As another aspiring type designer, I can say for certain one thing I’ve figured out: there’s no magic formula to creating a great typeface, and everyone has their own method. Of course, the one I use, and which I think is quite typical, is to draw out the UC and lc of “hamburgefonstiv” (there are lots of similar words, like “handgloves”), to define all the basic rules of the typeface. I scan these in, trace them in FontLab, and then work entirely digitally from there. Translating the essence of your sketch to bezier curves is probably the hardest thing to do as a type designer, at least in my opinion.

If I could be a fly on the wall and copy Jonathon Hoefler’s or Matthew Carter’s working process, I’m not sure it would improve my type design skills at all. Unfortunately, the only way to design an amazing typeface is to design a bunch of crappy ones and figure out what doesn’t work. I have been happy with the concepts of all my typefaces, but I don’t think I’ve made one yet that succeeds aesthetically — each new one does get better, though.

Use the computer to build the rest?

Huh?

Huh?

I was referring to constructing letters from a series of similar parts and then making adjustments to the individual letters.

Yeah I usually draw about half and use the computer for the rest. I think really it depends on the style of the font though. For me I would think a script would require a higher number of sketches than say a sans serif.

I do damn little drawing by pencil/pen if any and just go straight to a blank FontLab screen and draw it the bezier way.

ChrisL

I draw by hand with FontLab’s vector tools, by way of Wacom.

I occasionally sketch, but only to work out an idea, not for use as artwork that will be scanned.

Right Haley, I am considering doing a handwriting font, so that would be *written* and scanned. But not drawn!

Like Nick I sketch ideas on paper with a gel pen or similar writing instrument, but they’re only ideas, not plans for typefaces. Producing a font is a construction process; I draw each glyph in detail in Fontlab with its excellent drawing tools and sometimes with a tablet for spontenaity. For most fonts I don’t do any sketching on paper. I visualize what I am going to draw in my mind.

Unless you are making a script or handwriting font, scanning drawings on paper—-no matter how neat you manage to make the drawings—-is a cumbersome and unneccessary way to transfer material from paper to Fontlab. Scanning a sketch then cleaning up the bitmap and importing it into Fontlab, then drawing over the top of the bitmap used as a mask, and perfecting the vector drawing—-all that is a time-consuming hassle. I find it easier to tape the sketch to the shadow mask of the monitor and simply reproduce digitally what I see in the glyph window, drawing it by eye. That method has improved my bezier drawing skills lots.

j a m e s

I prefer to use pen/pencil and paper to get ideas out. Otherwise I think I’d be sitting staring at blank screen for quite some time. The Script font I’m working on has taken a considerable number of attempts with pen and ink to obtain the desired characteristics for each letter. As Nick says this is written as opposed to drawing.

I tend to work my scans up into vectors by way of Illustrator, then into Fontlab. I personally find it quicker that way.

I wish I knew what the original question aims at.
If you have some experience in designing typefaces — you know how letterforms are ’constructed’, know about different types of contrast, etc — then you may need only few or no written or drawn sketches and derive the rest digitally. (Mind that answers in this direction came from experienced type designers!)
If you are still new to type design, then you better take a lot of time, sit down at your desk with pens and pencils, and write and draw so you get a feeling for letterforms. And then scan, trace, and refine the outlines. You will notice that switching the medium in this process will raise questions you would not have encountered otherwise. (Things like: Corners seem to be rounded after scanning the drawings — do I keep them rounded, or do I transform them into corners? I need to make a decision. This is very different from doing corners right from the start and never thinking about an alternative.) This is a slow process and may seem odd, but may help to not repeat existing typefaces which almost naturally happens if digital type is inspired by other digital type.

And please ... even though we ship typefaces as fonts, we are type designers, not font designers. (Trying hard to imagine you ’designing’ a font directly in TTX.)

I was referring to constructing letters from a series of similar parts and then making adjustments to the individual letters.

