Spine by Monica Stauffer

T YPE IS T H E ST E M OF E V E RY T HI NG

VOLU ME 1 I SSUE 2 ty p e casting b ack to b asics g r o o m ing the fo n t ab un dan t

table of contents type casting Handle Your Type with Care by Steven Brower p. 9

back to basics Stopping Sloppy Typography by John D. Berry p. 19

grooming the font Make Your Type Worthy by Robert Bringhurst p. 27

abundant

Typography Students Let Loose by Monica Stauffer p. 39

spine

spinemag.com January 2016 Volume 1 Issue 2

Spine Magazine 74 King Street St. Augustine, Fl 32084

pollen Spread Your Type by Jacob Cass p. 45

flower Type Installations by Joan-Maree Hargreaves p. 37

bud

To Help You Grow by Antonio Carusone p. 23

seed

New Typefaces by Monica Stauffer p. 17

roots

History of Type by Jonathan Hoefler p. 7

LE T TER F R O M THE PU B L ISHE R

Monica Stauffer

When people ask me why I’m majoring in art and what it is that got my interest, my answer is always the same: typography. And every time, without fail, their face is the same. They give me a look of confusion, laced with interest and boredom at the same time. I sigh, and wonder when typography won’t need an explanation. The frustrating thing about people not knowing what typography is is the fact that they are surrounded by it. They interact with it daily, and yet they still have no clue what it is. Type directs us: it’s on road signs, buildings, directions, food menus. It engages us, providing us with information that is necessary to our lives, necessary for functioning in this world. It’s in books, magazines, newspapers, brochures — any kind of text you see had to be designed, had to be controlled and manipulated to grab your interest, to

make you aware of what is going on. And, just like anything else, there is bad typography, and there is good typography. The rules of type are many, and they are widely unknown, disregarded, and misconstrued. There are so many references out there that can help you create good type, and yet there is still bad typography. It’s time that the world became fluent in typography. Because, in case you haven’t been listening to what I’ve been saying, typography is everywhere, and if it’s everywhere, it should at least be aesthetically pleasing. Without a spine, you can’t function. Without typography, the world can’t function. Typography is beautiful; it’s overlooked, it’s intriguing, it’s inventive, engaging, directional, and most importantly of all, typography is abundant, and it’s important. That’s what this magazine is all about.

roots H i s t o ry o f Ty p e

AND? by Jonathan Hoefler

Though it feels like a modern appendix to our ancient alphabet, the ampersand is considerably older than many of the letters that we use today. By the time the letter W entered the Latin alphabet in the seventh century, ampersands had enjoyed six hundred years of continuous use; one appears in Pompeiian graffiti, establishing the symbol at least as far back as A.D. 79. One tidy historical account credits Marcus Tullius Tiro, Cicero’s secretary, with the invention of the ampersand, and while this is likely a simplified retelling, it’s certainly true that Tiro was a tireless user of scribal abbreviations. One surviving construction of the ampersand bears his name, and keen typophiles can occasionally find the “Tironian and” out in the world today. As both its function and form suggest, the ampersand is a written contraction

of “et,” the Latin word for “and.” Its shape has evolved continuously since its introduction, and while some ampersands are still manifestly e-t ligatures, others merely hint at this origin, sometimes in very oblique ways. The many forms that a font’s ampersand can follow are generally informed by its historical context, the whims of its designer, and the demands of the type family that contains it. As for the word “ampersand,” folk etymologies abound. The likeliest account, offered by the OED, is explained by early alphabet primers in which the symbol was listed after X, Y, Z as “&: per se, and.” Meaning “&: in itself, ‘and’”, and inevitably pronounced as “and per se and”, it’s a quick corruption to “ampersand,” and the rest is history. Though I do like one competing explanation offered by

any of his contemporaries who lent their names to competing models; I would have liked to see Quickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s And, on which this tale is surely built.

