Interesting[?]

[TBiddy]

Hrant's empty bourbon bottle? ;)

[Linda Cunningham]

You got your sex maniacs, your culture junkies, people who can’t stand guessing, math-heads, politicos, poets, persecution syndrome sufferers, and everything in between…

Let's see, I think I qualify as a 1, 2, 4, 5, and a 7.

Do I win?

[Ch]

i know, it's a "back to work" reminder ?

[dsb]

?

[SuperUltraFabulous]

Ch>>>> I love love love your composite image. Very good. The draggqueen ice-skater priceless!!! hahahahahaaha.

Mikey ;-)

[typotheticals]

A rethink on this “protoglyph”.

for some reason Proto (glyph) seems to indicate that it is the Proto, or base of glyph. After all Protoplasm is the base form, so protoglyph is the base or clay form for a set of glyphs all based upon, or derived from this scribble.

To use the term “protoglyph” Hrant has not casually tossed this word in. It is there for a reason, so ignore the picture and concentrate upon the word.

Here's a term that may clear up my ramble, think about it.
- ProtoType

Oho ! Something just occured to me. Left of normal thinking but not inconceivable. With a more complex “protoglyph”, it would be possible to have a font of one (1) glyph, where all characters are taken from using mathematical formula to extract from that single glyph all information to make and display each and every other glyph imaginable.
Alternately that single glyph cell could be made up of a grid of unconnected points where using same system as before, all characters and glyphs could be determined from.

Wow, imagine it, all font files would be tiny in size.

[Ch]

years ago a friend of mine in the national guard had the job of painting serial numbers on helicopters and other hardware. they used a rather crazy looking stencil that had multiple facets capable of generating any letter or number. it was an awkward thing; it had to be turned and flipped several times for some characters. the resulting "font" was funny in a strictly utilitarian kind of way... with variations minimized by guidelines but inevitable according to who wielded the tool. i'll try to find an image of the thing.

[Jonathan Clede]

It looks like a klein bottle to me.

[hrant]

OK, now that the wonderful brain-dumping has gone dormant I think it's safe to reveal what I was thinking, even though it's pretty boring compared to the previous flotsam and jetsam of the human psyche...

Not too long ago, in a thread as close as a few clicks away, there was (yet another) "discussion" about chirography and its [de]merits. I had made a distinction between painting and drawing, claiming that the former forms the bodies of shapes (and hence can't make ideal notan) while the latter forms the boundaries of shapes (hence has a qualitatively better chance). Well, looking that that protoglyph (which I still think is a useful term) it struck me that you can actually draw a boundary chirographically! Which is not to say it's practical and fruitful to do so. One clue that it isn't is that absolutely nobody does that. And one great reason not to is that the topology of the glyph (in fact that 8 - yes, all I was seeing was a boring numeral) might make it non-sensical, since you can't have crossing outlines. You can make an "o" for example, but to make a decent "x" you'd need to go around in a contortive way (although what else is new about chirography :-). Anyway, even though I think it's unworkable it might still result in interesting experiments and extrapolations, so have fun with the idea if you like.

hhp

[hrant]

And picking up some scraps:

> I don’t suppose you were thinking of Barbara Hepworth?

I guess now I am!

> lorentz attractor

I love that thing. In college I actually made an animation of it with my Amiga, put it on videotape, and borrowed an A/V cart to show it in math class. The teacher was drooling... but I suspect the other students were squirming and sneering.

> moebius strip
> Escher

Those are interestingly parallel to the topological unworkability of the idea.

> Maybe you are thinking about getting into interior decorating…?

Well, I've always wanted to do clothing design.
But I'm curious how you got that idea from the protoglyph?

> it would be possible to have a font of one (1) glyph

No, that wasn't it - I did that years ago:
http://www.themicrofoundry.com/ss_uniglyph1.html

> a rather crazy looking stencil ... i’ll try to find an image of the thing.

Please!

> maybe you are thinking that if you post a vague
> question you will get a lot of funny, wrong answers… ?

I guess now I am!

hhp

[T Bones]

"in fact that 8 - yes, all I was seeing was a boring numeral"

I did wonder seeing that the file name starts with 'new8'
Plus the fact that it looks much like an 8 :)

[dezcom]

I did post "8 is enough" a while back ;-P

ChrisL

[ebensorkin]

I knew it would have to do with an [anti]chirographic stance in some way! Ha!