But you would use this technique regardless of the tools used. That is what type design is. No?

I remember doing some work with Ed Benguiat years ago. We were developing a corporate font for a cosmetics company. Ed did the drawings and I did all the digitizing. Ed had such a dismissive attitude towards the computer tools. He said he felt he could do a better job drawing by hand and try as I did, I could not get him to try working with bezier tools. I had to laugh, since the way Ed had worked for years was the analog equivalent of the same technique. Ed would draw basic shapes and have them shot onto film. He would then cut the film up and strip the elements together. Have another film shot and retouch the results. This shooting of film positives and film negatives went on until he was happy with the results.

Same technique, different tools.

Great story, James!

> even though we ship typefaces as fonts, we are type designers, not font designers

I like Nick Sherman’s analogy: it’s like calling songwriters “mp3 writers”.

You mean tunesmiths?
I’m surprised, working in foundries as we do, that we aren’t called fontsmiths.
Well, actually, there is this bloke named Jason...

Shinn,

Is there someone making real metal mats around?

Sorry, I haven’t a clue.

James, to get back to your original question, with my early attempts I drew a lot of the characters by hand and then went to the computer... Later I wised up and started drawing only a few key characters by hand, as others have already mentioned, before switching to digital tools.

Even then, when I go to the computer first I draw the characters needed to spell “hamburgerfonts” (“hamburgerfontivs” and “handgloves” are other alternatives), in upper case as well as lower case, before I draw any others.

Thanks for all the answers. I have been experimenting with all sorts of process methods with my fonts; my own experience and this thread have really confirmed my feelings that paper just doesn’t translate to a digital font well enough to justify spending a whole lot of time at the drawing board.

I draw by hand directly on a computer and do the spacing at the same time as I draw the character. Since the result is going to end up as beziercurves I feel it is so much better to do these right away instead of trying them out on paper first.

A mouse or a digital pen are the same as a graphite pencil if you know how to use them.

Nick Cooke

paper just doesn’t translate to a digital font well enough to justify spending a whole lot of time at the drawing board

Well, I wasn’t saying that... If I were making a script face, or something that needs to look hand-drawn, I might very well draw everything by hand and then scan it in...

[EDIT] ...or I might use a digital pen, as Nick says.

I’m interested in what order more experienced type designers go about designing their letters. Do you start with h? o? Capital R? Maybe a more unusual character?

Since I work mostly as a lettering artist for greeting cards, I typically do casual scripts fonts. I’m not as used to drawing from scratch with bezier tools, so I import most of my letters from Photoshop files that are pretty closed to finished. I usually end up doing most of my letters by hand first, but at some point I copy and tweak things in FontLab to get some additional glyphs.

Stephen Rapp

I have to admit I do actually enjoy the feel of pen on paper as opposed to stylus on tablet, maybe that’s the old artist in me trying to claw it’s way back. Plus it’s a quick way to jot ideas down and it gets me away from the computer for a while, which I need from time to time.

I’m interested in what order more experienced type designers go about designing their letters. Do you start with h? o? Capital R? Maybe a more unusual character?

If you really think about it, the answer should present itself to you. Typeface design is system design. What are the most useful elements in the system? The repetitive ones that influence the majority of shapes. One would hope that you would make a decision regarding those shapes before you got to far along.

If you really think about it, the answer should present itself to you. Typeface design is system design. What are the most useful elements in the system? The repetitive ones that influence the majority of shapes. One would hope that you would make a decision regarding those shapes before you got to far along.

I usually start with h, then a-m-b-u-r-g-e-f-o-n-s-t-i-v in sequential order, followed by the caps version of that. I’ve sometimes wondered if it might make more sense to work with the unruly characters — s, uppercase N, x, for example — and then build the rest of the letters around those. Letters like these are difficult to fit into rule systems, and look overworked and massaged when they are, so maybe it makes more sense to let these letters set the rules.

