Can you elaborate more? I don’t seem to understand you question :(

Based on the stock it is intended to be printed on?
Sorry just as foggy as Dan on the question.
Tim

Or why the type takes the form it takes. Which usage has a bearing on.

esthetics*

By editing my message i seem to have erased all of it.

I’ll make a second attempt.

Are you talking cultural esthetics or type usability?

Why does it take a certain form?
What is the thought before the form?
Are you talking basic human estethics or usability here?

I’m talking about something I havn’t seen very often here, at least personally. Not stock, Julian, welcome to typophile. You are closer to what I’m asking. Because usability for text type is narrowly defined, just, I guess cultural esthetics.

It’s not purely cosmetic is it? Making where the shapes come from more than surface.

What’s the feeling? Modern or Antique? When you say modern, do you mean Neo-Classicist, Moderist, Post-Modern, or Contemporary.

Antique: do you want old fashioned or just old? French, English, or Dutch. Or Venetian?

Humanist or Geometric? That feeling determines the axis, to some degree, and a lot of other aesthetic traits.

If your college is a Catholic University, it would need different type that a large State Institution or a small liberal powerhouse. Just an example.

The Republicans and the Democrats should use separate typefaces. They actually do, but for the right reasons?

Rudi Bauer asked Peter Bilak to “deprotestant-ize” Univers. Bilak drew Fedra.

Thin, cheap, rougher paper needs thicker stems, less thins, and sturdy serifs. And open counters that won’t fill in. Big glossy coffee table books can be printed in Didot without any problems—because no one is going to read that text anyway.

Aesthetic choices are often ground in historical habits—and sometimes for good reason.

Who do you want to be as a designer? What do you want to make? (Surely you don’t just want to reiterate the past!) This is more important to ask yourself first, rather than what sort of letterforms you happen to like.

Am I getting in the right direction?

Interesting question, Eric. Is it about the design process, or how people use type?

For the first, I might say it depends on the design goals. In one instance the designer might be concerned about historical precedent/aesthetics, whereas in another the same person might be designing for the limitations of a particular mode of reproduction (like newsprint, video subtitles, etc.) You could go further in addressing the culture, age, gender etc. of the audience.

For the second instance, I think it’s difficult to say how character (the character of characters?) can be derived from usage, in that you can’t predict how people will use it. A face that is bundled with windows 95 will take on a different meaning than one that is sold at fontshop. When designers start using a corporate typeface in a different way for techno flyers all of a sudden the meaning shifts.

I think that Eric’s question was about how or why typefaces intended for similar media or usage (newspaper, magazine, book, signage, book, etc.)get to have a similar character.

Maybe half of it is tradition or convention (you know a book face has to look like a book face) and half of it is the technical constraints of different uses.

Héctor

> Like, JFP designed a type for whatever use, what is the driving creative force/philosophy behind what shapes the letters take.

“I have great difficulti