so i guess no one has an opinion about Filosofia used as a textface? whatever... i think it works just fine. viva Emigre!

nc

Filosofia, for me, is a gorgeous display typeface ... and maybe small amounts of text. I’ll be getting my copy shortly. Will be interesting to see. It is not too contrasty and the serifs are soft, so I suppose I can see it being used. Isn’t Filosofia their most recent OpenType upgrade? Makes sense that they would use it.

>small amounts of text

perhaps it works well with this issue because it is a compilation of 69 short stories.

——————————————
nc

ps
i just finished the first 15 stories and can’t wait to finish the book this weekend…

To fittingly paraphrase Luc[as]:
We Read With Oblivion To Bad Typography What We Adulate Most.

hhp

^
sounds pretty lofty to me.

i’ve been reading the book fine (admittedly in short spurts though).

———————
nc

> fittingly paraphrase:

We Read With Oblivion To Good Typography What We Resent Most.

Lofty? Using a Bodoni for text is lofty.

> i’ve been reading the book fine

Yup, like I said.

Nick: Or like you’ve said, “It’s all good”, eh?
But resent is certainly correct. That one sick
mantra has done so much harm, it’s just sad.

hhp

what about short texts though? the book is 69 short stories that are each no more than 2 pages. i, like most others, have been and probably will continue to read a few stories at a time and the Filosofia isn’t bothering my eyes at all. i am able to recognize each word with ease. whether or not it would be suitable for text in another situation, i don’t know.

in the book, Rudy Vanderlans does a little paraphrasing of his own:

“Zuzana’s notion, that people read best what they read most, is a post-structuralist critique, or so we’re told. She’d recognized that legibility is not a natural phenomenon but a fairly arbitrary construct, contingent on cultural values and therefore open to change”.

—————————————
nc

By “short text,” Tiffany probably means three or four lines (I know that’s what I mean when I write “this font is perfect for headlines and short pieces of text…”).

Even two pages is too much to read when text is set with a display type instead of a real text face. Note: I haven’t seen this Emigre issue, so I can’t say what the case here is.

Dan: i see what your saying. thanks for clarifying…

however, i think i remember a post in which a very prominent type designer explained that he had been successfully setting a magazine in Filosofia.

—————————————
nc

let me try to find the thread…

“Body Text with Futura” is the thread i am referring to (in the Design Forum).

sorry i can’t figure out how to make a link to the thread…

——————————-
nc

I have been using Filosofia as a text face in the quarterly magazine I do for the Royal Ontario Museum for years. I think it suits the kind of writing the magazine contains. My experience is that it is superior to the strict bodonis as a text face, and not as effective as a display face.

> legibility is not a natural phenomenon but a fairly
> arbitrary construct, contingent on cultural values
> and therefore open to change”.

There’s nothing arbitrary about the shape of the human retina or how our brains prefer to decipher and compile information. It doesn’t matter how much FF Extra you read, you’ll still read FF Quadraat better (assuming a few hours of training if you just happen to be Tarzan and Jane only showed you texts set in FF Extra for two years or something).

Legibility is open to change? Duh. That’s the easy part. Some of us are trying to better grasp the hard part. And what about the true nature of Familiarity - like how quickly is it gained? Virtually nobody has had the balls to consider that seriously. Sixty-nine issues and you’d think the entire foundation of their design philosophy would get some critical, lucid airtime...

> I think it suits the kind of writing the magazine contains.

In my book the intent of a publication would have to be pretty strange to really justify any Bodoni*. For example, Hamm’s book on Arabic is very suited to it, but only because its premise is laughably Modernist. To quote** G W Ovink: “Bodoni is an admirable letter for a death notice!” So yes, any font is useful sometimes...

* Although we would have to define “Bodoni”. Much harder than one might think!

** Actually that’s an amalgamation of two sentences of his.

hhp

cool, i think i’ve spawned a rant from Hrant! : )

seriously though…

i think that the physiological research that you are referring to is very interesting and valid. however, it is not, and should not be, the end all.

every human being has a unique way in which they perceive things. we all draw upon our own iconography to decipher the forms that come before us.

although there are many techniques that we rely on to keep things consistent, there can and always will be room for preference and change. design is not science.

—————————-
nc

> design is not science.

But there is no reason to banish science as one tool of the tools used in design. Science isn’t just useful for consistancy in craft or art.

> every human being has a unique way in which they perceive things.

Perhaps, but not utterly unique. Overlaps dominate. Big time.

> a fairly arbitrary construct, contingent on cultural values and therefore open to change.

