design blog
Open Type Renaissance Nerds
A typographic renaissance can be defined by innovations in typography from letterform shape, production, to printing. Throughout history the style of typefaces has been a reflection of the technology used in producing the written word for display; from the chisel, to pen, press, pencil, typewriter, photo printer, digital printer and computer. The first typographic renaissance is noted as occurring soon after the invention of the matricessed printing press by Johannes Gutenberg circa 1439, which would standardize the printing process for more than 450 years. Directly following this invention, Italian and French type designers began making more readable typefaces than the Blackletter typeface used by Gutenberg to print his famous bible, which mimicked illustrated manuscript calligraphy. These type innovators looked to handwriting and engraved type to develop their letterforms, which were much more readable than the pious Blackletter. But it was the technology developed by Gutenberg that allowed designers to produce a more readable script based on more common letter forms. The lead type alphabets, fonts, were made available to the new printing presses opening around Europe. This movement of language thanks to innovations in printing provided the opportunity for literacy to a growing number of people who now had access to the written word. [1,9]
In the 1900s movable, lead type became a thing of the past with innovations like phototype, and computers for layout, printing and display. Up until the late 1990s typography for the computer fell into two camps; Microsoft TrueType fonts, and Adobe Postscript Type 1 fonts. These two controlled the majority of the multi-platform market on digital fonts (a metonym for movable type families), while many other nonstandard typographic use and display platforms existed as well. No format was cross-platform capable from Macintosh to PC without a mediating software program, and early conversion software was often problematic resulting in less than perfect or corrupt and erred conversion. For any computer administer in the design field fixing this issue was one of the largest responsibilities of their job. The graphic designer also had to build in more time for press production to ensure perfect visual type translation from screen to page. To the type developer neither platform offered adequate textual glyphs to be put into one font, only a few hundred would fit in a set. A font needed to contain all upper and lowercase, numerals, diacritics, spaces, dashes and punctuation for the entire typeface. This shortage of characters in a set made it necessary to develop multiple sets for one font in order to span multiple languages, glyphs, and non-standard ligatures. [2,3,4,5,6,7]
In May 1996 Microsoft and Adobe united to combine their two typographic systems under one new framework that would be recognized by both major computer platforms, and pave the way to a typographic renaissance. The invention of OpenType would solve many of the issues of typographic use and display for the computer and translation to the printed page, combining the strengths that each platform offered. The new feature-rich encoding would allow up to 65,536 glyphs in a set and extend the opportunity to designers for the inclusion of multiple language support, from characters with all their proper diacritics and punctuation, to artistic glyphs and non-standard glyphs, all available in one font that would work automatically on MAC or PC platform. But in order to obtain this cross functionality, it would take years of development for both operating systems and programs alike, as well as in educating the public on the use of OpenType and advantages of its purchase. Web functionality was promised early on, through Unicode, but although a lot of functionality is available it is still in need of improvement. [2,3,4,5,6,7] According to Thomas Phinney of Adobe, “now the web font discussion is moving on to standardization on a single format, and issues of how fonts are rendered on screen.” [8]
OpenType, like Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press and standardization for making movable type, presented printers and composers of the written word with a method for production and display, and type designers with a process and method for the formation of characters. But OpenType not only combines the functionality of the disparate type platforms, it includes new functions that have opened the possibility to designers to innovate how language is used, displayed, deployed, controlled and understood. These new functions allow designers to experiment, and to attempt to bring the written, spoken and visual language more closely aligned.
