Flow – Fragments of Beauty

Metamorphosis

elementi — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 06:49:42 +0000

One of the most difficult tasks any type designer has to deal with, for one reason or another, is deriving different weights for a type family. In my particular world of type design, it's usually a matter of taking my original designs, which are often extremely thin and detailed, and creating a typeface for smaller reading sizes. I’ve always envied the type designers out there in the professional type design world who seem to just use some sophisticated technical systems and programs to do it. That may be, or rather, it is most likely a mistake to think so. For me personally, however, it’s tough stuff. I would go so far as to say that it’s like designing a completely new font – again.

I would go so far as to say that it’s like designing a completely new font – again.

The first difficulty I run into is the large amount of time that has passed, in most cases, between the time I created the first version and the time I decide to go with the text variant. It’s incredibly difficult to dive back into an original idea you may have had years ago. It takes quite a while to understand its specificity, its inner character. Although it may seem from the outside that my designs all have a kind of #handwriting, a similar touch, that’s not the case for me. Even if I start switching from one typeface to another only after I’ve been working on it for a while, when I take a quick look around, say after a week has passed, the older typeface has already become “strange” to me, a kind of foreign body. This is because really every single font has its own personal character, like a child that has grown up under your careful observation. It has its own way of being, reacting, getting into a flow between individual letters, and so on. Axes have a slightly different inclination. All these details, which we hardly notice consciously, adjust instinctively over time. I say unconsciously: at least that’s how I feel. Speaking of details. It’s mostly these that make it a whole new task. We can start with some font program automatism as deriving mechanically weights. First of all, if we want to make a typeface with more weight that is easy to read at smaller sizes, it needs to be larger in rhythm and bolder in stems, but not uniform. I usually give much more weight to the horizontal direction than the vertical. This is because most letters have their hairlines on the horizontal axis. FontLab does this with what are called Actions that you can apply to the whole character. In a second step (which is a bit annoying), you need to fix all the rotten connections between the lines that merge into stems, etc. If you are creating a text face from an existing font, you may also want it to retain some features of the original. You can’t do this 1:1. Some details have to be lost as the stems get bolder and they no longer make sense or would disappear at a smaller scale anyway, others have to be exaggerated for the same reason so they still stand out. It’s funny, but some of the idiosyncrasies of an original character you don't get to know until you try to create a new variation of them. It’s like leaving a person for a while and then returning to them to discover their peculiarities in behavior, their hidden weird little edges that you may not have noticed the first time around, or only noticed at first glance and then forgot to see them after you dived deeper into their personality.

In a word, what we are trying to do when we create a new weight is a kind of metamorphosis in progress.

In a word, what we are trying to do when we create a new weight is a kind of metamorphosis in progress. Partly controlled with the help of the techniques of type programs, partly unconscious, instinctive, as we begin anew to draw lines, curves and details. I’m usually fully aware that this task will take me a very very long time, although admittedly I cheat myself every time by telling myself, come on, it already exists, it can’t be that hard to make a version for smaller sizes! Yeah, if I didn’t do that, I probably wouldn’t even start. Because there’s still a long way to go, a kind of journey that will take us to places we might not expect at the beginning. In the end, it is also we who will be transformed. Both the designer and the creation go through this magical metamorphosis. Above, some of the “new” Signer textface letters in their infancy. I promise to try to go deeper into the details of the working process in the next posts. Credits: Cecil Beaton | Photography

Is it symmetrical?

elementi — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:09:33 +0000

In the design of a typeface typically there are letters more interesting to do than others. The ones we use to determine a typeface’s style, look or feel and the ones which we might want to neglect for some time. Inevitably yet, sooner or later we have to spend some time drawing also the less interesting ones. And at this point someone may ask, as well: are they really so uninteresting? One of these candidates surely is the minor letter ‘o’. While creating a Sans Serif typeface we may be tempted to construct a circle. At least, even in the serif fonts where stroke widths swell in horizontal we hope that by drawing a quarter part and duplicating it four times we might get the job done. But human eye follow its own rules! Doing so the result is a letter seemingly out of balance, some kind of weird element among others. This depends in part on the direction of reading, as well as on other habits of watching in general.

What makes it so hard creating a well done ‘o’ is exactly that subtlety: making it seem symmetrical while taking care of these optical balance effects.

