http://www.idea-mag.com/cgi-bin/book/catalog.cgi?language=en&item=302) Worth a read, if you manage to find a copy.

[peterbruhn]

I know I have it (Dwiggins-Ruzicka) as a facsimile in some book. But I can't remember which. If any one knows, let me know and I'll scan it.

[Marten Thavenius]

The "WAD to RR" letter seems to be available as text at:

http://www.cs.kun.nl/~freek/books/wadtorr.sat

/m