There is something to this but it’s not nearly enough to base a whole theory of type design on - and it isn’t a practical place to start. I think she meant it as a tweak on the nose of sleepy stolid type industry. I am not sure it didn’t need it at the time. Radicals often have to overstate things to be heard. Who knows what she says over a glass of wine. She may be mellower. And even if she isn’t - so what?

Dogmas are not helpful - skepticism and using your own eyes is.

who’s trying to banish science? i am just making the point that in design, it is dangerous to assume that there is only one way to do something. as i said before, it’s not the end all. if it was, then someone would figure out the super-perfect-absolute-complete-and-total-legibility-formula and all type would look the same.

perhaps someone is on the verge of cracking this code? is that going to make people read and understand things any better? who knows??

i read an article in Print about a typeface called Clearview. its creators are on a crusade to convert all the roadsigns in america to what they believe to be a superior typeface. in their minds, this is supposed to improve something. i think the improvement would be marginal, at best.

in this example we are discussing Filosfia as an effective textface. Filosofia is based on Bodoni, which doesn’t work for text, due to its high stroke contrast. however, according to Emigre, the contrast in Filosofia was toned down in order to make it more suitable for text. i agree with this and feel that it is working fine in the book.

is there another typeface out there that would work better? perhaps.

Emigre is not the end all either. maybe i just like the fact that Zuzanna Licko’s types are not perfect. they seem like they were crafted by a human being and i think that gives them a lot of character. perhaps Filosofia isn’t the most legible typeface ever created—i never said it was.

——————-
nc

> it is not, and should not be, the end all.

Agreed 100%.

> But there is no reason to banish science

Exactly. That’s the other extreme.

> Radicals often have to overstate things to be heard.

True. It is part of the nature of human communication that shock and over-simplification are often needed. On the other hand, once one is given the opportunity to elaborate, things had better start making more sense.

> its creators are on a crusade to convert all the roadsigns
> in america to what they believe to be a superior typeface.

Unlike Licko and some others, Montalbano is no crusader. He’s a designer.

> i think the improvement would be marginal, at best.

Objective testing has shown otherwise.

> i just like the fact that Zuzanna Licko’s types are not perfect.
> they seem like they were crafted by a human being

That’s a good point, and an important factor. But I think there’s a difference between making a glyph that has a natural charm, versus something like a poorly spaced “e”, versus a typographer using a Bodoni for text simply because he feels he needs to simplify his life or something.

hhp

> using a Bodoni for text simply because he feels
> he needs to simplify his life or something.

Just to be clear: I didn’t necessarily mean Peter. Plus do note the “or something”. I don’t know the nature of the book Peter used a Bodoni for, or the true nature of his life, so... That said, frankly I do think he’s too Modernist; and setting Bodoni (justified?...) is one possible symptom of that.

BTW:
> the contrast in Filosofia was toned down
> in order to make it more suitable for text.

But why even bother, if WRBWWRM? Just like with something like NotCaslon, the reader will get used to anything and everything after the first paragraph or something anyway, right?

The truth is: that was a good move; and Licko’s skills and understanding have -not surprisingly- improved over the years. Unfortunately what has been lacking is an admission that good craft matters after all; that even something as subtle as stroke contrast has an effect on the quality of the product. What has been lacking is a big fat asterisk on their mantra.

hhp

————————————
>a typographer using a Bodoni for text simply because he feels he needs to simplify his >life or something.

not quite sure what you mean by that but, moving forward…
————————————
^
(looks like Hrant beat me to this one; his explaination was already posted by the time i finished writing this one)

would it be more difficult to read if the text was set in Copperplate? most definitely.
would it be more difficult to read if the text were set in Didot? absolutly.

the bottom line is that Emigre No. 69 is set in Filosofia and there is no way to change that. i can read the text with no problem. can you?

——————————-
nc

{Sorry, I was editing/appending while you were writing.}

> Emigre No. 69 is set in Filosofia

And that might in fact be another case of good usage of a Bodoni. Which however doesn’t justify ignoring potential problems, or in this case -since the editor and designer are the same person- of the problem with the content (since it’s related to type design, otherwise we wouldn’t need to worry about the content).

> i can read the text with no problem. can you?

First I’d have to make the time to get a copy (and I’m sure some day I will). But I can guess: being a type designer (of a certain kind) I would constantly be miffed while reading the thing - but that’s my problem, and not anybody else’s fault; if I were a layman, I would not consciously notice a problem - but the problem would still be there; not a problem that’s going to change anybody’s life*, but still. The merits of text face design are “subvisible”, and conscious layman ignorance is no justification for bad craft.

