What's the future of type design?

Moseph28 June 2013 · 20:27

Looking at the history of type and the role that process-based limitations have played in its design, what will be the future of type design as we approach the age when retina-level displays are the norm? Limitations on the design of type will be almost completely eliminated. Without these constraints, there is only a blank canvas. What do you see as the future of type?

Charles Ellertson29 June 2013 · 05:53

Well, lessee here.

Technology is solving so many manufacturing issues the demand for paid labor is dropping, globally.

Infant mortality rates are dropping, but the birthrate remains essentially constant.

Education is just one more commodity; it's cost is through the roof.

In short, there are going to be a lot of people with no income, no useful skills, and not much hope of acquiring either. They will be hungry. And mad.

So, I'd say type design, along with most everything else, will be trampled under the feet of warring soldiers.

That do for you?

Hrant H Papazian29 June 2013 · 07:14

The future is for solving problems, and the main problem in type has been the same since day one: getting type to finally move out of the house of his parents, calligraphy and lettering. I mean really, he's in his 40s now.

I think resolution crossing a threshold is relevant technically, but not in the above.

hhp

Nick Shinn29 June 2013 · 10:55

Ironically, the biggest limitation of screen typography is that it is scalable. Increased resolution will, I think, create a new technological monster to replace hinting -- the problem of how to adjust the appearance of typography according to absolute type size. We will have to go back to designing multi-size-specific fonts, or parametric fonts. Either way, that is a daunting constraint.

Nick Shinn29 June 2013 · 10:58

How cool would it be if the type size on your device changed according to how far away it was from your eyes? A constant optimum equation of x-height to arc of view.

Hrant H Papazian29 June 2013 · 11:14

We will have to go back to designing multi-size-specific fonts

Ah, very good point!
I much prefer that challenge to hinting though.

BTW Samsung has been doing a lot of "gaze-aware" stuff.

hhp

brianskywalker30 June 2013 · 19:50

> I much prefer that challenge [size-specific cuts] to hinting though.

I agree with you on that one.

phrostbyte6430 June 2013 · 20:57

Wow, Charles, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Frode Bo Helland1 July 2013 · 03:09

I see me in the future of type design.

Reynir Heiðberg...1 July 2013 · 06:03

I see a whole lot of hard rock hallelujah going on.

Moseph1 July 2013 · 18:19

Nick, very interesting point, I never thought of high-res as a constraint. Thank you!

James Michaels1 July 2013 · 21:27

We'll probably see script fonts gradually disappearing, since the ability to read cursive seems to be on the way out.

From a recent New York Times article: "Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it's already dying, despite having been taught for decades," said Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. "Very small proportions of adults use cursive for their day-to-day writing...As we have done with the abacus and the slide rule, it is time to retire the teaching of cursive," Polikoff said.

The recently established Common Core State Standards, the standardized educational benchmarks for U.S. public schools, omit cursive as a requirement. Some states, including Indiana and Hawaii, have dropped cursive from their curricula.

Hrant H Papazian1 July 2013 · 21:25

Couldn't come too soon!

hhp

Moseph1 July 2013 · 21:54

I'd love to see cursive die and, though it's unlikely to happen, I'd love to see Italics replace it. My grandfather wrote in italics and its simplicity always impressed me (particularly the letters; m,n,r,s). I remember wishing they'd taught this to me in school in place of cursive.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/09/04/opinion/20090908_opart.html

James Michaels1 July 2013 · 22:44

I hate to see it go, but it's probably going to happen. It's unfortunate that many historic documents (and even old family letters and journals) written in cursive will be unreadable to most folks.

laasr9 July 2013 · 00:26

Not sure if script typography will survive but script lettering sure as hell will. If anything script lettering has soared the last 2 years I've seen, scores and scores of people like hand lettering/vectored versions for logos and such, hell I even get a ton of lettering projects (mostly script, cursive). Even Calligraphy is coming back in full force. More often than not the people I see who dislike script/calligraphy are the ones who can't actually draw and prefer a ruler/guides for everything and without measuring tools they'd be lost. Just my $0.02

stevejack16 September 2013 · 05:38

I don't know what is the future of type design. Technology will solve this problem..
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Nick Shinn16 September 2013 · 12:32

Cursive is a good way to write, because it is faster than “printing” discrete letters.
Speed is important, because it allows the writer to capture thoughts before they dissipate.
Typing is of course faster, but if one is going to use a pen, then cursive is the way to go.
It is also a more joyful and expressive act—dancing and ﬂowing rather than marching.

Hrant H Papazian16 September 2013 · 15:15

Typing and voice-to-text are better, especially since directness is a greater joy. And you can always just paint something for fun.

But most of all, it's irrelevant to type design.

hhp

Shrenik23 September 2013 · 23:26

What's the future of type design?
It is really nice question.. The future of type is the past of type: visual language.
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nimi8 October 2013 · 01:01

GOOD QUESTION!!!
But i really don't know what is the solution.. Type is no longer just for paper leading to flexible possibilities in typeface design....technology will solve this issue... Why we worried about this..
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nimi8 October 2013 · 01:02

Good question

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Martin Silvertant16 November 2014 · 15:54

I also noticed there are a lot of script typefaces being released in recent years. So it seems while the cursive form will disappear in general writing, I don't think it can disappear completely. Also, with everything looking clean, automatic, rational and all that, there is a resurgence of everything old and everything we feel nostalgic about. I suspect the cursive form won't disappear this century at least and I can barely imagine it disappearing in upcoming centuries.

Martin Silvertant16 November 2014 · 15:56

I have to say that last statement probably has to do with my lack of vision about the future. A lot of people have predicted the future to be a certain way and couldn't have been more wrong. In fact, I don't know of any predictions about the future on a scale of at least 50 years that was accurate. It could be a wild guess what the future of type design will be at all.

Riccardo Sartori16 November 2014 · 17:33

Looking for typewriting fonts for another thread, I stumbled on this promotional image for Trixie that I think sums very well the relationship between script/handwriting and type design too:

Hrant H Papazian16 November 2014 · 21:51

And the more brave and level-headed we are, the less we fall victim to nostalgia... Improved simulation of the analog is a disservice to cultural progress.

But there is now hope for finally rendering handwriting emotionally obsolete:
http://instagram.com/p/veKAQZp2aC/

hhp

James Michaels18 November 2014 · 09:23

I don't think there's much doubt that cursive writing is slowing disappearing. Many schools no longer teach it and young people send letters by computer or cell phone. I've read that some young people have trouble reading/writing cursive.

I'm sure cursive will be around for decades, but it's simply not used much anymore by young people.

Hrant H Papazian18 November 2014 · 09:26

The problem is that among many [type] designers that only makes it more valuable, no matter how little sense it makes.

hhp

Martin Silvertant18 November 2014 · 12:58

How so? We could be doing it for personal reasons but I think mostly it's done because there's still a need for it. These people are specialists though. They're usually artists rather than graphic designers working at a studio.

Hrant H Papazian18 November 2014 · 17:37

They are indeed generally too close to art and too far from design. They do it because they need it, and convince themselves that many others also need it.

hhp

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