Common functions available in OpenType include; ligatures (glyphs for common letter combinations like fi ), diacritics for various languages, lining and old-style numerals, and alternate capitals. But OpenType, through its coding language capabilities, provides designers with more robust malleability; the ability to change language, and bring it closer to its visual syntactic self. Since the OpenType platform was developed, typographers have experimented by developing code to alter text; on-the-fly script adjustments that replace letters with alternate characters to produce a more natural handwritten or random feel, giving the text a particular voice or personality by adjusting the punctuation, spelling, or substituting and censoring words and phrases. Before OpenType, fonts could not contain this amount of personality and uniqueness, even quirky fonts seemed conventional—without alternate letters to add variation or special ligatures and swash beginnings and endings they could only innovate in about 26 characters, and not much further (figure 01). [2,3,4,5,6,7]
The Underware type foundry was started by three students from the Hague, Akiem Helmling, Sami Kortemäki, and Bas Jacobs who develop type together in the Netherlands. Most typefaces are authored by one person, but the threesome work together with a combination of artistry (all are experienced hand lettering painters) and computer savvy to make fonts that utilize OpenType features with robust usability for their design customers. Their fonts play with maximizing the designers ability to customize the look of the type through complex advanced ligatures, case awareness (upper, lower, and caps or small-caps), and the use of a plethora of alternate characters to fool the reader into thinking the letters have been hand-done, not machine produced. [10]
One challenge Underware identified from the beginning was the end-user’s ability to test-drive their fonts, a task no retail sellers of typefaces is doing well at the present moment. Because of their robust use of OpenType for functional professional typefaces, a designer needs to be able to use their type, not just preview online, through style-guide PDFs or demos. In their large type families, each font is crafted to work in an OpenType platform to provide the designer with multiple possibilities in setting type, and standard retail demos do not show this. Underware resolved to create a publication with free CD of their fonts for preview—under the honor system—that any designer who uses the fonts for a client will then pay for them. While they are unable to factually quantify how that system is working, people have purchased their fonts, so they will continue to market them this way. [10,11]
One of Underware’s first fonts, Bello Pro OpenType font combines all the Bello family into one “sophisticated” typeface. It is designed to mimic the work of a sign-writer, and includes 64 ligature combinations, script, small-caps, and their special Bello Words in which a designer can find entire words in a separate “logotype font,” (words set to mimic late 1800s logo or advertising hook, figure 02) as one of its OpenType features. Imagining this script as a logo isn’t difficult; the font includes entire words pre-designed for your use, and although the words they provide are limited their strategy makes envisioning logos developed with Bello easy. [10,11,12,13]
I test-drive the Bello Words on MyFonts.com and understood immediately why they determined to give-away a CD for testing. When the demo page loads it displays an indeterminate group of letters, I can only discern the beginning of text, “big is…” before it’s a jumbled mess. I delete the text provided and type “h” (and add a few spaces for the mess to clear) it displays “hot,” the t extending under the word underlining it (figure 03). Underware suggests that Bello makes the perfect “beach bar” signage, and “adds character” to logos. To complete Bello, Underware even developed a Shadow type to fit along with their Bello Pro and Words family members that makes your type appear 3D and polished. All suggestive of the Trademark, or Commodity Sign, or in the least, the turn-of-the-century visual language of advertising. [10,11,12,13]
Liza Script is the newest font by Underware, aims to make your text look like it was painted by hand, using cleverly scripted OpenType to make what you type appear naturally random. As an OpenType Liza is a great example of what it can do, why type designers should embrace the OpenType platform in making fonts, and a great example of why designers want to use them. Liza is Underware’s most verbose font to date, marketed through anthropomorphization as a female persona who is “as cleaver as [they] could imagine.” In their FAQ section on Underware’s website, Liza answers your questions as if you’re having a conversation with a celebrity, “Q: Hoi, I’m Gerard from Holland. What’s the difference between Display and Text? Liza: Well Gerard, let me tell it that way: it’s up to you what style you prefer (if you get what I mean). I am flexible. We can also do Caps if you feel like..” [88] In their marketing, Underware inserts the female persona to suggest Liza is sexy, making her advantages sound sexy, “1) cross platform, same file on Mac & PC 2) Unicode support, broad language support 3) erotic OpenType layout features” and “powerful by default.” Her “magic” happens automatically when ‘Ligatures’ and ‘Contextual Alternates’ are activated in any program that supports OpenType. This persona, in as much as it’s a marketing ploy fabricated by Underware, could not exist without a platform capable of executing the idea. Liza is chock full of variety, with her extensive alternate characters a designer can truly hide the fact that this is a mechanized computer font, and not hand-lettered. And Liza is smart, her OpenType features provide immediate design resolutions to issues in applying a script typeface to a lot of text; automatic adjustments make her more readable, and some quick find-and replace GREM code will adjust all-caps to her beautiful small-caps, undoing the taboo of setting all-caps in a script. Her characteristics even include an “out-of-ink” option that simulates the actual need for the sign painter to reload the brush, the “OpenType technology takes care this all gets done automatically.” (figure 04) [14,15,16]