* Almost nothing in type design ever does that anyway.

hhp

> Objective testing has shown otherwise.

I agree. I have a certain positive feeling about the old face in terms of culture - wacky I know - but driving in bad weather I will be grateful for signs in the new typeface. Or even good weather! This is not to say that it would be impossible to improve on in future either.

> who’s trying to banish science?

Okay, just tying to clarify. There are plenty of folks all too eager to kick science out of what they see as their ’creative space’. And then there are those too eager to kick it out of science policy or the classroom when it doesn’t suit them too... Hrants point that Artists have been too eager to think ’I don’t need science’ or ’What I do isn’t touched by science, or can’t be helped by science’ is I think correct. Even if he sometimes overstates things himself. Anyway I didn’t mean to offend or to lump you (or him).

> absolute-complete-and-total-legibility-formula and all type would look the same.

Even then, even if such a thing were to happen, type would by no means have to look or feel the same. Supporting reading in typeface design is a complex balance and there is always going to be a variety of possible balances available to be struck. There is no danger from any frankenomniuniversiclonetype. That’s a false boogeyman if ever there was one.

Hrant,
i think i agree.

————————
nc

Eben,
>frankenomniuniversiclonetype
nice.

i see what you’re saying an i agree.

————————-
nc

>There is no danger from any frankenomniuniversiclonetype. That’s a false boogeyman if ever there was one.

I’m not so sure.
Consider what happened to newspaper text type in the 20th century, with corporate-technological concentration leading to a monopoly position for Linotype machines, combined with a “scientific” ideology of legibility directing font development. There wasn’t much choice of text faces, and that part of our culture became stagnant prior to Murdoch’s Augean cleansing.

Now take a look at Microsoft’s ClearType faces. They’re a very close bunch designwise, from a combination of pre-design criteria that made it difficult for them to be otherwise. Some of that is the constraints of the technology leading to certain optimal forms, some of it — in particular the Greek and Cyrillic — is due to the conservative one-size-fits-all culture that globalized corporate concentration engenders. And some of it is design that panders to the “faster is better” aesthetic beloved of scientists and engineers.

Reductive design theories based on supposed scientific logic have been used as the basis of design reform for centuries. The engineering of real-world products always falls short, but that doesn’t stop the next generation of engineers saying “that was then, but we’ll get it right now. Pony up the cash and let’s get that Star Wars shield built pronto.”

One should also be aware of that progressive ethos in design where subtlety of execution is derided, where the preferred type is Arial, and the preferred logo is a square with the name knocked out. Here, artists are thinkers, not makers. This is a genuinely new paradigm, and if it leads to frankenomniuniversiclonetype, then perhaps that’s the way things are supposed to go in our MicroMacrAppleGooglAdobia future.

> some of it — in particular the Greek and Cyrillic —
> is due to the conservative one-size-fits-all culture

On the contrary, it’s in much-needed opposition to the globalizing scourge that is Latinization, such as in the design of Greek fonts based on an egocentric “internal consistency” formal Modernist hobgoblin, something users at large need about as much as a slave labourer needs better chains.

> Reductive design theories based on supposed scientific logic
> have been used as the basis of design reform for centuries.

Indeed. But lately the misguided “artist mentality” that Eben elaborated on has had too much sway, at least in the field of type design, and it’s time to right the balance. The widespread, sincere, intelligent and brave reaction you’re seeing now, and the timely fall of the 90s aesthetic (not to mention that of the 2-3 decades preceding it) is natural and needed. Maybe what would work is if I pointed out that it’s simply no longer fashionable...

hhp

>much-needed opposition to the globalizing scourge that is Latinization,

I’m talking about conservatism, not Latinization.
The gatekeepers hired by Microsoft to authenticate its Greek and Cyrillic bundled fonts are conservatives, necessarily, given the extent of the font distribution, and their role as guardians, buffers lightening the heavy hand of cultural imperialism.
But wouldn’t it be better to let users speak with their own voices?
And make their own choices about which fonts they prefer to use?

>the misguided “artist mentality”

I prefer the “design mentality”, which contains the best aspects of both science and art.
What concerns me is when the design mentality loses its balance, and pays too much attention to either art or science.

The digital revolution wasn’t solely about crazy fonts. There was some pretty wack software out there too, science run amok, if you will. It wasn’t artists who screwed up graphics and typography by inventing Photoshop filters, for instance. It was a Pandora’s box, to call it “misguided” is absurd — you can’t have a guided revolution! When I say screwed up, that’s not a diss, “the roads of excess lead to wisdom” as Wm Blake put it.

