I'll be tied up extending my back catalog into the OpenType format for a while, it's something I still haven't finished.
Two new projects that I do however have in mind:

1. Making my handwriting into an OpenType font. I think there's a lot of potential to get a much more natural effect, using contextual alternates, than has so far been achieved, so I'd like to take a crack at that.

2. A straight forward roman OpenType face that uses alternates -- most definitely not ligatures -- to create a subtle effect. Not necessarily imitating the idiosyncracies of letterpress, but with the idea that such variations may serve a purpose.

So, no predictions, and somewhat self-centred, but that's as real as I can get.

rss

From a personal perspective I'd suggest there is very little to expect from typography in the future. I think the major upsurges (in terms of idealism) were from 1455 to 1501, the major investigations at the beginning of the 20th century (both in regard to traditionalism and modernism), and in the 1990s (as a consequence of the unlicensing of font formats).

Other than than that it has been merely technological transitions (which have not been insignificant—but seem other than what you are looking for). In terms of "holographic displays," and similar such multi-media stuff; I'm not sure how much this actually has to do with typography so much as something else (and we have gone through that time and time again). Typography is what it is. There may be occasional questioning as to what it is in an idealogical sense, but ultimately it is what it is. We just keep coming back to the fundamentals.

Gerald
http://BielerPrss.blogspot.com

From a personal perspective I’d suggest there is very little to expect from typography in the future.

Now there's a wet blanket. There are plenty of new and interesting developments in typography to come, but the type industry itself and publishers and readers seem almost wholly opposed to innovation. People like you for example. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to want to hit the nails firmly back into the wood before they've even popped up.

In general, people are terrified of change and the very idea of change. I am not, and it gets me into trouble.

That makes me very happy. To upend conservatism, or at least try to.

j a m e s

Nick - is Handsome Pro not your handwriting?

Nick Cooke

> From a personal perspective I’d suggest there is very little to expect from typography in the future.

I'm with James on this one. It's like the person in the late 1800s who said they should close the patent office because there was nothing left to invent.

There will always be progress, as long as a product is used. The only way typography can die is if reading dies, and that isn't likely to happen before someone invents mental telepathy (and who knows, maybe that will require fonts as well.)

In the immediate future I think we’re going to see more exploration of expressive/postmodern typography, but this time driven more by enhancing communication and less by the technological experimentation that was so prevalent the last time around.

In type design, large, versatile families and superfamilies will become more popular as multinational entities flex their identity muscles on a global scale. There’s going to be a greater demand for fonts with five weights, three widths, and supports for every possible Latin language, Cyrillic, Chinese, and probably Arabic. On a somewhat related note, the “great designers” of the future will no longer be the high-minded hotshots in New York and Basel, they’ll Dubai-based geniuses who can effectively communicate across cultures.

The comfortable threads of nostalgia and historicism that are running through American design will cool off and popular type designs will be more detached from the past, but I’m not sure how long it will be before consumers have a hopeful outlook on the future and designers will tire of appropriation.

At some point in the more-distant future there will be another revolution in reproduction technology when information can be blasted right into our brains, but I doubt that any of us is going to produce an accurate prediction about what that will do to type.

not expecting much ? aw c'mon !!!

i think the future of typography is really an extension of the future of language, and language is always evolving.

i see trends such as L33T, slang, revisions in punctuation norms, and other popular modifications as healthy signs that the language is alive and well. sure, customized and colloquial usage may offend the keepers of orthodoxy, but it's inevitable and, imho, part of the (r)evolution.

tell it to the middle english !

The future of typography will be an extension of the needs of today. I can see advances in screen quality and technology to deliver better online reading experience. There are more small portable devices like phones and pocket entertainment devices coming so I imagine bringing the level of typography of print to these devices is a major thing to expect.
There will probably be a mess with web served typefaces for a while until it all gets sorted out and becomes predictable again.
OpenType still has growth in its future and I expect to see fuller use of its capability made possible by applications and operating systems. There may be more automated inter-language typography improving on the so-far inadequate attempts by things like Babelfish.

ChrisL

yes good answer dezcom. technology will drive developments in style - just as did the chisel, stylus, quill, press, crt, lcd, ipod...

and there's a feedback loop, as stylistic needs and trends influence technology.

i wonder how art and politics contribute to this engine ?