The use of the sign painted lettering look and feel by Underware’s designers reenacts a mode of visual traditionalism that is all but gone from society—reminiscent of a era, perhaps when things were handmade, or finely crafted. But it is the self-reliance that Liza promises, Schwartz might call her marketability, which would be found in the “Individualism … of the commodity sign … insisting on the primacy of the artist and his expression of personality.” [19] This promise of persona and self-reliance is integral to Liza, through her marketing as imbued with a distinct personality as if she will lend her persona to the words that she holds (signifier to signified). (figure 05) [16]
Liza and Bello’s persona act as their aura, like the word ‘Osram,’ made into a sign of modernity, associated with a light bulb, signifying “a perfect individual, identifying it with a proper name—the invented word Osram, which means nothing beside the object it was chosen to designate” [19]. Underware aligns Bello and Liza with marketing and the Commodity Sign by closely associating the fonts with the visual language of advertising of the early 21st century, through branding them as ‘logotype enabled’ and the strong personalities they associate with their type. “In advertising the reader can be sure that signification is intentional. Nothing is left to chance,” [17] it is this reliability of the purpose of an advertisement to communicate that makes Underware’s fonts desirable, and its promise to fulfill that responsibility through the extensive OpenType features.
While you can purchase non-OpenType versions of Underware’s fonts, as TrueType or Postscript, they do not have as extensive an ability. Without the cross-platform OpenType capabilities in Bello Pro you cannot access all the languages provided, small caps, non-common ligatures, and beginning and end-swash alternates are not included. Without OpenType the font is sold as a conventional, Type I and Postscript font with less variation, the magic is lost. While many designers understand the validity or importance of using OpenType fonts for the benefit, some still do not realize the difference. The OpenType versions of fonts are more expansive and expensive due to their increased coding and characters in a set. Many designers still purchase the lesser Type 1 or Postscript versions. Walter Benjamin explains, “As a consequence of the manufacture of products as commodities for the market, people become less and less aware of the conditions of their production.” [19] The market of type came together because of the creation of and development for OpenType, but many designers still do not use it to its full capacity, nor do all purchasers of typefaces understand the benefits. It is essential to the personality, variation, and methodology available in all Underware’s fonts because without OpenType they are just like everyone else. “As manufacturers standardized their products, the effect on the market [is], paradoxically, the need for visual signs of distinction, evocative and auratic, signs that … move the customer to choose one product over another. In the rationalized, disenchanted world of modernity, the market needed magical signs.” [19]
While Underware’s is pushing the envelope of what OpenType can do and should be utilized for, they stop short of experiments which might make their products unsalable, their goal make very usable but marketable fonts. [10] Using OpenType for adjustment to how language is presented can create complex relationships between the intended language and the textual outcome. Of these experiments that push this barrier between text and context, the MFA thesis work of Amy Papaelias challenges the relationship between verbal and visual communication utilizing the advanced character control in OpenType to change language, blurring boundaries between what is written and what is spoken. In her own words, her fonts, “are visual representations of speech, making visible the differences and similarities of spoken and written language.” [20] Her experiments utilizes the style of handwriting, which she sees as being more closely related to verbal language, but makes use of technology as a stop-gap between the message that is written, and what the message is intended to convey. Unfortunately, or as a result, this intention is ruled by the technology. Hard-coded into each font it cannot think like you, but thinks for you, only changing what you say to fit its program. [20]
In her typeface Sugar and Spice, Papaelias evokes the vocabulary of “a nine year-old girl,” replacing explicatives with, “socially acceptable substitutions.” She mined the language used by a child to key us into the power of words, commenting on our verbal competence and decisions as adults; how etiquette and social class reveal linguistic choices and expression. Literally she has used the OpenType advanced ligature control to recognize character combinations, and then substituted these combinations with new glyphs that display new words to stand-in for the omitted text; “He’s a fucking bastard” becomes “He’s a really mean boy.” (figure 06) While the switch of the language here is not outright censorship, contextually boy and bastard are not the same, the sentiment might be a faint echo. And while I don’t like being transported back to this age I am made aware of this shift. [20]