Hrant, I’m puzzled how you reconcile two aspects of your philosophy.
On the one hand, you’re all for a scientific understanding of how reading works, but on the other you’re against Modernism, which is surely hand in glove with science.
Please explain.

> The gatekeepers hired by Microsoft to authenticate its
> Greek and Cyrillic bundled fonts are conservatives

No, they’re not - at least not in the way that matters most - at least not the Greek side. The norm for contemporary Greek type for one remains that of Latinization, and the MS fonts go against that. In this case conservatism equates to Latinization. So when it comes to non-Latin design, strangely enough you’re the one on the conservative side believe it or not! :-)

As for Cyrillic, it’s a much harder battle,
because it was Latinized by royal decree...

> But wouldn’t it be better to let users speak with their own voices?

1) That’s easier said than done. Souvlaki buddies in Toronto isn’t it.
2) When you ask the wrong users -or the people with more money than wits & integrity- you end up with a monument of long-term cultural damage like what happened to Greek in the 70s. Also, simply asking the users the wrong way can mislead you totally. It’s a very tricky thing, trying to figure out what people really want and need; asking them for explicit answers can never ever work.

> What concerns me is when the design mentality loses its balance,
> and pays too much attention to either art or science.

Indeed. And it has been doing it to the former for too long.

> you can’t have a guided revolution!

?

“A revolutionary has a cool head and a warm heart.”
-Lenin

“Revolution, go slow.”
-Robert Plant

> I’m puzzled how you reconcile two aspects of your philosophy.

I can see how it’s confusing in this environment where everything is lumped within two extremes, be those Science or Art, or Chirography and Post-Modernism; but there is [at least] a third way.

The trick with separating Science and Modernism is leveraging the former as a tool without falling for the latter as an ideology. You don’t turn Science into a religion; faith is always necessary, but not in something that’s only half the story. The key is to realize the limits of knowledge, of control; but this does not justify breaking windows for the hell of it.

So I don’t try to make a perfectly legible type. But neither do I go ahead and make whatever useless junk my emotions tell me to. I study, I think, and then try to serve others - even if I know I can never fully succeed. What Science can do is guide, and what Modernism can’t do is relinquish control, to jump into the darkness - but that’s the only way to mark progress. The PoMo people had good intentions and good instincts, but they let their selves dominate what is necessarily a servile field. So I guess now we need to find another term for what should have been...

hhp

>Souvlaki buddies

That’s offensive. End of discussion (with you).

Nick, your points re frankenomniuniversiclonetype are excellent but I am not sure they add up to the imminent utter dominance of frankenomniuniversiclonetype. I mean sure Arial & Verdana & eventaully the Cleartypes will dominate in the sense that they will be ’unfairly’ ubiquitous. But there is more choice now than there has ever been & that is set to keep improving. Some of the choices are not too sweet & there are not too many fonts made with their point size in mind, or version for pt sizes or whatever we might most want but there is lots & lots & lots of choice. I am not saying that it is a wonderful market. That would be a different thing.

> Microsoft’s ClearType

Is this state of affairs any worse or better than the font sets offered in the past? I would say that it’s slightly better because the printed type will suffer less in cleartype from the imposition of screen needs on the type design.

The thing about an OS & bundled fonts is that in general you do need to be sure that an average user’s basic needs are met by offering some type or the OS is useless. In the case of 80’s & 90’s OS - the type had to be what it was - screen & print type where loads of compromise was made so that sceeen could match print to some degree.

While I understand your point about OS & application companies bundling too many fonts I also know that the ubiquity of Georgia & Verdana made me happy because I was tired of Arial & Times.

Reading over your posts here I am not sure what you would advocate - or precisely the nature of your complaint because much of the way it things are today seems inevitable to me. On the other hand I would like to know how you would do things if you ran MicroMacrAppleGooglAdobia. Would you for instance suggest a voucher system where users could use their points towards independant fondry fonts?

> The digital revolution

Even though some dubious type was & there were some design excesses I don’t particularly regret what happened in the 90’s. Some really wonderful stuff happened too. At some point the interest in craft etc will turn into a willfull bullheaded unthinking kneeejerk ’conservatism’ which will need to be tweaked again - albeit in a new way.

Nobody was stopping anybody from doing good work in the 90’s. Nobody is stopping us now. What people are willing to pay for is a different issue.

{The following is based on a long and balanced post that Nick made last night. A few minutes after my reply below however Nick decided to replace his post with... that thing.}

> The ClearType fonts are conservative because they are respectful
> of traditional proper Greek and Cyrillic typography.