Letters like these are difficult to fit into rule systems, and look overworked and massaged when they are, so maybe it makes more sense to let these letters set the rules.

I’ve had some similar thoughts recently, mostly because I’ve been learning what a PITA it is to draw a good sans W.The cap N is another nasty one—I just redrew most of the majuscules in my thesis font because the widths I had been working with produced a hideous M. It’s funny how one can trap out a bunch of too-narrow letters and somehow make them work, but once the N comes up all the crap falls apart and it’s time to start over.

>I’ve had some similar thoughts recently

James P., James M. is very experienced, and in my much more limited experience I think he has his priorities right. I would not let the cap M change the whole font. If you’ve got a good design idea, and OoHn right in accord with the idea, and interactively adjust those with aeg, and all is still good, then you’ve basically got a good font design. The diagonal letters are challenging, but they’ve been solved a lot of ways in the past, and its just up to you to make them work, given the rest of the font.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t interactively massage everything as you go on, but as far as setting the look of the font the ’control letters’ are generally the approach of experienced designers. For example, Erik Spiekermann basically drew only these for Meta Serif, and then asked Christian Schwartz to do the rest. Schwartz and Kris Sowersby did the rest, but just those few letters (which admittedly he took years to figure out, and finally only in discussion with Schwartz) are still maybe 50% of the new design ideas, though a small fraction of the many, many hours of work.

William, you’re right, but there’s a big difference between the mistakes Messrs. Spiekermann and Montalbano might make and some of the really dumb stuff I do. They’ve been at it long enough to draw the important characters and know that they’ll work well with the rest of the alphabet; I’m working on fonts 2 and 3 and just beginning to get the hang of this stuff.

James, you have a point. Something I have found helpful is to compare what I am doing with two or three fonts of different design I have open at the same time—ones that I admire as being well done. And if you are having trouble with a letter, look at it in ten different fonts—in context with other related characters in all the fonts.

“I’ve sometimes wondered if it might make more sense to work with the unruly characters”

I have done that but not with the same set of “unrulies” as you mention. I think you first have to figure out what your intention is for the typeface. If it is a text face, the lowercase will probably dominate your decisions. You also have to work out the text density and efficiency ratio desired so you can determine x-height to cap height ratio. Testing problem children like double-bowl g and a with o and n to figure out weight can be enlightening learning experience. I am not saying this is a suggested way to approach a design, I am just saying I have started several typefaces in different ways and learned different things each time. My reasoning is not to find the most efficient way straight off but to learn as much as I can about the design process by doing lots of “what if” scenarios. My warning would read something like: “Stunt performed by self-trained type designer. Don’t try this at home, unless you are more interested in learning than finishing quickly”

ChrisL

i will agree with FeeltheKern, i had designed one typeface some time ago and i was not satisfied with the result, afterwards i tryed out to make a new one, i used a lot of new elements and a lot of the elements of the previous font, the next font came out to be a great font and much appreciated (advent font). What i can say is that its all bout “reading” the wave, see what people need and project the design lines of the age, i dont disagree with the design of “old” typefaces fut i say we live in the future!.

“I’ve been learning what a PITA it is to draw a good sans W”

Drawing a sans may sound easier than a serif face but I don’t believe it. Both have their challenges and, to me, are equally difficult. With a serif face, the contrast difference gives you some wiggle room and the serifs fill in the holes for you. With a more monoline sans, the weight can clog up really quickly with a double-bowled “g” or a “w”. To make a sans look simple and clean is far from simple.

ChrisL

William—where did you hear/read this:

“For example, Erik Spiekermann basically drew only these for Meta Serif, and then asked Christian Schwartz to do the rest. Schwartz and Kris Sowersby did the rest, but just those few letters (which admittedly he took years to figure out, and finally only in discussion with Schwartz) are still maybe 50% of the new design ideas, though a small fraction of the many, many hours of work.”

?

James—how much of a font do *I* draw out by hand? About 0.5%. Is that useful?