Papaelias continues to experiment in, Shy Slacker where she attempts to evoke personality and close the barrier between what is written and what conveyed by the verbal-visual persona. This personality, again a hard-coded and programmed entity, is a mimesis for the stereotypical slacker. Amy suggests this font represents the textual voice of a shy teenage boy, but I see rather a character similar to Shaggy on the TV show Scooby Do. You type, “Then I said, no I have to go.” and it writes back, “Then I was like, nah I hafta go, you know.” not only replacing proper words with slang text, but also adding verbal pauses and identifiable rhetoric of natural language. Have to becomes hafta, and want to, turns to wanna; text reinterpreted to communicate vernacular expression. (figure 07) But her choices are also based on geographic language; for her textual replacements to fit my stereotype of the shy teenage boy, which I reference from my own teenage experience of having grown-up in Pennsylvania and on the East coast, when I type the word, “probably,” it should spit back, “prolly,” but it does not. This Shy Slacker character fits a construct I do not completely identify with, and because of that her constructed persona does seem to have its own personality, not entirely like someone I know, but that I’m meeting for the first time. [20]
Papaelias pokes fun at further stereotypes in Francophile for which she develops another handwriting font, this one derived from the writing of a French woman. (figure 08) Asserting with its substitution of language, and its verisimilitude of the French persona, the “love/hate affair” between English and French language and culture. Frankophile asserts the French language into the English vernacular through salutations and phrases; “Thank you, it’s very nice of you” becomes “Merci, it’s très nice of you.” But I type “Oh, that’s too bad” expecting to get “Oh, très dommage,” but do not. I notice certain words will be replaced, but not many phrases that I feel are common change at all. Finally I see translated, “Merde.” Perhaps this font does not push the experiment far enough—automatic translations for common words understood between both languages like, live (vive), or phrases, that’s great (c’est manufique), etc., would move this closer to the to the French/English persona. [20]
For Papaelias’ last MFA thesis example she insists again that the letterforms, vocabulary and phrases were taken from a real person, a five year old boy. “Cranky Kid” attempts to express “the unpredictable nature of a child’s speech and behavior.” [88] While this font’s use of the OpenType coding is funny, the assertion of unpredictably is a stretch. It is no less predictable than the first three; programmed to perform specific actions (display new letters/words) when concrete information (glyphs) are typed. You type, “YES I LIKE THAT,” you get, “NO ME DON’T LIKE THATAAAAAH!” (figure 09) It feels less to me like a five-year-old speech, and more like an adults mimesis of a child’s speech and behavior. The spelling is too correct, the bad grammar is overly anticipated; it seems to be more like a message of the adult’s view of the stereotype of a child. However, I type, “A small d” and it becomes “I DON’T LIKE YOU SMALL DINOSAUR,” with a backwards “S.” I am surprise, that was unexpected, but the new phrase does not make sense, and I doubt any child learning to write would want to write more than asked of them. Certainly not my nephews. And the all-caps are harsh, reminding me of my nephew’s writing assignments where they specifically forbid all caps, trying to encourage writing and recognition for lowercase letterforms. [20]
Amy Papaelias’ experiments are able to make the observer aware of the shifts and dissonance between the verbal and visual worlds. They perform this “magic” by acting, through the written word against the limits of systematic authority, through complex OpenType code “the official and the corporate have been skillfully employed,” or in this case re-appropriated, to “communicate the ideas and feelings of the individual” who is represented by each distinct and unusual persona of her fonts. [17]
OpenType as a method for expression and control of language certainly seems capable, but how it is developed and ultimately used is tricky. Imagine how the replacing of text might be utilized on an institutional level of industry or government. On a mass digital level, through mobile devices and computer platforms, it could be used to quell hostility or to quash dissonance through the expurgation of objectionable words or statements; a method for censorship. This discriminatory edit of language coded through OpenType is not unlike code utilized on popular internet gaming servers to prevent name calling between players, and to keep language PG. On gaming platforms it is regarded by most to be like the “bleep” on television, a simple omission of expression rather than its complete cover-up. But when a message cannot be visualized through video context, lip-reading, or understood as taboo in a specific media convention, the reader does not know what they have missed. Suppose your country is on the brink of an uprising against the government, OpenType could be used to replace, “impeach the king” with “long-live the king” so the people might never rally enough resistance to organize to make change, or even to know that there are other people with their same view.
