Typophile - Latin typeface companion to Hadassah (Hebrew) - Comments

“Ki ka’asher” (כי

EK — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:41:29 -0700

“Ki ka’asher” (כי כאשר) at the beginning of your translation isn’t strictly wrong, but it is awkward.

David or William, You better

typerror — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:47:11 -0700

David or William,

You better handle this one. I don’t want to be the one that bursts his bubble.

Chunky huh?

Michael

I’ve always thought that

innovati — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:21:54 -0700

I’ve always thought that Hebrew looked rather rigid and chunky, when copmared to other modern branches of the proto-semetic language like arabic, which has stunning calligraphy and beautiful form.

Having said that I wonder which would be wiser:

1) To mirror the sturdiness of Hebrew’s letterforms with a chunky thick slab-serifed typeface

2) Or to contrast the solidity of the hebrew script with a fluid round text that has the retains the beauty of calligraphy and has both thicks and thins

Either way, I’d love to see what you come up with!

>But the pointed pen was

William Berkson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:02:22 -0700

>But the pointed pen was never used to make transitional

Yeah, I tried to argue that the pointed pen was not so important to Baskerville until I was proven wrong, first by a bunch of illustrations from John Hudson and James Mosley, and then by my dipping a pointed pen in India ink and doing an “n”—and seeing the characteristic Baskerville arch emerge from the pen. Go about a third down this thread and watch me crumble under the onslaught. You’ll enjoy it :)

Granted, your definition and

typerror — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:50:06 -0700

Granted, your definition and my definition of Old Style and Transitional differ. I in fact think these are terms that are fairly new and confusing. I have consulted 4 books and it is like trying to get 4 economists to agree. Classifications are as varied as authors. But the pointed pen was never used to make transitional unless it was used as a drawing tool for outlines and then the letters were filled in.

The pointed pen is the originator of the Copperplate and Spencerian scripts and not the Roman form!

Michael

> Thanks David for the

david hamuel — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:03:16 -0700

> Thanks David for the fascinating illustrations...

You’re welcome!

As Moshe Spitzer wrote: Henry Friedlaender’s Hadassah has proved to be highly successful face, well designed in the Ashkenazic tradition and elaborated with much sophistication (1952, Alei Ayin).

Michael, both old style and

William Berkson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:52:14 -0700

Michael, both old style and transitional roman are influenced by the pen, but different pens. The old style by the broad pen and the transitional by the pointed pen. Since “transitional” is over 200 years later than old style type, and is influenced by a later kind of pen, it is anachronistic to talk of transitional features in Jenson and Griffo. It is historically more accurate, I think, to write of them, as Stone does, as influenced by the painted and inscribed Imperial Roman capitals.

As I said in the earlier thread, Jenson and Griffo make the diagonals lighter than a broad pen would, and this was for typographic reasons of even color. Here (see my link to the Cornell essay) Friedlaender was complaining about the aleph—with its heavy diagonal stroke—being too dark. If you compare the aleph in the manuscript that David posted with the final version of Hadassah that he posted, you will see that the diagonal has become even thinner than the horizontals, in contrast to the pen written starting point for his work.

Again, this is an effort to be specifically typographic. You seem to deny that such a thing exists, but I think that this story vividly shows that it does exist. As the Cornell link explains, Friedlaender did a study of historical styles of Hebrew script, identifying the different pens that influenced the different styles. And then though strongly influenced by the pen forms, in the end he did something that none of the pens would have done.

Thanks David for the fascinating illustrations. I feel like with the Cornell link and your further words and images of Friedlaender’s story, I am starting to understand Hebrew type design a bit in this thread!

“they (there, I think is

typerror — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:50:03 -0700

“they (there, I think is what you were trying to say) was something conceptually new in the typographic interpretations, something that was distinctive to designing type as opposed to writing.”

Yep. a lack of understanding of bowl letters that was exhibited in the jpg’s in the other thread! His forms were more old style than transitional (pen formed). Yet most of the other forms were transitional.

Michael

>they were typographic

William Berkson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:02:37 -0700

>they were typographic interpretations of written letters.

The question Stone was addressing is whether there was something conceptually new in the typographic interpretations of Jenson and Griffo, something that was distinctive to designing type as opposed to writing. He thinks there was. I agree.

That same novelty it seems is what Friedlaender was working on. His priority that the letters had to have the “quality of transparency” (in my link above), and his deep concern about “color” that David quotes both I think reflect the specifically typographic approach.

Remember, the essay reports that Friedlaender believed that existing Hebrew faces hadn’t introduced that key novelty of approach. That is Friedlaender—who had a scribal training also—and not me.

Maybe there is no novelty of approach in type design by Jenson and Griffo, no difference from writing, but that evidently not the view of either Stone or of Friedlaender.

> Following what Michael has

david hamuel — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:14:37 -0700

> Following what Michael has been saying, this account does say that “He realized that Hebrew letters, unlike Roman letters, do not consist of any completely straight lines.”

