ADAPTATIONS
OCR-B
ADAPTATIONS OFTHE TYPEFACE
Signature
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
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OCR-A
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OCR-B LETTERPRESS
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OCR-F
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OCRBczyk
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DOCUMENTA
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ADAPTATIONS
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INTRODUCTION There are many typefaces that demonstrate the progress in OCR technology. These include OCR-A and Adrian Frutiger’s OCR-B, along with many others that were greatly influenced by these two original optical recognition typefaces. Two examples of such include FF OCR-F and OCRBczyk. While with OCR-A the only decisive parameter concerning its design was simple machinereading technology, OCR-B profits from a more sophisticated recognition technology, thus allowing for a shape that is closer to the optical criteria for human readability. The difference in shape between OCR-A and OCR-B becomes obvious in the curved strokes. Whereas in OCR-A almost all curves are transformed into angles, they are rounded in OCR-B – if not always in a harmonious way. This booklet will compare and contrast OCR-B with these other typefaces, while also detailing the Documenta typeface, another of Adrian Frutiger’s typefaces designed for use with optical character recognition systems.
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ADAPTATIONS 06
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OCR-A OCR-A is a font that arose in the early days of computer optical character recognition when there was a need for a font that could be recognized not only by the computers of that day, but also by humans. It uses simple, thick strokes to form recognisable characters.
The OCR-A typeface was produced in 1968 by American Type Founders to meet the criteria set by the U.S. Bureau of Standards. Its usage remains widespread in the encoding of cheques around the world.
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ADAPTATIONS 08
Optical Optical
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COMPARISON WITH OCR-A These two typefaces consist of extreme difference of character shape. In OCR-A, the curves of each letter are much more angular, in comparison to OCR-B. They also entail round edges throughout, and consist of a slighlty larger x-height and wider letter spacing.
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OCR-B Letterpress
ADAPTATIONS 10
During the design stages of the OCR-B typeface, Adrian Frutiger also insisted on developing a differentiated â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;letterpress fontâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for book printing in addition to the font with the consistent weight. Up until that point only numerals and capitals had been important but now lower case
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characters also had to be dealt with. As far as the letterpress shapes were concerned, it was important they were built up from the centerline. The shape of the type around it, the difference between fine and bold, didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter in technological terms.
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ADAPTATIONS 12
Optical
Optical
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COMPARISON WITH OCR-B LETTERPRESS The major differences between these two typefaces is the letter spacing. OCR-B Letterpress is a proportional font, whereas OCR-B is a monospaced one. The letterpress version also entails a smaller x-height.
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FF OCR-F
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FF OCR-F was the first family in a series of “nondesign” typefaces for the FontFont library. Technically oriented faces, such as DIN, Courier, Pica, or OCR-A and OCR-B have never been so much in demand as today. Poster designers, magazine publishers and art directors love their cold, martial forms. At the same time, many would like to have a few more weights and a quasi-
proportional version of these faces available. FontFont’s FF OCR-F is a re-working of OCR-B, with two completely new weights – light and bold – and oldstyle figures. The true proportionally-spaced look was created by adapting the typeface to a course grid of about 12 units to the em quad. Characters like m, w and M and W were kept rather narrow, and i and I were allowed to keep their serifs.
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The work was undertaken by Albert-Jan Pool, who also designed FF DIN. He described the context in which he places FF OCR-F as follows: â&#x20AC;&#x153;OCR-B was originally conceived in the late 1960s for ECMA, a European association of computer manufacturers. They had decided on enhancing their minimal standards of resolution and mechanisms of Optical Character Recognition for their machines and software. Until that day, they
had used OCR-A, a typeface which suited the current practical needs, but only as far as machines were involved. Humans did not quite appreciate OCR-A. Computers as well as the piles of matrix-printed output they produced were far from userfriendly. OCR-B was devised to encourage a greater acceptance of computers. Adrian Frutiger was asked to design a typeface that took full advantage of the new standard. Once being an aesthetic compromise between the reading capabilities of man and machine, OCR-B has in fact come to technically outlive itself.â&#x20AC;?
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Optical
Optical
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COMPARISON WITH FF OCR-F The characters of both these typefaces are very similar in shape. It is within the glyphs where the greatest of difference can be seen, such as in , . % * $ and < >. The other major aspect is that of spacing. FF OCR-F consists of much tighter letter spacing.
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OCRBczyk Frutigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OCR-B was the direct basis for OCRBczyk from 1994. It features a much finer visual character but still remains true to the aesthetics of the OCR typeface from the 1960s. The original OCR-B was
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designed for optical character recognition systems and was therefore monospaced. Designer Alexander Branczyk made a more typographically tuned and fitted version, with both regular and bold weights
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Optical Optical
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COMPARISON WITH OCRBczyk Other than the extreme differnce in letter spacing, both these typefaces are almost identical. There are only a few characters that differ, such as the lowercase m and the < > glyphs.
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DOCUMENTA
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At the end of the 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Fritz Sutter from the Basel National Zeitung asked Adrian Frutiger to develop an OCR typeface exclusively for his company. Fritz Sutter spoke of a parallel design to OCR-B but with added quality. Documenta is a monospace face based on twelve units of glyph width. It therefore featured wider letterspacing than OCR-B. The most obvious difference can be found in the basic concept of the typeface: while OCR-B has horizontal curve terminals similar to those of Univers, and Documenta has vertical ones.
Individual glyphs featured a more typical Adrian Frutiger design â&#x20AC;&#x201C; there was no need to take into account the conditions dictated by a number of different manufacturers. The D therefore has a more angular shape in the curves, the M features slightly spread legs, the tail of the Q does not cross into the counter and the leg of the R has a gentle curve at the top. The most striking difference in the lowercase
letters can be found in the l. With OCR-B it features a curved stroke, whereas in Documenta it has serifs. On the basis of Adrian Frutigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s instructions, a special grid for Linotron 505 from Mergenthaler Linotype was developed. The Linotron was set up at National Zeitung from 1969 to 1983. The grid has unfortunately been lost.
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ADAPTATIONS
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OCR-B