Legibility in typeface design for screen interfaces

This thesis explores the considerations related to the design of a typeface specifically for the use in interface typography. The genre of interface typefaces is outlined and essential attributes and requirements of this category of typefaces are inspected from the viewpoints of legibility, readability and type design practices. The research is based on the analysis of interface typeface samples, interviews with type designers as well as empirical findings documented by designers. These trade practices and design artefacts are contrasted with findings from cognitive psychology and legibility research. Furthermore the author’s design of the «Silta» typeface and its creation process are used to scrutinize and validate these observations. Amongst the crucial factors in the design of interface typefaces the legibility of confusable characters is extensively analysed. Furthermore, the rasterized on-screen rendering of outline based fonts is identified as a major contributing factor requiring special attention in the design, technical production and testing phases of modern fonts. Additionally, the context and use of interface typography and how users interact with interfaces are identified as the cornerstones influencing the design decisions of a typeface for this use. Finally, the aesthetics of interface typography and the motivations for developing specific interface typefaces are touched upon. As evident from the reviewed material, branding and visual identity often appear to be a driving force in the creation of new interface typefaces. However, the necessity for technological innovation and its demonstration equally inspire new design solutions. While technological limitations stemming from digital display media are increasingly becoming of less importance, the changes in reading behaviour and adaptive typography drive current development

The world's even bigger Hambergefonts

Donaldson attended the ATypI conference in Prague 2004 to continue his research experiment and investigations into his theory: Writing in the mind's eye. This is done by the production of big writing; letters so large that they cannot be formed using the muscles and joints of the arm, they must be formed by the whole body. Because the area the writing fills and the size of the letters are so large, it is impossible to get even an overview of the current letter as the stroke being made will finish somewhere behind the writer. These exercises can only usually be performed when the opportunity is provided by a sensitive sponsor. The title of the theory: Writing in the mind's eye, suggests that a large part of writing, and in a related manner, drawing, takes place in the mind. The tool used is specially constructed for each performance. About an hour to two hours are needed to prepare, depending on overall size but the actual writing time is very short, somewhere in the region of 3 minutes. The performances often take the form of a challenge to fit a given text into a given space exactly. This also tests the theory and makes the performance more challenging for the writer and more stimulating for the observer. These performances have had a broad and international effect on the graphic design community; although only a few people actually witness the performances, the subsequent dissemination via documentation placed on the internet, as listed above URL, is helping to fulfil of one of its goals, i.e. awareness of the importance of the written letter

Text in Visualization: Extending the Visualization Design Space

This thesis is a systematic exploration and expansion of the design space of data visualization specifically with regards to text. A critical analysis of text in data visualizations reveals gaps in existing frameworks and the use of text in practice. A cross-disciplinary review across fields such as typography, cartography and technical applications yields typographic techniques to encode data into text and provides the scope for the expanded design space. Mapping new attributes, techniques and considerations back to well understood visualization principles organizes the design space of text in visualization. This design space includes: 1) text as a primary data type literally encoded into alphanumeric glyphs, 2) typographic attributes, such as bold and italic, capable of encoding additional data onto literal text, 3) scope of mark, ranging from individual glyphs, syllables and words; to sentences, paragraphs and documents, and 4) layout of these text elements applicable most known visualization techniques and text specific techniques such as tables. This is the primary contribution of this thesis (Part A and B). Then, this design space is used to facilitate the design, implementation and evaluation of new types of visualization techniques, ranging from enhancements of existing techniques, such as, extending scatterplots and graphs with literal marks, stem & leaf plots with multivariate glyphs and broader scope, and microtext line charts; to new visualization techniques, such as, multivariate typographic thematic maps; text formatted to facilitate skimming; and proportionally encoding quantitative values in running text – all of which are new contributions to the field (Part C). Finally, a broad evaluation across the framework and the sample visualizations with cross-discipline expert critiques and a metrics based approach reveals some concerns and many opportunities pointing towards a breadth of future research work now possible with this new framework. (Part D and E)

On Arabic justification

Justified setting is one of the most common configurations of a block of text. It is found across different cultures, writing systems, and languages. Yet whilst the concept of equalising the width of lines in a column to achieve a rectangular block is shared, the techniques that are employed towards this end are diverse. This paper discusses the justification of Arabic text. It lays out the methods that evolved in manuscript practice and reflects on their interpretation in typography. A short history contextualises how Arabic justification changed under the influence of technology and prepares the ground for a review of the provisions found in current typographic environ-ments. The paper then presents the state-of-the-art of digital text layout for Arabic and queries its suitability. Contemporary tools are then juxtaposed with a review of the justification tech-niques that are found in exemplary models of manual typography, presenting evidence that un-derlines shortcomings of current methods and software implementations. The argument con-cludes with recommendations of best practice aimed at toolmakers and designers of Arabic doc-uments