Sverri,

Id recommend getting your hands on a copy of Fred Smeijers little book Type Now. What you ask is, I think, implied by his discussion.

L33T,

Damn, more kerning!

2. A straight forward roman OpenType face that uses alternates — most definitely not ligatures — to create a subtle effect. Not necessarily imitating the idiosyncracies of letterpress, but with the idea that such variations may serve a purpose.

Hooray! I think this is what we will see more & more of.

But how would this be implemented? Something like this could easily be seen as tricky feathers if not implemented with care. Would this be a stylistic set? Would it be something a user to turn off or choose how or when?

Considering that 95% of designers, that I speak to, have never heard of a Multiple Master or an OpenType font, I think the future of typography is still up in the air. This cosy little Typophile space is no where near the real world. We're all locked in an arms race of OT features and almost no one cares.

Tough huh.

Firstly, I see the long tail showing up in typography, as in everywhere else. This means more interesting and varied forms. I wouldn't be surprised if horizontal stress gains some popularity.
Now, let's look at the current favorite of the serifed C fonts: Constantia. Based upon this, we should see a rise in wedge serifs and diagonal stress, the later prediction also supported by its incorporation in the highly scientifically designed NPS Rawlinson, which is an old style font. While the wedge serif will probably fade, I believe the diagonal stress will stick around, but it won't be old style, as advancements in technology allow for much greater line contrast, which typographers will take advantage of. We'll also see more open and larger counters, as seen in Constantia and Clearview.
Given the advancements in screen resolution and the increasing use of electronic paper, humanist sans serif fonts will dominate the sans. I can say with certainty that there will be at least one highly popular sans with a diagonal stress. Now, the fonts that I think will have the most influence are Calibri, Clearview, Optima (Nova), and the font designed by the guy who defended my inquiry about sans in the book font thread (his novelty and rejection of orthodoxy make me feel that he will be an innovator). Now, I don't have the specifics of Clearview or the unnamed typeface on hand, so I'll talk about Calibri and Optima. As duel use becomes more crucial (remember, electronic paper behaves like paper), typographers will try to make more almost-serif fonts, a popular example of which is Optima. This meens we'll see more flaring, with the first, furtive attempts being based upon Optima. Eventually, the serif/sans distinction will be a continuum. Calibri will have the influence of familiarity, making it the basis people will use when thinking about a sans for long enough to influence the majority of sans at least slightly. Now, the most distinctive part of Calibri is its rounded corners and ends. This tells me will go in the opposite direction from how they were at their height and become softer. Now, these two trends could combine in such a way that the lines will flare into a rounded end, which would look slightly reminiscent of a ball terminal.

Would it be something a user to turn off or choose how or when?

i think for the approach that eben has been advocating and that Nick is talking about contextual alternates would be applied. contextual alternates can always be turned off (at least they are supposed to be).

What are we doing, writing the final section of your paper?

Anyway, it depends on the time frame you consider "future." Your history covered over 500 years. If you are looking 100 years ahead -- or even 50 -- it would be silly to expect OpenType to still be the format. PostScript has lasted 15 years. Hot metal lasted about 70 years. Photocomp around 40 years. The technology from the time of hot metal through photocomp caused certain changes in type because the economic emphasis was on selling the machines that set type, not the type itself. Typography (the type design part of it) was a servant to those machines.

The computer changed that. Now, for a period, anyone can produce type. But OpenType changes the software requirements considerably; if OpenType goes a certain way, it may again take a large foundry to economically produce fonts.

But that is very short term. Consider this. In 50 years, or 100 years, or however far into the future you want to project, we will still be communicating, at least in part, with the written word. And you can type faster than you can write longhand, and speak faster than you can write longhand. Therefore, type will be around. In what form will depend on where technology takes us.

What Paul said.

Speech is faster than type. Hmmm...
I've got it: automated font-tone matching for voice recognition software(Dragonspeak), so the text can match your speech.

or a robot that can make a really good salad

I liked what you said Charles, but I think Postscript language specifically, not computers, are what changed the relationship of fonts to hardware.
I think the future of typography is bright, but most fonts will be relegated to where they belong, and a few will shine on, as it always will. ITC fonts were so exciting, I remember waiting for releases (via Linotype), looking back, I cringe… Only time really tells what stands out and breaks out of its time period.
Font formats come and go… got any type 3 fonts? or NimbusQ? or Letrafonts? Or Fonts with Typestyler? All these formats came out around the time of Postscript, who cares or needs most of these others? Font formats will only be adopted when they are soo much better than what is standard at any time, which is why you will see postscript fonts linger around for a long time, because OT fonts need to be far more compelling for users to be willing to purchase them, over an already purchased PS font. Only a fool would buy an OT font that has no more functionality than a PS font, as it would be redundant.
Paper will carry on, the ultimate archive, we still have Gutenberg Holy Bibles, but we can only guess how he produced them, as his instruments and technology are long gone. In his life, he was a failure, financially, but to me, quite an evangelist!

