What is the title of your thesis ?

Henning, try searching the archives here, if you haven’t already. I know this discussion has come up before, and it’s a difficult one to know with any accuracy. Good luck.

No final title, yet. It’s more or less on the future of typeface design. Compared to the vast number of people using type, there is only a small number of those that decide what type will look like in the future. So I am trying to get an idea how many are out there.

157

There was a discussion in another expert circle 6 month ago. The result was: ca. 300.

Purely a deep-gut guess: 100.

hhp

When are you a typedesigner? When you designed a typeface once or when you design type for a living?

Pieter

Although Henning’s criteria don’t necessarily fit my own definition
of “type designer”, he was pretty specific, and apparently what he’s
looking into is neither one of those.

hhp

Right.
In The Netherlands there are a lot of typedesigners who fit the definition of Henning.
I think it’s at least 30.

Pieter

@ hrant: What is your definition of a “type designer”? I had a hard time putting some specific criteria to it.

Pieter, I guess it depends on how you define “junk”...
But The Netherlands certainly has the highest number per capita.

Henning, that question is too hard! :-)

hhp

@ Chris Keegan: could you please give me a hint how to find that old thread you mentioned above? I have searched quite a bit but couldn’t find it. Thanks.

Doesn’t the wiki have a listing?

ChrisL

Right, but how many people fit Henning’s definition of serious? I think the range of answers is about right, and I’d guess it’s closer to 100 than 300 (by Henning’s definition), working in Latin-based languages.

Regards,

T

Henning, what is the common denominator of art and design, in your opinion ?

Based on the definition of “serious” provided, I think the total is much larger than people are suggesting. Certainly, I’d say 300 is the wrong order of magnitude entirely. Especially since one of the criteria offered is that the person may not make their living designing type.

I think the number is measured in thousands. If you look beyond the “A-level” names Carter, Hoefler, Berlow, Kobayashi, Schwartz, (etc) you find a whole bastion of incredibly capable type designers. Chester, Crossgrove, Simonson, Darden, Ragan, Downer. Oops don’t forget about the Thierry Puyfoulhoux’s hiding out in the alps designing fonts to fuel their whitewater adventures. Duprés cranking out types. Pingerras. Porchez. Hughes. Tankards. The Meaves from Mexico, and the Alejandro Lo Celsos from Argentina. Looking through something like the FontShop catalogue, I find myself looking at many of the names attached to very polished, and extensive families and say to myself: “where do all these people come from?” Beyond that there is yet a deeper layer of excellent typophiles who labor in relative anonymity. I can think of many here on Typophile who would fit the criteria proposed, but would probably not make most people’s list. Miguel Hernandez? Eduardo Omine? Christian Robertson? Chris Lozos? Kris Sowersby? How many Keith Tams are there who are capable of making great type, but are busy doing other things? Or working behind the scenes like Miguel Sousa, Paul Hunt, Andy Clymer, Jean-Baptiste Levée etc.

Not to mention, non-latin type designers as Thomas mentions.

Of course the trickiest criterion you propose is this: Those that have the knowledge to create typefaces that can stand out among all the junk. The quality of the type is only part of that equation.

My stratification of type names is mostly nonsense, but you get my point. I got past thirty without even thinking to include Slimbaugh, Speikerman, Stone, or Frutiger. This is a long list indeed, so I won’t be accepting any challenges, but what kind of list wouldn’t include Peter “Mustardo” Bruhn. Oh wait, he’s not very serious.

The participants in Indie Fonts 3 give some idea of the diversity of backgrounds and intent against which any claim of ’serious” must be judged. Given that there are different markets for fonts, there are different kinds of “serious”; and it does seem that “serious” means making the majority, or a significant amount, of one’s income off type design — although people who are headed in that direction may be quite dedicated.

The number of foundries represented by Myfonts (“Welcomes 13 new foundries” — summer 07 newsletter) gives some idea of how many are doing business.

And then there is the question of what constitutes “type design”.
The way it stands at the moment, that term casts a broad net, including everything from one-person outfits creating original fonts, to technical production work for software companies.

If as I agree there are thousands of us, perhaps we should have our own organization, as our interests are not fully served by trade organizations that lump individual designers together with software giants.

> I think the number is measured in thousands.