—K

Kris, that was based on what I read on ’Unzipped’, where there are some trial drawings by Spiekermann from 2001, on Typophile, on the FontFont site, etc. I’m sorry if I got it wrong. Please correct me!

Nice account of your Newzald on “I love typography”.

William, all it says on the Unzipped thread is In Erik’s own words: ‘I kept sketching it, but it sucked.’ He didn’t give Christian any sketches, but they have worked together on many projects already. Christian understands what Erik likes and Erik knows how to describe things to Christian. So to answer James’s question—it’s possible to design a typeface not by drawing on paper, or in FL, but by talking.

—K

Thanks, Kris. I should have re-read the Unzipped Thread rather than relying on memory. I guess I was remembering this: “Initially Erik may make sketches or send rough files, but sometimes they just sit together and look at other stuff to say ‘a bit like this, and a little like that, but not quite like that.” I also remembered the sketches, and my memory put two and two together wrongly. As you say the thread makes clear that Christian and you were more active in the design at the idea stage, and then there were significant changes while drawing.

—it’s possible to design a typeface not by drawing on paper, or in FL, but by talking.

If a client, say a magazine art director, had commissioned the face, and said “I want something that’s a bit like Meta, with serifs”, and provided verbal direction during the development process, would you credit them as the designer?

Link to Kris’ account of creating Newzald:
http://ilovetypography.com/2008/03/12/newzald-moleskine-to-market/
Very informative.

Nick, that would be like a movie credit:
Written by Suchandso, based upon a play by Thisandthat, based upon a book by Anotherguy, based upon an original idea by Geniusfellow.
Good ideas have many creators (designers).

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

William—no worries mate! I had a feeling you’d accidentally mixed up you sources.

Nick—is that a rhetorical question?

Bert—thanks!

—K

“If a client, say a magazine art director, had commissioned the face, and said “I want something that’s a bit like Meta, with serifs”, and provided verbal direction during the development process, would you credit them as the designer?”

Perhaps I would if they had also been the designer of Meta.

ChrisL

To answer the original question: “It Depends”...If I am doing something very much based on handwriting or rough calligraphy, there will be lots more time drawing, or even writing, and much less time fiddling onscreen. There might be a big scanning/autotrace session in there too. For other more modular or mechanical designs there might be very little drawing and considerably more cutting and pasting. Many designs can’t really be resolved without extensive proofing, now best done in the digitized state. So drawings might just be sketches that get digitized immediately.

Key characters do help you get the “DNA” as Matthew Carter has said in the Helvetica film. HOnh to start with for contrast and other basic things like bowl shape, serif length, x-height to cap ratio, etc. Then the letters that combine those: Db. Get the spacing of all these right and you’re on your way. Add other letters that give more character and style info like ABEGRSabegv. Many of us have rushed to finish the whole alphabets, then the figures, then the italic, then then then, only to look at the original efforts months later and realize it was all garbage and has to be re-done from scratch. This is “measure twice, cut once”, applied to type design.

James, I’m not sure how much it will help you to know the answer to this; everyone works a different way, and it’s really the results that matter. There are terrible designs with hundreds of hours of fussy handcrafting, and wonderful designs that are almost just autotraced sketches. Each designer might use a dozen different techniques. If your technique shows, or you aren’t in control of the tools, that will weaken the design. This is why some people stick to certain methods. But as you can see, there is a huge range of strategies, from telling someone else what you want, all the way to carefully hand-drawing every character at 500 point and specifying digitization points. Some people don’t even do digital outline work themselves; they draw and have others digitize. Again, it’s the results that matter.

Caveat: I think a weak and flawed strategy is taking someone else’s finished outlines and trying to modify them enough to call it original. Very few designers are capable of this; too often the telltale essential structure remains. For that matter, how many skilled designers would take this route, knowing the limited benefit it will bring? I don’t necessarily make the same decisions about point placement or anything else that another designer would, so I find this a useless method. It’s somewhere between “homage” and “knockoff”.