Ink on paper adds the permanence, and quality that the publisher intends, while at the moment (we have been waiting for decades) screen resolutions are roughly the same as before the computer revolution.
I believe signs will be a strong outlet for typography, which bodes well for headline fonts. Print will keep fighting, with costs continuing to decrease (mature technology plus competition from internet and far ranging competitors) and automation increasing. Niche market magazines (check B&N) will increase. Catalogs. More range of printed material but fewer copies printed, which will be good for typography in general.
Fonts and font ownership seem to be going back to metal type years. Agfa seems to own everything, through consolidation (Agfa (Compugraphic), Monotype, Linotype, ITC, and Letraset(I think). And there are lots of smaller and regional boutique font companies. And who can forget Adobe?
The Truth shall set you free

Hey, I'm back again.

First I'd like to answer charles_e: What are we doing, writing the final section of your paper?.

No. The last section of my paper will be at least 5 pages long, so what is written here isn't enough for that. The paper will also be written in Faroese, so I cannot just copy and paste anything (and I wouldn't dream of doing that anyway). No, I'm asking for your opinions so I might build upon what I already have.

Before I asked the question here, I did have a few ideas to what I'd write about, but I think I've gotten quite a lot of material here, which I'm grateful for.

Nick Shinn: 1. Making my handwriting into an OpenType font. I think there’s a lot of potential to get a much more natural effect, using contextual alternates, than has so far been achieved, so I’d like to take a crack at that.

Personalised fonts. I can write about that and point to examples, if any.

bieler: From a personal perspective I’d suggest there is very little to expect from typography in the future. [...] Typography is what it is. There may be occasional questioning as to what it is in an idealogical sense, but ultimately it is what it is. We just keep coming back to the fundamentals.

I could suggest that there might not be happening too much in the near future, and my opinion on why and point to something that points towards that being the case.

Don McCahill: There will always be progress, as long as a product is used. The only way typography can die is if reading dies, and that isn’t likely to happen before someone invents mental telepathy (and who knows, maybe that will require fonts as well.)

A very good argument for typography always changing, as long as people use it.

James Puckett: On a somewhat related note, the “great designers” of the future will no longer be the high-minded hotshots in New York and Basel, they’ll Dubai-based geniuses who can effectively communicate across cultures.

Highly competitive market = Innovation (?)

Ch: i see trends such as L33T, slang, revisions in punctuation norms, and other popular modifications as healthy signs that the language is alive and well. sure, customized and colloquial usage may offend the keepers of orthodoxy, but it’s inevitable and, imho, part of the (r)evolution.

Slang, punctuation norms, etc. could change how we write.

charles_eSverri,

Id recommend getting your hands on a copy of Fred Smeijers little book Type Now. What you ask is, I think, implied by his discussion.

Thank you for that. I'll order it right away.

charles_e: Anyway, it depends on the time frame you consider “future.” Your history covered over 500 years. If you are looking 100 years ahead — or even 50 — it would be silly to expect OpenType to still be the format.

Yeah, I guess I should've mentioned that in the original post. I'm trying to limit it to the near future, perhaps around 25 to 50 years. I think looking futher than that is quite pointless, seeing as technology (which undoubtetly will have a big impact) is speeding up, and the speed at which the speed is growing is also growing.

And I'm trying not to limit my thoughts to formats and stuff like that because, as you say, they come and go as the times change.

Scalfin I’ve got it: automated font-tone matching for voice recognition software(Dragonspeak), so the text can match your speech.

Interesting idea, heh.

@severri Highly competitive market = Innovation (?)

The relationship between competition and innovation is universal. But in the context of this discussion, I believe that global communication is going to force designers—and thus typographers—to push themselves to understand and engage multiple cultures simultaneously. That’s probably not something any one designer can pull off, but I expect that we’ll see a lot of interesting collaboration, especially when it comes to ensuring that global marketing campaigns don’t keep getting botched by non-natives bad attempts at setting a “foreign” language.