So is OpenType necessary? Its functions do not necessarily give a typeface a strong or unique personality, and will not fundamentally change the content of the text. The advancement of language capabilities, and the ease by which ligatures can assist in the readability of text are two good reasons for type developers to work in OpenType. The third is the cross-platform ability between major computer platforms, PC, Mac as well as Linux. And because of limited Unicode and CSS support on the web these OpenType fonts robust capabilities can be seen online. But this technology, like any other, can be asserted for a variety of purposes and ends, good or bad depending on where you stand.
The studio Underware and Amy Papaelias represent two good examples for the value of experimentation that paves the way to connect the verbal and visual worlds through the written word. Both use handwritten type as a way to reinforce their goal, to make type on the computer more natural, but the real magic happens through their careful use and deployment of OpenType features. A kind of technological utopianism is represented by each of their font projects, manifesting itself not only in the style, but also in the new way they use OpenType technology. [18] Their fonts are not only fonts, they do not merely represent a mode of language, or stand as works of design, but they make technological strides in how language is symbolized, deployed and understood.
References
[1] Lupton, Ellen. Thinking with Type. Princeton Architectural Press, New York. China. (2004)
[2] OpenType, TrueType Typography,
http://www.truetype-typography.com/opentype.htm Reterived March 27, 2010
[3] Features: Microsoft Typography, Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/SpecificationsOverview.mspx
Reterived March 27, 2010
[4] Features, Microsoft Typography, Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq9.htm Reterived March 27, 2010
[5] Duhem Pierre. Mac - PC Exchange Fonts: Transferring Fonts, Mac Disc
http://www.macdisk.com/fontsen.php Reterived March 27, 2010
[6] OpenType, My Fonts, http://www.myfonts.com/info/opentype/ Reterived March 27, 2010
[7] Phinney, Thomas W. TrueType, PostScript Type 1, & OpenType: What’s the Difference? Version 2.36, December 26, 2004. PDF format, found on http://www.scribd.com
[8] Phinney, Thomas W. Personal Email Coorespondences, March 30, 2010 – May 10, 2010
[9] Staples, Loretta. Typography and the Screen: A Technical Chronology of Digital Typography, 1984-1997. Design Issues, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 19-34, The MIT Press.
[10] My Fonts Creative Characters: Underware. Issue #7, January 2008.
http://new.myfonts.com/newsletters/cc/200801.html Reterived on March 27th, 2010
[11] Bello, Underware,
http://www.underware.nl/site2/index.php?id1=bello&id2=info Reterived April 17, 2010
[12] Bello, My Fonts, http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/underware/bello/ Reterived April 17, 2010
[13] Underware Bello Books: Bello, Practical ©2004
Reterived April 17, 2010
[14] Liza Info, Underware,
http://www.underware.nl/site2/index.php?id1=liza&id2=info Reterived April 17, 2010
[15] Liza FAQ, Underware,
http://www.underware.nl/site2/index.php?id1=liza&id2=FAQ Reterived April 17, 2010
[16] Underware Liza Specimen Books: Introduction, Pour-les-Connaisseurs, User Guide ©2009
Reterived April 17, 2010
[17] Crow, David. Visible Signs. AVA Publishing, Switzerland. 2003, pp 65–97
[18] Sparke, Penny. An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present. 2nd Ed. Routledge, New York. 2008 pp 149–216
[19] Schwartz, Frederic J.. Commodity Signs: Peter Behrens, the AEG, and the Trademark. Journal of Design History, Vol. 9, No. 3. (1996) , pp. 153–184
[20] Papaelias, Amy. TypeTalk Fonts. http://www.typetalkfonts.com/typetalk_demo.html
Reterived Between April 17, 2010 and May 10, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010