—is that a rhetorical question?

Not really, I don’t think there’s a simple answer.
I’ve been in the position I described, and had the good fortune to be able to call the result my own face, rather than that of the person who commissioned it and gave it direction and personality, by the power of speech alone. But the face was not an adaptation, so I had more claim on authorship.
I would be interested in your opinion.

Carl, well put, I’m with you most of the way on that.

One thing I do note is that design themes in different typefaces may be best represented (or thorniest) in different groups of characters, so those are the characters you want to refine the theme on first. So for one face, much might depend on the way r and a fit together, whereas for another with interesting curves, it wouldn’t be a good idea to leave binocular g till the end. This follows on from Carl’s observation of how some letters tell you more about spacing, others about style, with some faces being predicated more on style, others more on spacing.

Right. Besides what Nick points out, we all know that certain shapes are just more fun to work on than others. They give character. It’s hard to do the dry stuff first, and in certain cases it really is filler, or mechanical finish work. In some designs, the letter shapes don’t need a lot of anguished finessing, it’s spacing, or the joining scheme, or the terminal shapes that take all your time.

I ought to have said this in parallel with my other comments: Every typeface is different. Combine that with the different methods and backgrounds of type designers and you have potentially unlimited new challenges, no matter how much experience you have. Every design I work on has something new to show me. And if I’m extending the character set of another designer’s work, my decisions are influenced by that. So many variables!

Nick—If a client, say a magazine art director, had commissioned the face, and said “I want something that’s a bit like Meta, with serifs”, and provided verbal direction during the development process, would you credit them as the designer?…I would be interested in your opinion.

It depends. I prefer to put “under direction from…” if that is truly the case. But Meta Serif was different as the direction came direct from Erik, the designer of Meta. It was verbal, sure, but it was more that enough!

—K

> If a client, say a magazine art director, had commissioned.....

.....an illustration? Who’s the illustrator — the art director? the artist -illustrator?

—————————

and read this

Dear James,

I have drawn typefaces by hand in my beginning years.
Than I spent much time digitalizing analog typefaces (i.e. from hotmetal)
Nowadays I do not use handdrawn sketches at all.
I am designing exclusively on monitor for my own faces
passing from FontStudio to FontLab now.

best wishes
Stefan

The few typedesigns I have done up till now, all started on paper. Drawing the characters — usually the whole alphabet, or most of it — works much faster for me. I can quickly sketch out ideas, and then draw a more tidy version of it to scan and trace. I guess I could start directly with vectors, but it doesn’t really work for me, because I can draw curves more naturally by hand.

So for me drawing it first is faster, more spontaneous, but I also just like drawing type! :)

Hi Jelma!

I do not quite agree with the thing you said about spontaneity. I think the truth lies on the contrary.
At least in my eyes. I can do the basics of a new design idea throughout an our or two (although it depends
much on how inspiration is flowing) and then I work it over on monitor.
The problem with the Beziérs (I believe) is that they really do not work good with analog form, i.e. interpreting
it. So, too much painstaking work has to be done in that process and in the end it always weakens type in its
idea and forms somehow - makes it become/look digital.
So I abbandoned (wrong spelling sorry;-) designing by hand completely although I love it definitely.
I think we have 2 different worlds here colliding.
For me designing on monitor has become something comparable to “engraving“.
Sounds funny but it is like directly forming type in the “metal”/material for which it is purposed in the end.
(though not monitor but beziérs) I try to cancel the step from analog to digital in my work.
Though I sometimes envy you guys ;-)))

Salute
Stefan

“For me designing on monitor has become something comparable to “engraving“.
Sounds funny but it is like directly forming type in the “metal”/material for which it is purposed in the end.”