Even in typefaces which have a non inclined character, on the contrary to the antique Roman characters as Jenson and others, we might find that the inner circle, for example, needs to be inclined nonetheless a little bit. So that the eye while reading is not stopped in the flow of a line. In addition, the bottom curves of the apparently symmetrical ‘o’ behave differently to the upper ones. So, what makes it so hard creating a well done ‘o’ is exactly that subtlety: making it seem symmetrical while taking care of these optical balance effects. And let me assure you: it is a hard one! In part we are relieved of this task in the italic typefaces where by nature we have only a flipped vertical symmetry. And in general the eye is inclined to pardon small divergences more easily. In this typeface called Reflection Italic (later Urbino) I implemented more concise pen characteristics such as tiny edges on its outer curves. This not only helped to make it a more harmonious partner to its quite edgy Roman pendant but makes it more liberal in the choice of how to handle symmetries. In order to get inspired for what regards its reading flow I used Sandro Botticelli’s paintings for he is a true master of movement and lines’ dynamic. Read also [German and Italian language] Painting: Sandro Botticelli | Primavera (detail)

Memoir Spacing

elementi — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:19:21 +0000

A very demanding task, vital for the success of a typeface is that of finding the right spaces for each singular letter. As one can easily imagine the number of possible combinations even in a Roman alphabet is very high. But, what may seem frightening to someone making a quick calculation of that number is quite a daily business for a type designer. For the simple reason that he has got used to it and of course over the time found his methods to deal with it. There are indeed several good methods for this challenge that didn’t change so much over the centuries of making typefaces, I guess. One of them is doubling letters to pairs or creating even higher numbers of copies and put them side by side. I remember the first time seeing something like that in an old book about Frederic W. Goudy, the famous American type designer and printer in the first decades of the past century. He used to print testing sheets of his metal casted letters into large rows of duplicate letters. Doing so, in the first line, does give the type designer an idea of the general room (neglecting left or right side distances) each letter has been given. On the hand this is to avoid a too deep color caused by letters tightened too much, on the other it gives us a more precise control over the inner and outer rhythm of straight lines. In an ideal, admittedly a little too rigorous sense, distances between the two (or three) vertical lines within a letter image should be the same as the one between the last one of one letters and the starting one of its succeeding colleague (remember: for all possible combinations!). By putting, initially, the same letter in a row (at least, two of them) and glancing over them it is easier to detect eventual rhythm mistakes. Having done so and given that the type designer knowing well his creation and therefor being able to center each individual letter image between its (invisible) borders he may then compare rows of different letters among each other. To settle if certain letter designs lack of sufficient space on left and right side or are set up to tight. The next step is that of comparing more thoroughly typical letter combinations or the ones that each designer depending on his individual style and preference (of course being related to his mother language, but this would fill another essay much longer than this one). In my eyes it is also important to concentrate with this on pairings that one particularly is being fond of. What may sound kind of funny, is a design truth for my opinion. Because having fun with this work or let’s even say to fall kind in love with letter pairings and combinations is part of the success story of a typeface. For the creation process is far less theoretic or mathematic as one may suppose. Simply for the fact that it takes long time, asks a lot of patience of the craftsman or a digital designer and in the end is a matter of heart. This is when inspiration comes into the game. And changing it. Personally I try to melt the glyph design process and the letter spacing to one continuous process. Like here in the Memoir ‘sa’ combination I also correct the Béziers many times after the first sketches to accord letters’ rhythm between each other. I try to intuit a certain flow that is able to chain the letter images together. In a way that also lines that cross the general rhythm of a typeface maybe be more easily handled by the human eye to fit into it. It is hard to exactly describe what this means but certainly it is also a matter of the (invisible) white spaces that place between two letters. If you are working on a digital Metrics window you may also add and delete characters, go back and forth doing so to trick the eye a little and try to intuit what happens when they change places. Close the eye a little and concentrate on vertical rhythm only regardless of which letter the consisting straight line are being part of. To be honest, in my eyes, it is kind of a fifty-fifty game. Learn about the methods and get used to them but also trust blindly in your own feelings. In the end we are not talking about reason here, we gain to achieve beauty.

(…) vedevo emergere un ovale bianco, degli occhi neri, degli occhi verdi, non sapevo se fossero gli stessi che mi avevano già deliziato un momento prima, non potevo metterli in rapporto con una data fanciulla ch’io avessi separata dalle altre e riconosciuta. E quest’assenza, nella mia visione, del distacco che avrei presto stabilito fra loro, propagava attraverso il gruppo un ondeggiamento armonioso, la traslazione continua di una bellezza fluida, collettiva e mobile.