Again, it depends on what one means by “can stand out among all the junk”. Many of the names you list have not done that in my view. In fact the way you’re portraying things it’s like the junk is in the minority!

> perhaps we should have our own organization

Yes! And as I suggested years ago, it should be called “TyD”.
You know, an unstoppable flow. :-)

hhp

Nick: to suggest that Miguel is not a typeface designer simply because he works for Adobe is unfair. It seems to me the size and nature your employer has little to do with whether or not you are a type designer. I agree that seriousness can be measured many ways. Earning a significant portion of your income from type design could be a useful distinction in some cases. I purposely cast a wide net, because I consider myself a typeface designer. I make the majority of my living as a graphic designer, but more than 10% is typeface design. Still, I humbly submit that my ability to draw and sell orginial typefaces from scratch, should justify the title regardless of income precentages.

Hrant: Every single person I mentioned has developed and is able to “develop a complex and satisfactory fontsystem.” You may not like their types, but these people make quality typefaces that are useful in the real world.

You’re not following Henning’s criteria. That said, every person necessarily defines anything (like “can stand out among all the junk”) on a personal level. So maybe my issue is that you’re being way too generous, in effect going against the venerable maxim that “90% of anything is junk”. :-)

hhp

to suggest that Miguel is not a typeface designer simply because he works for Adobe is unfair.

That’s your inference, not mine!
I was merely observing that in font production there may be division of labour, and it’s all called type design.

He he. Another venerable maxim: don’t try to read between the lines of a forum post. Appologies Nick. I agree, about division of labor all falling under the label type design. My point was: even if worker bees at the larger shops don’t get their names on the final font, they are certainly capable of taking a design from concept to delivery and are type designers in their own right.

Hrant:

I think I am following his criteria :-) I’d be curious if you’d call me a typeface designer? Or yourself?

Junkiness is indeed personal and probably not the best criteria. I was just looking at the homepage at FontShop and saw this face I’d never seen before by a guy I’d never heard of: FF Speak designed by Jan Maack. Is it standout? I’d say probably not. Is it junk? I don’t think so. Is it well done? Absolutely. To me, I’d have no trouble calling Jan Maack a Typeface Designer even though the world probably wont remember his typeface 50 years from now. It’s less about the label, and more about the capability. Plus I think there’s still more than enough junk left over after you make room for the Jan Maack’s of the world to to warrant your 90% maxim.

- - - - - -

Ultimately who cares? It’s a good question for the breaks between sessions at typecon, but good for little else. Everything I’ve said, boils down to this:

I’m constantly surprised by the number of quality typefaces that I would be happy to use, designed by people I’ve never heard of. I’d like to think that type design is a craft practiced by a fraternity of a few hundred, all of whom I’ve heard of, but then I discover somebody jumped the velvet rope when I wasn’t looking.

The original question asked “So I came upon this question: How many serious type designers are there in the world right now?”

So in my carefully calculated answer I didn’t include living designers who’d made a non-junk font a few years ago, but had moved on to different, more profitable things. I don’t know if Jan Maack qualifies under this definition, but there are many living type designers who are retired, resting, on sabbatical or between jobs “right now”.

Randy, I mostly agree with you. Except for the part that you’re abiding by Henning’s criteria. :-) And if it matters: I think both you and I are on the border of his criteria, because we can make non-junk type (although you might be further ahead than me on the ground, especially in Latin) but neither one of us has really proved excellence. That said, I’m realizing that my own definition of “junky” would not exclude as many people as I might have thought; although 90% of people produce ho-hum ephemeral stuff, maybe “junk” is too unkind a label for all of them. OK then, I’m officially doubling my near-blind estimate to 200. :-)

hhp

In my way of using the term, a typeface designer does some things that are significantly different than the production work that occupies most of Christopher Slye or Miguel Sousa’s time, designing glyph shapes and setting the overall “feel” of the typeface.

Now, I consider both Miguel and Christopher to be typeface designers, but that’s because they’ve each designed a typeface (Calouste, Elmhurst) in addition to doing extensive production work. There are lots of other people who have done font production work at Adobe at one time or another who I don’t think of as type designers. Invaluable members of the team, but not type designers.