I like that analogy, Stephan! It feels right. The only difference is that it is too hard to erase a mistake in an engraving, there is no “undo” command :-)

ChrisL

I think of it as “sculpting” letters, because you add a little, take away a little—as I guess you do with clay—until you like the look.

Somewhere on another thread like this David Berlow said something like: whatever you do before hand, it doesn’t start to count until it’s on the computer screen. That’s because Bezier curves tends to push you in certain directions, which are yours to use or contradict. Bezier curves are the medium you’re working in. I can understand that in a script face, the hand *written* original might be much more important.

I think (honestly) that a lot of sketches that people use in advertising purposes or articles to show “the creative progress” are actually made up afterwards to sync the final design.

How about that?

Goran, in advertising, anything that is going to be shown to the client is looked at and approved by a few different people. The creative director or art director may have some changes to suggest to the designer who made the sketch. If they have to go back to an old sketch that the client has not seen, I am sure that it gets reworked to put both the suggested solution and the ad agency in the best light. Could there be some revisionism in this process? Yes.

ChrisL

Hi all,

Shinn says it all.
It was a long time ago I have used a french curve to draw... Most of what I do now is done in the computer. Even the sketchs. Is there a rule?

How about “print and scan”. The curve is autotrace. For example: I have a “Modern Italic N.o 20” and it is a body six. I hand typeset it and print and scan the proof. Then retouch the thing in psd - may take a week to get it read to cast.

The adventures of the small printer to get a font!

Cheers

ohh... gdm it! I doubled the thing when revising “sketch”...

Stefan, while I can see what you mean, when I draw by hand I can make fluent curves with one move of my wrist. It’s direct. When I do the same with béziers, in my eyes, it is less spontaneous. You have to fiddle around with handles, nodes, points, and whatnot. You have to think about every move you do to make the line/curve, instead of drawing it subconsiously. If you know what I mean.

I don’t mean to say I hate béziers, because I eventually always end up with them. Also, I see ’autotrace’ mentioned here a couple of times. When I scan hand drawn type, I always trace them by hand. That way I try to interpret my drawing as closely as possible, but take the contraints of béziers in account as well (instead of leaving this interpretation in the hands of the autotrace feature).

After that, I go from there, and tweak and change the shapes. The end result might not resemble my original drawing that much, but I feel I am able to transfer my idea to paper and then to screen much better this way.

But doing a “finish” by hand is by no means spontaneous.

After getting the pencil drawing tight as it can be, its time to do the inking. Days of careful work, not thinking about designing, just thinking about creating that line as cleanly and perfectly as possible. Becoming a machine. Having to make the decision about the “point of now return”. When it is more economical to start over than to do corrections.

Then after the inking is finished it is time for the retouching. Will it be white and black paint? Or, my personal favorite, shooting films and scraping and painting the film positives and negatives.

I spend years creating finished camera ready art with pen and ink, and I think drawing with beziers is about as spontaneous as it gets.

James

> But doing a “finish” by hand is by no means spontaneous.

Well, maybe my choice of the word ’spontaneous’ isn’t right. English is not my native language. I just mean I don’t have to think of anything else than the shape, when drawing by hand. There is no software or user interface I have to pay attention to, just the shape. Also, I never said any drawings I do are “finished”, they’re a mere starting point where I can quickly put down ideas.

> After getting the pencil drawing tight as it can be, its time to do the inking. Days of careful work, not thinking about designing,...

Actually, when drawing something by hand, is when I can think about the design. I don’t have to consider handles, or points on extrema, or anything which have to do with the technique or software, which are unimportant to the design itself. I do not ink my drawings, they are just semi-tight pencil drawings.

Everyone his own. For me drawing it by hand first, works better.
Hats off to those who can draw immediately with béziers, I guess. :)

This is an informative thread.

Given my background in signage and screen printing, I’d planed to try cutting finished shapes in Rubilith or translucent vinyl if I were working by hand. Then, I’d only do the minimum number of shapes possible (even down to half an “o” if it is to be symmetrical) and then I’d scan and vectorize then finish the rest of on the computer. The computer is after all, just a glorified pencil but with the added benefits of a memory, the ability to replicate shapes.