– Marcel Proust, All’ombra delle fanciulle in fiore

The Paths of Inspiration

elementi — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 16:54:54 +0000

As I am not drawing my typefaces first with a pencil on paper instead doing them directly on monitor I learned to follow my instincts or let’s call it the paths of Inspiration. This letter form Reflection Small Caps happens to end up with strange asymmetric serifs because something seemed to tell me to do so. When I saw the result it reminded me spontaneously of some of the Renaissance paintings by Leonardo which have as a particular detail a background horizon line that differs in height on the left and right side of the portrayed central figure. Even if we might not agree with some of the mystic theories that have been spun around that curious issue it still seems to be a fact that our brain tends to differently weigh two sides of a same composition. In typeface design subtle details like these can help our letters to get into a natural flow chaining them together for the eyes and following reading direction. But things like these shouldn’t be the result of a thinking process, I believe. They should crystallize out of working process and most of all in those very moments when we tend to forgot our rational intents but blindly follow her path. Read also [German language]

Mystic

elementi — Tue, 15 May 2018 06:21:39 +0000

Intelletto Artistico

elementi — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 09:50:11 +0000

E forse una sorta di «intelletto» o di «ragione artistica» (perché la ragione, si sa, è la prosaica padrona di tutto un mondo di emozioni) gli ha imposto [all’artista] di riunire tutte queste diverse bellezze, di unirle in una, cosa che qualcuno dovrebbe chiamare «stile»; in modo che uno di questi piedi sia uguale a ogni altro bello, eccetera, per non impazzire di fronte a una diversificazione insopportabile, cioè all’impossibilità di non poterle avere tutti.

In definitiva, queste due teorie, quella che promuove una bellezza unica o una «divinità» all’origine di tutte le cose (come forse il seme per le piante) e l’altra che invece suppone una diversità infinita che è unita solo nella mente di chi la percepisce (o ancor più nell’artista che la esprime), sono opposti contraddittori, irriducibili; come in fisica sulla natura della luce: quella che privilegia le particelle contro quella che privilegia le onde.

Ma, per restare all’esempio, la nostra passione personale sarebbe un animale, come una lucertola, immobile ma non per questo inerte; e come questo piccolo animale, pur insignificante nel grande spettacolo e senza la minima preoccupazione per la natura della loro forma, ne gode, si nutre dei potenti raggi del sole che significano vita.

Forse è questa la qualità unica della Bellezza, che possiamo comprendere meglio ed esprimere con più forza quando la mettiamo insieme da piccole parti. È qui che si riunisce la memoria di cui abbiamo tanto parlato:

Sono come piccole schegge di realtà, ognuna diversa dall’altra, ma in definitiva più illuminanti di qualsiasi linea, di qualsiasi flusso che nasca da un singolo pensiero, da un singolo sentimento, da una singola convinzione.

Another Mirroring

elementi — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 06:58:42 +0000

Another view of Natalia in Dior masterly captured by Peter Lindbergh side by side with the minor letter ‘r’ during design process of Reflection Italic character which later evolved into Reflection Ecriture. The base of the stroke separation in the glyphs like ‘n’, ‘m’, ‘h’ and ‘r’ was pushed down to the bottom almost a little beyond baseline to enhance the flow of the letters and add more of a handwritten character to it. I also experimented with more evidenced calligraphic turning points obtained by inserted interim curves or straight lines into its curves. Reflection Ecriture is conceived as an exclusive font for perfume design and should reflect the classic luxurious elegance of Christian Dior fashion griffe. You may also view it on Instagram and comment on it if you like. Credits: Peter Lindbergh | Photography Natalia Vodianova | Model