I also have what some would consider a high bar for quality in my head. So by my understanding of the original request:

Those that have the knowledge to create typefaces that can stand out among all the junk. I am looking for the number of those people that would be able to develop a complex and satisfactory fontsystem. Not only from the technical and programming perspective but more important from the design side of things.

... I don’t think there’s any way in heck that there are a thousand type designers in the world, even across all languages. I’d be surprised if there were more than 500 globally.

I’m assuming “complex and satisfactory fontsystem” implies a range of weights and perhaps other variables (width, style) in a comprehensive system, including typographic goodies whether in separate fonts in “old formats” or in the same font in OpenType.

Cheers,

T

I think the difference between our estimates is that I’m counting capability, whilst others are counting business cards. And so, the person who’s designed one quality, mulitweight gets my vote, whilst others veto. I suppose there are many more people in the world who have rewired a house than there are electricians too, so I see your point.

So, I’ll revise my estimate to the following:
There are typeface designers in the world.

@ Randy: So, I’ll revise my estimate to the following: There are typeface designers in the world.

Superb answer! I love it.

I’m assuming “complex and satisfactory fontsystem” implies a range of weights and perhaps other variables (width, style) in a comprehensive system, including typographic goodies whether in separate fonts in “old formats” or in the same font in OpenType.

Thats exactly what I meant. Thanks for clearifying and adding to the criteria.

“right now” doesn’t exclude those “type designers who are retired, resting, on sabbatical or between jobs”. I rather mean those that have the knowledge to create type. no matter if they are drawing curves at the moment or not.

What might be a more managable figure is “How many people are earning a full time living in type design.” This will take the number to to low double digits, I would think.

And even then, is Thomas Phinney counted? He has designed fonts, but that is not the key part of his job, yet all of it is related to type.

Don, that question was the one concerning the werewolf thread I mentioned.

hhp

{Edit caused a jump forward of many days. Annoying as h*ll.}

There was also a -long- thread some years ago that featured heated arguments between myself and one or more anonymous opponents, including one who I’m sure was the Mustang-driving werewolf of London.

(I can’t believe “h*ll” is censored. Danm religious puritans.}

hhp

Hell isn’t a swear word - what kind of **** bible bashers run this operation?

Nick Cooke

Ha ha - I just did that to see what would happen. Stupid bunts.

Nick Cooke

Oh, by the way I make a living as a full time type designer.

Nick Cooke

It might be less contentious and more informative, to more people, to sort of zoom out from asking who is important or full-time or professional, and looking at the entire type culture or industry. Then compare that conglomeration to other industries or occupations, in terms of overall size. For instance, the type-making world is much much much smaller than the world of say, paving contractors, research scientists, or violinists (there’s a sticky one! How many violinists are “pro”?)

I think this is more interesting to non-type people; you can say, “The type world is about as big as the puppetry world or the harpsichord-making world, and much smaller than the soccer world or the hang-gliding world”.

Henning, you could put together a design brief and contact the 328 foundries represented by Myfonts, and see how many say it’s within their capabilities. Many of these foundries have more than one type designer.
Or use the Myfonts list of 2214 people: http://www.myfonts.com/person/index.html.
For freelancers who haven’t published independently, you could go through a FontFont catalog (or contact FSI) and develop a list of their designers. Same thing for Linotype.

Neil Macmillan, author of the “A-Z of Type Designers” might have some insights.

>>The type world is about as big as the puppetry world or the harpsichord-making world

I just checked the US Census site to see if maybe “type designer” was listed under the index of occupations. It wasn’t. Even in the detailed breakdown of “Arts, Design, Entertainment”, where Millinery Designers and Sign Designers are referenced, it goes without mention. A look at the alphabetical breakdown yielded some interesting type-related professions that managed to get listed: hand compositor, type cutter (they lump this in with a host of other machine operators), and typographer. I would guess that type designers would likely fall into one of these classifications: 27-021 (Commercial and industrial Designers), 27-024 (Graphic Designers), or 27-029(all other Designers).

But that’s only for the US, and couldn’t figure out how to pull numbers out of this website. Furthermore, I’m not sure what kind of maintenance is regularly performed on there classification scheme, so you couldn’t find the most obscure profession listed and then infer “there are at least fewer type designers than Klingon translators/Penny Farthing BMXers/Autogyro mechanics in the US.”