-=®=-

If you ever get a chance to see Dave Farey give a demonstration on stencil cutting, do not pass it up!

Dave, Frieda Sack and several others worked at Letraset cutting rubylith masters for the final artwork for the Letraset rub down lettering.

Amazing skill.

…I’d planed to try cutting finished shapes in Rubilith or translucent vinyl if I were working by hand.

IIRC Adrian Frutiger often refines type by cutting it out with a scissors.

I still usually work out the basic concept of a font on paper first. It’s faster and easier to figure out the proportions and feel and logic of the structure on paper. But I stopped doing final art on paper (or any other physical medium) over twenty years ago when I started working digitally. Learning to work with Béziers is no more difficult than learning to work with french curves, ellipse and circle templates, compasses, technical pens and all that, but it’s infinitely more forgiving.

Hi William!

>I think of it as “sculpting” letters, because you add a little, take away a little—as I guess you do with clay—until you like the look.

>Somewhere on another thread like this David Berlow said something like: whatever you do before hand, it doesn’t start to count until it’s on the computer screen. That’s because Bezier curves tends to push you in certain directions, which are yours to use or contradict. Bezier curves are the medium you’re working in. I can understand that in a script face, the hand *written* original might be much more important.

Great!
I will go deeper in this thread. Actually I am at work.
Typedesign IS sculpturing infact.
And Beziér DO push things in their direction.
So you have to search ways to put spontaneity in THIS process,
directly on the monitor.

Yes, Jelma, beeing spontaneous on monitor is very hard to achieve (just like
the art of engraving was) but it is possible after years of training.

Someone said what about the undo comand.
It is also a great evil! But thats another aspect to discuss..

Stefan
salutes all

Hi all,
and especially Jelma and James,

I also spend years retouching films of classic letter shapes ( I started then with Garamond, then Jenson and also Bodoni - the original one that was also used, I think, to make 72 of ITC Bodoni). It was and is a great joy to do so!

It required a lot of time but it was very satisfying more from a philosophic and maybe even meditational point of view.
I have to admit I never really finished a usable typeface in that way. Yet, it buildt may grounds from which I live up ’til today.
My first Garmond letters (the Imprimerie one from Paris) were drawings with pencil (up to even 30 cm high) which I later inked on transparent paper (that I had glued on a sort of transparent acryl material to give it a body). Then I did Bodoni directly inking and scratching on film (20cm) to end up with scratching and inking with a folio pencil and cutter on very tiny films for Jenson (lower than 1cm) The later method - so far for the analog ones - seemed to be the best. The smaller you can get, the more successful your letter shapes are. And by the way, although there is discussions and theories and systems..we are still talking about shapes in the first line, don’t we? ;-)

Than came the computer and Beziérs, shook my world.
The rest is to leave for another discussion (of how to treat Beziérs) (and get to know Raph!)
It is all may time, that I spend now, to try and do researches of making shapes with that curves that do NOT look and feel like digital digital digital..
Ah, I think we used a wrong word with ‘spontaneous’ think it was FEELING that we talked about. Am I right? ;-)

Salute
Stefan

> Ah, I think we used a wrong word with ‘spontaneous’ think it was FEELING that we talked about. Am I right?

I meant that there is no other concern than the line, curve or shape. E.g. no extrema, handles, control points and whatnot. :)

Yes, I did understand, Jelma.
It was meant in a more general sense. ;-)

You catched the point but what happens when you translate your analog design into Beziérs? That is the critical situation, I guess. No, I ‘know’.
I do not mean by that that the designer will not be able to do a design that comes quite ‘near’ to what he wanted. The question is, are Beziérs then able to keep his original FEELING of the form he found.
The even most minimal change can destroy everything. That is a fact, in my eyes at least.
Digital and analog design are different from each other. I don’t like to say, computer is just a tool.
It isn’t. At least a tool that forces his user to do things that in original sense he didn’t wanted to do.
And in the worst case he doesn’t even recognize the change it has made out of his design, of his shapes (that he drew spontaneously and with feeling/inspiration - call it as you like!).