This is part b of the story;

> Then he was able in 1949 to convince the Lettergieterij Amsterdam to produce the type

This is part a of the story.

Friedlaender wasn’t so happy with the results (part a, see image 1):

“The text face had turned out to be too dark; it appeared to be hardly lighter than the commonly used Frank-Ruhl type, and we had hoped to be able to get away from its blackness. The contrast in weight between the text and the bold faces had become minimal; the difference between these two versions had almost disappeared. The straight downstrokes still appeared inane and stiff, a shortcoming that would become intolerable in larger sizes.....

“The bold was now on the verge of looking spotty. Here the contrast between heavy and fine lines appeared even more exaggerated than in the text face. The stiffness of the downstrokes was even more disturbing....

“It seemed inadvisable to try to correct the existing drawings. Instead, it was decided I should draw the whole set afresh with all the changes... [see image 2] I detest the use of ruler and French curves when drawing letters. Besides, in contrast to the Roman alphabet, Hebrew has no system of straight lines, circles, or 90° angles. It rather is made up from a variety of almost straight elements, elliptical curves, and angles that cannot be related to any simple geometrical system.”

Image 1 — 1950:

Image 2 — 1958:

I am sorry but they were

typerror — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:12:04 -0700

I am sorry but they were typographic interpretations of written letters. You disavowed pen manipulation and pressure/release techniques prior to the 15th century.

Am I missing something?

Michael

Pretty much :) Stone:

William Berkson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:03:38 -0700

Pretty much :)

Stone: “They [the letters of Jenson and Griffo] were products of a new kind of design process—typographic instead of scribal.”

From the article on Hadassah: “The main problem, according to Friedlaender’s research, was that the Hebrew alphabet never made an adequate transition from manuscript letter to typeface as had Roman letters.”

So Friedlaender was aware of the key transition that Jenson and Griffo made, and wanted to do the same for Hebrew.

“Sumner Stone just wrote

typerror — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:45:27 -0700

“Sumner Stone just wrote an article about roman type becoming less calligraphic with Jenson and Griffo.”

Whoooooa! Did I in fact miss the point of the other thread???????????

Michael

David, I thought I read that

William Berkson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:48:59 -0700

David, I thought I read that he was influence by Jenson in The Book of Hebrew Script by Ada Yardeni. But I got it from a library, and my memory could be playing tricks on me.

Here in English is a fascinating account of the saga of the creation of Hadassah type face. It matches what you say about the influence of a manuscript of the scroll of Esther.

It also cast light on several issues mentioned here.

Following what Michael has been saying, this account does say that “He realized that Hebrew letters, unlike Roman letters, do not consist of any completely straight lines.” However, this is not quite accurate. I just checked my “HadasaMFO” and it has straight and parallel *horizontal* lines, though not vertical ones. So I think that Michael’s impression of Hebrew as more ’painterly’ is because there is modulation in the Hebrew where an eye used to roman would see straight or nearly straight lines. But this is really a feature of the reversed contrast. In roman, much of the modulation is in horizontal strokes—the arches and serifs. Whereas in Hebrew more of it is vertical.

This article also touches in the issue of whether Hebrew is inherently more calligraphic. As we’ve been discussing at length in another thread, Sumner Stone just wrote an article about roman type becoming less calligraphic with Jenson and Griffo.

Friedlaender was quite aware of this basic history, as he studied with the great Rudolph Koch. And according to the story he deliberately set about to make his font more tyopgraphic, not calligraphic. (Also my memory of the influence of Jenson is plausible, given this story.) Personally, I think he was pretty successful.

He also rejected the early versions of the font, such as, presumably, the one in David’s graphic.

The story is one of the more dramatic ones in the history of type, as he buried his drawings in 1942 and hid from the Nazis, emerged from the war alive in 1945 and dug them up. Then he was able in 1949 to convince the Lettergieterij Amsterdam to produce the type—I assume foundry type—and completed it while living in Israel.

Kinda make me feel small complaining about all those kerning pairs in digital type!

Bill — I didn’t see

david hamuel — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:09:12 -0700

Bill — I didn’t see anything about the influence of Jenson; Image 1 is the scroll of Esther, written c.1800 — that was the main influence:

Image 2 — early Hadassah; punches cut by Paul Koch (1939):

Latin typeface companion to Hadassah (Hebrew)

Yotam — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:57:25 -0700

Hey there,

I’m designing a Hebrew book, and looking for some advice on what would be the best Latin typeface to go together with the Hebrew face Hadassah.
Most of the English appearances would appear in brackets or parenthesis, in the middle of Hebrew sentences

Attached is a gif with my final option, from top to bottom -
LinoLetter, Dederon Serif, Raleigh, Chapparel, Excelsior, Officina Serif

So, any Typophile opinions?
which of these works best?

Much thanks in advance,
Y.