Edit: The Bureau of Labor Statistics might have been a better place to look, but I don’t have time to figure the site out.

> design brief

You want people to admit they can only make “junky” fonts?

hhp

A lot of people ask for ready answers at Typophile.
I’m suggesting doing original research, and some methods.
As part of that, the researcher would have to structure the questions (and/or adjust the results) to make allowance for deceptive response.
As for “junk” — it’s a subjective concept — and if some people don’t subscribe to others’ notion of utility, I doubt they would consider that an admission of junkufacture.

My point is that Henning’s criteria seem to preclude first-person judgment.
And that’s a good thing.

hhp

Maybe starting from typefaces could be another way to make a list since it allows dehac to make his own judgment about “serious”.
Evidently this would take some time but could be an interesting basis for later discussions.

Henning’s criteria seem to preclude first-person judgment.
And that’s a good thing.

Agreed. Which is why I suggest presenting foundries with a brief “to develop a complex and satisfactory fontsystem”.
It would presumably list production criteria such as styles, weights, encodings, features, as well as usage specifications — a hypothetical publication might be a good “client”.
The researcher would assess whether the foundry is adequate to the task or just b*llsh*tting, as a client would have to.
However, that’s not always easy, as many suppliers offer services they don’t have in-house — which is quite legitimate; so some kind of “first person judgement” would be required at some point, to assess the junkiness factor.

Rather than presenting the brief as a hypothetical exercise, it might be better to ask if the foundry/designer has done such a project in the past — either as a commission, or as a retail product — and what the resulting typeface is.

Among type designers listed at MyFonts who are known or are presumed to be alive, there approx. 680 people who have designed at least three typeface families, and among these, approx. 470 who have designed at least five families.

Note that this only counts people whose fonts are listed at MyFonts (i.e. either on sale or listed for reference). Most notable font foundries are included, though some are not. The database is very incomplete. For example, John Hudson is only credited as having designed two families, which is obviously wrong, since only the old Tiro Typeworks-exclusive fonts are counted.

MyFonts sells very few non-European fonts. There are probably at least as many people who design Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Indic, Thai etc. fonts that are only distributed in local markets, or people who do European-language typefaces but are not included in the MyFonts count.

I think it would be fair to say that there around 1,000 active type designers in the world.

Adam

Maybe I misread this, but shouldn’t the criteria include a person who pays their bills with the money made from type design? Crap or not (which in itself is highly subjective) they are paying their bills. That should count for more than other things.

“But I kind of mean those that not necessarily live from creating type, but are very much devoted to type design.”

There are lot of good designers that don’t live from type design so i don’t think it’s a good criteria.

> hand compositor, type cutter (they lump this in with a host of other machine operators), and typographer.

Type cutter is probably the closest to a type designer. I suspect that there are fewer full time hand compositors out there than type designers (unless you stretch hand composition to using the hand to compose on a keyboard).

“shouldn’t the criteria include a person who pays their bills with the money made...”

Or maybe pays their own bills, and one other person’s bills, at least? (Otherwise you get a lot students. yaknow;)

...shouldn’t the criteria include a person who pays their bills with the money made from type design?

Apologies to Prof. Spiekermann.

Profitable venture that must have been for Erik :-)

ChrisL

Or maybe pays their own bills, and one other person’s bills, at least? (Otherwise you get a lot students. yaknow;)

But then we are in the territory of defining foundries and not type designers. No? ;^)

What might be a more manageable figure is “How many people are earning a full time living in type design.” This will take the number to to low double digits, I would think.

By this criteria many historical designers would not qualify starting with Garamond who died deeply in debt. Bodoni wouldn’t qualify either, nor Baskerville, nor even Gutenberg himself who made his money as a printer. Excoffon made his living as an advertising art director, as did Dwiggins for many years. There are a great many serious designers who didn’t make their living designing type, but still produced important typefaces. Let’s see, Tschichold, Cassandre, Eicher, Abrams, et al. Victor Gualtney doesn’t make his living through type design, but there’s no way he could not be considered serious.

I think any measure of who’s a type designer has to be based on intent. In fact those who are not making money at it might be considered to be more serious. Why else are they doing it?