Again focusing on the Greek:
What’s “traditional”? Current Greek tradition is Latinized, and only specialists are aware of the old stuff*. These fonts are against that - they are a gentle, quiet revolution of sorts, and if it takes a megacorporation to give a culture the boost it needs while the masses are diluting it, hey, then that’s one good thing about MS! Not as good as a benign monarch, but still. :-) The fact that free fonts from large companies make life harder for some small type designers is quite secondary in terms of the wider benefits to society. One has to be candid and brave enough to admit that. If MS were pushing heavily Latinized crap on people, then I’d complain.

* Noting BTW that many experts -especially native ones- consider things like the Aldine Greek to be misguided design. Did you know that?

> I was talking about end users choosing their own fonts

While I was talking about deciding what kinds of fonts to make, so way before there’s a chance for that. And if you base your font-making decisions entirely on what’s already out there, of course you’re marking zero cultural progress. While if you base your design decisions on what turns you on personally, chances are quite good very few other people will need the results.

> it’s because they really want them

Which is not good enough. That’s what happened in the 70s to Greek. Please stop.

A society based on wants is exactly what’s sending the world downhill of late.

> I trust my emotions (I’ve been practising for a while, so hopefully
> I’ve developed some useful design instincts), and try and make the
> type read as well as possible.

But it is exactly without Science that you can’t strike a good balance between the two. Myself, I have faith that based on what [I think] users need (not merely want) and guided by Science (although not the formal western definition of it) my self-expression will result in useful things.

There’s a difference between trusting one’s emotions (which everybody does to some extent, but nobody should do absolutely) versus guiding one’s self-expression towards serving others. I’ve been making fonts -for other people- for over 20 years now, but I still try to look upon my emotions from the “outside” instead of getting drunk on them - I feel that’s the key to being a reasonable world citizen.

hhp

User opinion:

So Nick, please give advice to somebody trying to decide what sort of Greek fonts to make by telling us what experience you have with gauging what Greek font users want*. What Greek-font-buyers have you interviewed, and what market research** have you carried out? Also: Did you base Albany on any such thing, or did you base it instead on a desire to exercise internally-consistent formalist shape-making, leading off directly from the Latin master that you so emotionally... painted?

* Yes, just want, for the sake of argument.

** Of course you’d have to do the research yourself, only a clueless idiot would rely on the research of others, right?

hhp

>I am not sure what you would advocate - or precisely the nature of your complaint because much of the way it things are today seems inevitable to me.

I am not sure what I would advocate. My complaint is that font bundling by Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe is unfair to independent foundries. Perhaps their behavior is inevitable, because nobody is powerful enough to stop them.

BTW, I agree with you that there is lots of opportunity for good work, and there is a strong market for indie fonts. The narrow focus of the ClearType fonts should leave space for other foundries to fill. So it is not all doom and gloom. But for the mainstream of font users who don’t buy indie fonts, it’s homogenous typography — no matter how good the type design and how sharp the image.

Hrant, your most recent post (11.18) was much more polite and intelligent, and I’m tempted to reply, but I’m not going to continue the discussion, because from past experience I know that you would soon again resort to personal attacks (eg 11.35).

> your most recent post (11.18) was much more polite and intelligent

Then why did you remove your -balanced and full- reply to the allegedly offensive post after I made the good one? Do you not value your own expressions beyond their tactical/rhetorical value? Is this a little battle you’re waging, as you’ve alluded to before? Because I can’t see the battlefield - or at least the one I see doesn’t have you in it. Note also that the post you removed also contained direct reference to the souvlaki comment... I guess maybe you were in a more balanced mood last night as opposed to this morning? After all, we’re all human. Hey, maybe you need a vacation... in Greece. :-)

(Man, don’t you just wish you could edit my posts as well!)

> I’m not going to continue the discussion, because ...

If I were you, I’d have a much better reason not to reply: your position
is virtually indefensible. But artists don’t need to justify their work.

Really, Nick, it’s not you, it’s your ideas.
You’d have to be friend or family for me
to actually care personally.

hhp

>Then why did you remove your -balanced- reply to the allegedly offensive post after I made the good one?

Crossed post.

>your position is virtually indefensible.

And Happy Christmas to you too.

> Crossed post.

It took you overnight to realize my post was offensive, and then it
took you almost two hours* to replace your post with a single line?
Come on, Nick, this isn’t a sandbox. If your position is defensible,
and being a prolific poster it’s not like you can’t make the time,
then please make the time (or at least don’t spend time removing
balanced things you’ve already written).

* And tellingly a few minutes after I made my “good” post.

Anyway, I hope you have good holidays - I really do.

hhp