Technical challenges in multiple master font design with extreme form change

The hypothesis was that it is possible to create a unique PostScript Multiple Master font which makes a relatively smooth transition between serifed roman and italic letterforms. In the process of creating such a font, the author discovered new principles of Multiple Master font construction and new methodologies for ensuring smooth transitions. The methodology was to first construct a prototype, in order to explore the complications of such a project; the prototype metamorphosed between the roman and italic forms of the Adobe typeface Minion. For the actual project, roman and italic extremes were newly designed, loosely based on historical models dating from around 1540. The initial models for these fonts were found in a 16th century French edition of Livy\u27s His tory of Rome, published by the Giunti family, from the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. The models were scanned, and the digital bitmaps used as the starting point for the digital masters. Creation of the font involved a variety of software tools, on both Macintosh and Windows, notably Macromedia Fontographer. The written thesis project explores the technical and design problems and solutions uncovered in creation of both the prototype and the thesis project, and explaining how these add to the theory and principles of Multiple Master font construction. The thesis also: reviews the relationship between italic and roman typefaces; analyzes the success of the intermediate fonts between italic and roman; and displays printed samples of various steps in the design process, as well as the two final masters and three intermediate fonts at various levels of italicization

Model-based matching and hinting of fonts

In digital computers, phototypesetters and printers, typographic fonts are mainly given by their outline descriptions. Outline descriptions alone do not provide any information about character parts like stems, serifs, shoulders, and bowls. But, in order to produce the best looking characters at a given size on a specific printer, nonlinear operations must be applied to parts of the character shape. At low-resolution, grid-fitting of character outlines is required for generating nice and regular raster characters. For this reason, grid-fitting rules called hints are added to the character description. Grid-fitting rules require as parameters certain characteristic points within the shape outlines. In order to be able to detect these characteristic points in any given input font, a topological model representing the essence of the shapes found in typographic latin typefaces is proposed. This model includes sufficient information for matching existing non-fancy outline fonts to the model description. For automatic hint generation, a table of applicable hints is added into the topological model description. After matching a given input shape to the model, hints which can be applied to the shape of the given font are taken and added to its outline description. Furthermore, a structural description of individual letter shape parts using characteristic model points can be added to the model. Such a description provides knowledge about typographic structure elements like stems, serifs and bowl

Typographic sets: Labeled set elements with font attributes

We show that many different set visualization techniques can be extended with the addition of labeled elements using font attributes. Elements labeled with font attributes can: uniquely identify elements; encode membership in ten sets; use size to indicate proportions among set relations; can scale to thousands on clearly labeled elements; and use intuitive mappings to facilitate decoding. The approach can be applied to many different set visualization layouts, including Venn and Euler diagrams, graphs, mosaic plots and cartograms

Font attributes enrich knowledge maps and information retrieval: Skim formatting, proportional encoding, text stem and leaf plots, and multi-attribute labels

© 2016 The Author(s)Typography is overlooked in knowledge maps (KM) and information retrieval (IR), and some deficiencies in these systems can potentially be improved by encoding information into font attributes. A review of font use across domains is used to itemize font attributes and information visualization theory is used to characterize each attribute. Tasks associated with KM and IR, such as skimming, opinion analysis, character analysis, topic modelling and sentiment analysis can be aided through the use of novel representations using font attributes such as skim formatting, proportional encoding, textual stem and leaf plots and multi-attribute labels

Embodying Bookness: Reading as Material Act

Despite containing many highly original creative investigations into the relations between narrative language, typography, and book form, Johanna Drucker’s artist’s books have received little critical attention. With the help of her own statements about books represented, annotated, and mapped in Artists’ Books Online, I will look at her work as an outstanding aesthetic experiment in linking narrativity in language to narrativity in codex forms. Her poetic exploration of the materiality of the printed codex is based upon a large set of self-reflexive operations. As material investigations of the possibilities of print layout and narrativity, they show an impressive cultural and technical mastery. She has assimilated many print traditions, from modernist and postmodernist poetics to the popular press and the history of printing. Mostly self-produced in limited editions, her works cover a wide range of production techniques, including letterpress, off-set, etching, and digital printing. In her stylistic and technical repertoire, one finds collage, drawing, illustration, calligraphy, poetry, fictional prose, and different styles of experimental typography. Typographical design is usually work-specific (and sometimes even page-specific), from typeface choice and paper selection to page layout and binding format