It might be better to consider how many people in the world are serious about typography and the work back from there. Between memberships in various organizations there have to be several thousand with a large percentage of them type designers.

George
I felt bad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no Bodoni

Ives made a living as an insurance agent, not from his compositions. His heirs may have though :-)

ChrisL

George, right on, all around.

I would add: anybody serious about culture cannot be serious about money.

hhp

Just a rather weird look at the question, but technically anyone who earns a living from writing (not books, but actual script) is a type designer. Everytime they write it is different and therefore they have designed that type.

None serious type designers therfore would number in the billions.

Okay, that last one loses me. First, are there that many people who make a living writing script? A very few calligraphers perhaps, but not billions.

And that doesn’t even touch on your thesis that handwriting is type design. I don’t want to get into that.

Never said that many were earning a living, said there were billions who were NOT serious. Everytime you write, it is slightly different and you have therefore, by the unspoken standards of a number of companies, created an original design. Nobody said it had to be digital, that was assumed (probably rightly so).

Handwriting is type design, of the old type.

What about professional store sign painters, greeting and wedding card designers, etc.. ?

***Unspoken, as dont want to reawaken an old chestnut of an arguement regarding the propensity of some companies who seem to have a myriad of typefaces, all identical to each others, yet are individually original***

> Handwriting is type design

Absolutely not.

hhp

Please expand.
Please change my opinion and mind, logically.

If I write something, then digitise it, have I not designed a typeface ? An original typeface ? If I offer it for sale, and it sells, is this not type design ?

Working on the premise that what I have stated is wrong, there are a lot of typefaces out there, based on handwriting, that are not designed. What are they ?

As far as I can see, the rules and restrictions placed upon the design of the alphabet, while sensible, are the rules that a few have taken upon themselves to instigate. The alphabet has been there for many a year longer than these people, and my concept of how I draw, or design three lines to make an A, is one I determine myself, while observing an aesthetical appearance about it. If I like it, and others choose to use it, who has the right to tell me it is wrong and incorrect ? The rules, then become a mere guideline to aesthetics, and not strict rules at all.

This bit edited out.

Typotheticals, there is first an issue of definition. I believe the way the words are most often used by careful writers in this field is that type, lettering and writing mean three different things.

Type—or better a ’font’—is a set of templates of letters that are used repeatedly in any order to compose words seen on paper, the screen, solid letters put on a building, etc.

Lettering is the act of building up letters by hand to produce words.

Writing is the act of moving an instrument by hand to produce a moving front that leaves letters and words behind.

The question of how much type should be influenced by writing is another issue.

Oh and and to answer your question, it is possible to turn a piece of handwriting into a font, but the two are defined as different things—one writing the other a font. And they are different as the font will contain a limited set of letters that will be reproduced according to the instructions in the software.

Edit: for clarity’s sake please reply in another post, rather than an edit.

While I see your point, I still would feel the urge to disagree and argue the view. While one is fluid and constantly changing, the other static dependant upon its coding, are we not expanding and changing the medium to allow the second to imitate the first ? Are we not then attempting to turn the electronic form into a pale imitation of the physical, to put it one way, turning back to the original form ?

Sorry, will post new ones. Does tend to mix the lines of discussion up a bit. There will be a few scratched heads tomorrow.

Let me have one more bash at this. Guttenberg produced type in which each letter, say ’A’, was the mechanical reproduction of a single design, stamped into a matrix. These predetermined, nearly identical letters were then arranged into words. That’s type: arranging of pre-determined letters into words.

And that puts different demands on the crafter of the words. In particular, every letter has to fit with every other letter that it might be next to in the languages contemplated for use.

The letterer or writer of words can adjust each letter ad hoc to suit the letters on either side, as well as above and below, and the margins.

So type design has different demands on it than lettering or writing, even though all are created by the hand and the eye.

Ok, I just saw your latest two that appear above my last.

Yes, open type script faces are attempting to recover some of the flexibility of writing and lettering. But they are still more limited, and will always be, because they have to be predetermined by rules, and not done by creative problem-solving on the spot.

But the more important thing is that type has, I believe, proved superior as far as readability for extended text. Taking months or years to get the letters optimal for readability, then reproduce them, has improved readability over hand written text.

That’s still not true for aesthetics. Hand lettering—either on paper or the computer screen—regularly beats type for logos, titles, etc.