I don't know how mindbendingly obvious this is to anybody but just in case it isn't... ...draw a boundary chirographically! One clue that it isn’t is that absolutely nobody does that. You can of course do 'chirographic' work with two pencils bound together. And you are working in the 'boundries' in that case. And likewise you can do faux chirographic work on a napkin by drawing the seemingly 'chirographic' forms out using a non-chirographic method. But Hrant, your example doesn't seem chirographic to me in any way at all. There is no sense of a front moving. And the while the lines are drawn it is their seen relationship and/or their drawn relationship that might make the form 'chirographic'. Still, I can imagine a process where you start out with two pencils to experiment and end up tweaking those forms with an eraser and pencil on your way to a typographic form you wanted. Have I misunderstood you? What process do you have in mind?

[david h]

> I had made a distinction between painting and drawing.....

painting and drawing letters, or just any kind of painting & drawing?

[hrant]

Eben, I actually don't think it's anti. In fact it tries to find a place for chirography, although like I said I don't think it can go anywhere highly functional.

> two pencils bound together. And you are working in the ‘boundries’ in that case.

No, that's still painting, and not my idea here.

> you can do faux chirographic work on a napkin by drawing the
> seemingly ‘chirographic’ forms out using a non-chirographic method.

For the n-th time: it's not about the tool, it's about your mind's intent.
Maybe thinking of Peter's "para-chirography" would help.

> your example doesn’t seem chirographic to me in any way at all.

Hopefully because it's not, in the conventional, ubiquitous sense. But the fact is those curves were made chirographically, which however is not how anybody draws letterform outlines.

David, most specifically I'm thinking about the making of
glyphs in a text face (although I suspect it can be broader).

hhp

[hrant]

Discussing this with Eben I realized that some key elaborations might help this idea along. First there's the issue of: what's the difference between this and drawing? I would say that drawing is slow, iterative, vague and deliberate, while this exhibits a true chirographic essence in its flow and certainty. As for the difference between conventional chirography and this, perhaps the best thing I can point to is the way stroke contrast is distributed: in chirography it results from the nature of the [virtual] tool, while in this method it results from an abstract decision on the part of the maker; if you look at that protoglyph, any part of it (I mean the black/body) can be any thickness*, determined only by the "whim" of the designer - something it shares with drawing. But again, it's different than drawing because the organicity of chirography is there. I dunno, does that help?

* Specifically in my proto-8 the left of the head loop and the base of the bottom loop are heaviest, which is not something natural to conventional chirography. Now, this weighting was not intentional, but it could (and -probably- should) be.

hhp

[dezcom]

In drawing in the art sense, there is what is known as gesture drawing as in some of Mattisse's work where a quick knowing and skilled hand could, in a few flowing lines, convey an image of a human figure. There is also "tight drawing" like Durer who slowly built up the image with great deliberation. The constructivists and de Stijl artists also were deliberate and "constructed" their work (well duh-ah:-). Both of these styles are still drawing but perhaps Hrant might call gesture drawing chirography.

ChrisL

[hrant]

The difference is drawing an image versus drawing shape bodies,
which, beyond less tangible attributes have to be composed of
closed outlines, which furthermore cannot intersect.

BTW, what is a good name for this thing?
(I mean the technique, not the protoglyph.)

hhp

[BlueStreak]

Most people call it doodling.

[dezcom]

"what is a good name for this thing?"

Closed figure outlines, perimeter drawing, or perhaps just constructs?

ChrisL

[hrant]

What's the Greek (or Latin) root for outline/border?

hhp

[Ch]

okay sorry to lead us into spacey new age territory but this universal glyph idea
reminded me of something i saw years ago and finally found a link for:
( no, not the military sencil) the Meru Foundation...

they're dedicated to cryptic reading of sacred hebrew texts (yikes). they have this OBJECT, a 3-D shape, which can be rotated in any direction to be viewed as any letter of the hebrew alphabet.

they claim the hebrew alphabet can be also generated by posing the human hand, and was formed as a sort of proto sign language using the hand itself as the glyph mechanism.
this object was designed as a perfected version of the capabilities of the hand gestures.

i'm not sure i'm doing justice to their ideas, nor am i particularly inclined to pursue it all, just thought it was an interesting link for this discussion.

[timd]

You could try
ambit – Latin ambitus circuit
margin – Latin margo edge
contour – Italian contornare draw in outline
profile – Italian (obsolete) profilo a drawing or border, from profilare from Latin filum thread.

Tim

[hrant]

> they claim the hebrew alphabet can be
> also generated by posing the human hand

Classic post-rationalization.
Quickie trivia question: what (mainstream) writing system has glyphs
based (partly) on the shapes of the mouth/tongue/lips when saying the
sound in question?

That 3D thing is a nice exercise though.

Tim, thanks.
I'm getting the feeling now that somethingo-chiro-graphy
(or chiro-somethingo-graphy) is just too cumbersome.

hhp

[dezcom]

How about comtourgraph? or simply outlinegraph?

ChrisL