And on a wacky tangent, what the hell is the word foreign really going to mean fifty years from now?

I also recommend looking at "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More". It's not about type per se, but the thesis really applies to everything.

The Long Tail has been working for Myfonts since 1999, and has made possible the proliferation of independent foundries.
There's always someone somewhere finding a use for some font. If you produce enough of them, and have enough distribution, you don't need to rely on big sellers (although I always dream my next type will go viral...).

Script fonts: the public's appetite seems unbounded.

Tiff: yes, I would make the subtle variants a contextual alternate because as James M notes, very few users know enough about OpenType to move beyond the default and turn on a stylistic set, and what's the point of putting a "raison d'être" feature in a type that (one hopes) will become massively successful, if it's not going to be used?

From all I've seen and learned, typography is the collision of three forces: technology of type production, medium of use, and humanity's creativity and self-expression pushing up through the fertile but firm earth of those two constraints.

To guess about the future of typography is to guess about the future of human expression and communication. To speak about the future of type is a different but no less expansive thing.

To make a guess, I suggest looking at where communication is headed and then look at the overall trending of style as it relates to the prevailing cultural mindsets. For example: modernist, baroque, fascist, industrial, and commercial ideologies. How did their ideas manifest in typography? The contrast of page design in a scribal pre-literate community vs an industrial community vs the individualist communities of the web. Just be mindful to not get too high-minded. How much fine typography does the average person see vs how much cheap vinyl signage and cruddy Blackberry interface?

A very interesting question to tackle. I hope this helps.

In the future I hope I can create fonts with:

Alpha channels: If I want to create the effect of a semi transparent ink right now, I have to use multiple layers, crude shading using dots or noise. Users are requires to apply multiple layers. Alpha channels in a font format will be a new way to alter weight. Currently I can only adjust weight by reducing stem width, crude dots, light traps, stripes &c. Picture a counterless art deco display fonts like Baby Teeth, Parkitechture, Misirlou. Now imagine the O, instead of being solid, having a gradient so the centre is transparent. Picture a boringsans lowercase b. The stem width is uniform. Where bowl meets stem, the lines gradually fade to near transparent. Picture a spraypaint font that looks like real spraypaint. How about a "lipstick on a mirror" font with variable transparency? Now imagine how shitty/unconvincing those effects would look using current font technology.

Assignable colours: Currently, fonts have one assignable colour. To assign multiple colours, I have to create separate font layers. No fun to make, no fun to use. Assignable colours could work with CSS to make headline fonts which correspond with a web site's colour scheme.

Hue and value shifts: Currently, a designer can assign a wood texture to a font and it'll looks like letters cut out of wood. But what about a hillybilly-style font with planks and nails? Each plank would have a fake woodgrain effect and self shadowing where the planks overlap. Maybe I'd like to make a cheesy 70's airbrush chrome effect font? To make something like that where the designer can apply a colour to a material, I need to be able to assign hue and value shifts.

Z plane: I would like to be able to assign three dimensional attributes to glyph? Visual displays aren't going to be flat forever so why not support 3d geometry in a font format? Imagine Frankfurter if it were really 3D and appearing to hover 3cm off your monitor. Face recognizing fake 3D desktops are probably only a few years away. Currently, designers can loft their own text but as a font designer, I want to be able to shape each letter precisely in three dimensions.

Pseudorandomization: Currently, I have to use OpenType ligatures to create a pseudorandom effect. That system doesn't allow tracking because the spacing font each ligature is fixed. Other systems can be used to create a pseudorandom effects but none are turned on by default in Adobe apps so it's unlikely that designers will use them.

Designing fonts with current TTF/OTF tech is like being an designer whose only tools are black construction paper and a pair of scissors. There are a lot of possibilities but after a decade of cutting shapes with black paper and scissors I'm pining for different art supplies. I'm primarily thinking of features that would improve display fonts. If you think new font capabilities wouldn't improve text fonts as well then try using your imagination. It seems like new fonts formats are created to support existing font ideas instead of giving us tools we can use to create something totally new.

Yeah, I know about Photofonts, no thx. I want vectors and I want it to be fully supported by default. Either the future of typography will involve some of the above or it'll involve me going completely nuts.