I know what you are saying, and it is sensible, but... I think I may stop this as it probably will get a bit silly, its after midnight here.

I got to agree something that this pushes. It supports your side, and that is it really irritates me that when you get those eternal “what font is this ?” for anything that resembles letters. Technology has not only lowered the standard of writing, it has also lowered the ability to distinguish between a digital construction and a physical construction.

With the limited (yes there is one) scope for the production of new typefaces, how many type designers will there be in 20 years ?

Aesethetics to mean getting all the base lines in order, regular heights, even spacing.

Yes, Opentype is limited and will never come to fully resemble the handwritten word, but who knows what technology advance comes next ?

Just occured to me. If we had an Opentype with the multiple master feature encompassed within, and a random number generator (probably based on the clock)we would end up with basically a typeface that would be near endlessly original each time. Each character could have up to 1000 variations.
Wouldnt be great variations, but still variations.

Pretty close to handritten words.

Got out of bed for this rubbish, probably should have stayed there.

Isn’t that the idea behind Beowolf?

“anybody serious about culture cannot be serious about money”
I’m serious about culture and so I’m saving up to see the Amber Room. Isn’t Acquisition of Culture the biggest industry in the world, after food, shelter and Prada? (all of which contain cultural expression in their choice...)

” a random number generator (probably based on the clock)”
Sorry, these are considered dangerous (i.e. disallowed in TT), please do not request basing anything in a font’s behavior on random, or clock, much less the two at once, you subversive.

Cheers!

“Apologies to Prof. Spiekermann.”

I just looked closely, and the check is almost 17 years old.
Today, that’d be worth around $5.00, or enough for a hair cut in this case.
What’s the problem?

:0)

Subversive ? More like a Submersive mind. Plumbing the depths.

Thanks.

Today, that’d be worth around $5.00, or enough for a hair cut in this case.

I’m not sure if that means you live next door to the least expensive barber shop in America, or if you’re making a joke about Erik’s lack of hair.

> Today, that’d be worth around $5.00, or enough for a hair cut in this case.

You could get several hairs cut for $5 around here, but if you want them all cut, it probably will run $12 at a cheap place, and up from that.

Wow I got a wopping $30.00 from Ascender Corp.. I wonder if it’s for Comic Sans!!

I’d bet that some of the prolific font-makers who are doing quite well with their own font company will probably not comment. It would be interesting to hear the other side of the story.

Vince! LOL!!!

ChrisL

prolific font-makers who are doing quite well with their own font company will probably not comment.

You may have missed it, the éminences grises are apt to be somewhat cryptic.

It occurs to me that a few designers careers might have gone a little differently if Myfonts had been around during the wild and wooly ’90s. I remember a lot of people grousing about their paltry commissions.

Well I bet the Holly and Dave Mingers are making more out of bancomicsans derivations.

“I remember a lot of people grousing about their paltry commissions.”

Myself included.
I laughed (cried really) with everyone else at the royalties I was getting.
Today, we send royaty checks that people want to cash. Everybody gets checks on huge %s compared to back then,
(but I don’t get any ’cause I thought of it.)

Cheers!

> Today, we send royaty checks that people want to cash...(but I don’t get any ’cause I thought of it.)

Is this to say you started Myfonts?

More like Font Bureau.

ChrisL

>Wow I got a wopping $30.00 from Ascender Corp.. I wonder if it’s for Comic Sans!!

Probably a clerical error or for something else, as those royalties belong to Microsoft.

I was hoping he started Myfonts (Font Bureau has a classy line-up, and I don’t mean to downplay that retailer) because I have never heard how it got started. Typowiki doesn’t say much except that it is owned by Bitstream. If they started it, my hat is off to them. I have always thought that Myfonts is a great equalizer, giving the ’everyman’ designer an outlet with fair return.

>Is this to say you started Myfonts?

>More like Font Bureau.

Maybe both. David likely had the idea while at Bitstream but had to wait for Al Gore to invent the interwebs before his dream could become reality. He probably left a hidden note behind the liquor cabinet when he left.

Was Makambo the first “everyone welcome” e-commerce font retailer?
I was with them until they closed down (2001), at which point Myfonts contacted all Makambo foundries and I moved over.