To Put Or Not Those Extra Points

elementi — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 12:25:39 +0000

Sometimes, or even always if I am asking myself more closely, I envy all the designers and creatives in the world for whom the computer might be not more than just a (powerful) tool to organize their work, to make it more simple to correct, modify, archive it etc. Like it may certainly influence and have a huge impact on the production of work in a great couture enterprise who, yet, in the end let those critical touches, of how the material is cut and put together in the hand of skilled craftsmen or the designer himself. This is so different and brings me even to the question wether it is an art any longer or not, to what we type designers have to face and how much and essentially the computer influences in a direct way on our design, how Béziers corrupt our feeling towards natural forms, how it undermines the organic flow of the swelling of a curve! Speaking for me, I am continuously involved in a deep struggle between what my imagination seems to want me to do and what Béziers try to allow me, or better limit me to do. Certainly, we can put points and points into the middle of our curves (even if I personally tend to shift them asymmetrically towards one side of it) but don’t we have the impression then it made our form more insecure, more shaky? That’s because of the digital grid that forces them to go to one side or another and never seem to let them stay where we wanted them. This is as well valid for the points themselves as well as for their tangents which like in a zooming glass seem to make our curve jump from one extreme to another. If I had the time to do so, not being forced to make my money as a graphic designer (which I certainly like) I could spend some weeks like a scientist to make dozens of diagrams minutely displaying every minimal step I make in a curve to demonstrate what I mean. But I do not. I am sorry for this lack. I limit pictures of this post to a daily working process scene on a character called Excess, just without comments. If you like to click through the slides feel free to leave yours anyhow! Or, otherwise, just be comforted to be not alone searching for the correct curve that never seems to happen.

Working on Reflection ‘8’

elementi — Sat, 06 May 2017 07:52:15 +0000

When it comes to certain work processes, the evolving of a letter design, as an example, things are really getting complicated to describe, if not almost impossible. So many subtle influences slip into the mind of the designer. Glyph designs, while progressing, influence on each other, much of the drawing results appear necessary to be revised once you started with elaborating their spaces, and so on. I always played with the idea in my mind to describe those kind of things one day, so that others could follow it in a way and maybe even get something out of it for their designs. But as hard as I tried to keep taking screenshots and write little essays about phases of my work, I never succeeded. It is just to complex and the things that you see and feel about a certain curve or Bézier segment to redraw for someone else are hardly reproducible. Find an excerpt of such an attempt and let me, at least, the tiny hope to not have wasted my time entirely. And what is most important: be inspired! I decided to enlarge a little the inner center form of the upper bowl after I had inserted 4 new points to add a longer, almost straight line transitional area between the two bowls instead of connecting them by a single turning point in the middle. One reason was to adapt it better to the very fine and gracile ‘R’ of this character. By the way, I quite consciously left here the path of having exact same hairline thickness relation between numbers and capitals, at least for now. After all, for me its obvious that the strength of the excellent Renaissance fonts does not derive from their precise measures but from the outstanding capability that their creators had in making their forms match in feeling and subtleness, instead. (In addition, due to the generous ‘circles’ they seem to have embedded in their inner and outer lines). Speaking of those ‘nested circles’, the upper bowl on its inside was good enough for me right now, while the outer line on the left side (observing it with the letter image skipped upside down in metrics window) seemed to lack a little bit of blackness. […]
After all, for me its obvious that the strength of the excellent Renaissance fonts does not derive from their precise measures but from the outstanding capability that their creators had in making their forms match in feeling and subtleness, instead.
Added this (fortunately I already had an extra point in this outer curve dividing it into segments as I often do instinctively in the left down leading part in bowls like i.g. in the ‘8’ or ‘g’, before they get attached to the center part of the glyph) I felt that now the (almost) straight stroke connection had some trouble where it flows into the turning swing. This seemed only in part due to the fact that the newly created interim curve segment was too short to allow a smooth attachment, as to the well known problem of digital raster not allowing tangents to be exact on decreasing lengths. So I added some weight by pushing the curve a little bit towards the outside with the help of the direct curve segment tool (clicking and ‘dragging’ the curve in the middle between the points, which is, in fact, better done with the keyboard arrows) shifting both of the belonging tangents towards the inside a little to make them longer. At this point I returned with the view mode to the upright position in metrics window to maintain final control over the letter’s natural proportions. What I surprisingly found then was that, all of the sudden, I had much less dynamical ductus, which was originally caused by a slightly thicker stroke width on the left, right before it turns around in its swing and before entering the more straight part. I did not know at this point if this was a good thing or not. […]

Revision of Advanced ‘s’

elementi — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 05:45:31 +0000

Screenshots during the work process on lower case ‘s’ for the Advanced character. Parting form an original form that seemed to me having a good dynamic flow, yet, tended to separate the ‘s’ into two different form zones. The upper one more circular with less dynamic pen stroke then the lower one. I decided to elaborate the lower one instead and make it more symmetric to its upper counter part. Slightly less dynamic but more fashionable elegant. This led over several versions that have broken digital curve harmony and made it necessary to re-adjust many curve segments in order to re-establish correct curve connections and flow. During the whole process the letter is scrupulously observed in flipped position to clearer show vertical symmetry disharmonies. Different letters were inserted to take control over rhythm aspects as bowl widths and letter spacing.