That has to be discussed. At least among those who do not look on type in a purely intellectual way ;-)
What the old fellows did was a craft. And in a craft automatically feeling and inspiration was envolved (it had to - if you think how tiny those sculptures were that the first engravers as Jenson did!!) Here we are talking about processes in the subconscious! That is the thrill.
And, as you said, doing things - as I now formulated it (I think it is the same thing you meant) in the subconscious - it is far away from working with curves on the monitor. (at first)
And so I once came to the conclusion to work from the start on monitor as the engraver did in metal (did they have sketches in the beginning? I speak of Jenson f.e.?) In a way to introduce subconscious processes again in a design method that in the end we are forced to manage.

After all its only a theory, I know. And as someone said, maybe its without rules, at all...

salute
Stefan

Stephan,
Yes, beziers have a mark that can be felt in the final product but so does every other tool ever used by man in history. The brush, the scribe the chisel, the brad-nibbed pen, the flexible pointed steel pen, the flat brush, the rubylith and exacto knife, the clay tablet, the papyrus, the stone, the etching plate, the steel punch, etc., have each left their mark on the final product. The truth is, between the flexibility of beziers and OpenType, there is far more possible now than ever with historic tools. Besides, no one is restricted from using historic tools if they wish. There is still some fine lettering cut in marble and granite to be found and superb calligraphy as well. I understand old masters like Zapf still work in traditional means and allow others to carry out the work to conclusion.

ChrisL

> The question is, are Beziérs then able to keep his original FEELING of the form he found. The even most minimal change can destroy everything. That is a fact, in my eyes at least. Digital and analog design are different from each other.

No, those changes caused by the technique are unavoidable. You’re right.

But I feel I can get close enough to my pencil drawings. The changes that occur are not a problem: the characters change a great deal while working on the typeface anyway. Usually my semi-finished (digital) characters don’t really look like my original drawings at all. Yet, I find it handy to have something to go by, when using béziers. Maybe when I get even more used to working with béziers, I get better at starting directly on screen...
However, I like it that I don’t have to sit at the computer to design the shapes themselves. I like to kick off my shoes, sit in a relaxing chair with a capuccino, and sketch out some ideas. :)

“I like to kick off my shoes, sit in a relaxing chair with a capuccino, and sketch out some ideas. :)”

a man after my own heart :-)

I do have my capucino shoeless at the computer though :-)

ChrisL

I don’t see why such a hard distinction should exist between drawing on paper or with bezier curves.

Particularly because the two processes are not diametrical opposites but merely the process of giving shape to an idea that is executed with different tools. Great results can be achieved with both, like a good sketch can be done with a pencil, marker or even a wax crayon.

Of course I would never deny that each method has got its very own feel to it. Sketching on paper just feels so much different on putting down the points, but I would never regard someone who prefers to work without paper as inferior to a sketching person.

Personally, I tend to draw up sketches first, model my characters in vectors afterwards, without actually scanning anything. Then I print out characters I am not satisfied with and touch them up with opaque white and black and a brush. I can’t exactly say how, but the brush gives me excellent curve control. Then I apply changes to the vectors and repeat all of that for quite a while.

Jelma,

this Cappuccino argument ist damned good! ;-)

I agree
Stefan

>.. with a capuccino, and sketch out some ideas. :)

PS Guess, that’s why Bodoni did such excellent letters.. ;-)

Stefano

> PS Guess, that’s why Bodoni did such excellent letters.. ;-)

Capuccino for the win! ;)

btw, you’re dropping the r in my name. :p

Sorry!

Here it is...

Haha, thats great. :)