a retired signpainter I once met, who insisted that the symbol got its name from its inventor, and was henceforth known to the trade as Amperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s And. This Mr. Amper has never surfaced, nor have

type casting H a n d l e Yo u r Ty p e w i t h C are by Steven Brower My first job in book design was at New American Library, a publisher of massmarket books. I was thrilled to be hired. It was exactly where I wanted to be. I love the written word, and viewed this as my entrance into a world I wanted to participate in. Little did I suspect at the time that mass-market books, also known as “pocket” books (they measure approximately 4” x 7”, although I have yet to wear a pocket they fit comfortably into), were viewed in the design world as the tawdry stepchild of true literature and design, gaudy and unsophisticated. I came to understand that this was due to the fact that mass-market books, sold extensively in supermarkets and convenience stores, had more in common with soap detergent and cereal boxes than with their much more dignified older brother, the hardcover first edition book. Indeed, the level of design of paperbacks was as slow to evolve as a box of Cheerios. On the other hand, hardcover books, as if dressed in evening attire, wore elegant and sophisticated jackets. Next in line in terms of standing, in both the literary and design worlds, was the trade paper edition, a misnomer that does

not refer to a specific audience within an area of work, but, rather, to the second edition of the hardcover, or first edition, that sports a paperbound cover. Trade paperbacks usually utilize the same interior printing as the hardcover, and are roughly the same size (generally, 6” x 9”). Mass-market books were not so lucky. The interior pages of the original edition were shrunk down, with no regard for the final type size or the eyes of the viewer. The interiors tended to be printed on cheap paper stock, prone to yellowing over time. The edges were often dyed to mask the different grades of paper used. The covers were usually quite loud, treated with a myriad of special effects (i.e., gold or silver foil, embossing and de-bossing, spot lamination, die cuts, metallic and DayGlo pantone colors, thermography, designed to jump out at you and into your shopping cart as you walk down the aisle. The tradition of mass-market covers and more in common with, and perhaps for the most part, is the descendant of, pulp magazine covers of earlier decades, with their colorful titles and over-the-top illustrations, than

that of its more stylish, larger, and more expensive cousins.

is what I learned about type during my employ: Typefaces Genre

What I Learned So, when I made my entry into the elite world of literature, I began in the “bullpen” of a mass-market house. I believe I would be afforded a good opportunity to learn something about type and image. Indeed, in my short tenure there, I employed more display typefaces in a year and a half than I will in the rest of my lifetime. And, I abused type more than I ever dreamed possible. There, type was always condense or stretched so the height would be treated in a smaller format. The problem was that the face itself became distorted, as if it was put on the inquisitions rack, with the horizontals remaining “thick” and the verticals thinning out. Back then, when type was “spec’d” and sent out to a typesetter, there was a standing order at the type house to condense all type for our company 20 percent. Sometimes, we would cut the type and extend it by hand, which created less distortion but still odd-looking faces. Once, I was instructed by the art director to cut the serifs off a face, to suit his whim. It’s a good thing there is no criminal prosecution for type abuse. The art director usually commissioned the art for these titles. Therefore, the job of the designers was to find the “appropriate” type solution that works with these illustrations to create the package. It was here that I learned my earliest lessons in the cliches of typography. Mass-market paperbacks were divided into different genres, distinct categories that define their audience and subject matter. Though they were unspoken rules, hands down from generation to generation, here

Square Serif Western Script and cursive Romance LED faces Science fiction Neuland African (in spite of the fact that the typeface is of German origin) Latin Mystery Fat, round serif faces Children’s Sans serif Nonfiction Hand scrawl Horror 1950s bouncy type Humor/Teen titles And so it went. Every month, we were given five to six titles we were responsible for, and every month, new variations on old themes hung up on the wall. For a brief period I was assigned all the romance titles, which, themselves, were divided into subgenera (historical, regency, contemporary, etc). I made the conscious decision to create the very best romance covers around. Sure, I

would use script and cursive type, but I would use better script and cursive type, so distinctive, elegant, and beautiful that I, or anyone else, would recognize the difference immediately. (When, six months after I let the job, I went to view my achievements at the local K-Mart, I could not pick out any of my designs from all the rest on the bookracks.) Soon after, I graduated to art director of a small publishing house. The problem was, I still knew little of and had little confidence in, typography. However, by this time, I knew I knew little about typography. My solution, therefore, was to create images that contained the type as an integral part of the image, in a play on vernacular design, thereby avoiding the issue entirely. Thus began a series of collaboration with talented illustrators and photographers, in which the typography of the jacket was incorporated as part of the illustration. Mystery

books especially lent themselves well to this endeavor. A nice thing about this approach is that it has a certain informality and familiarity with the audience. It also made my job easier, because I did not have to paste up much type for the cover(as one had to debark in the days of t-squares and wax), since it was, for the most part, self-contained within the illustration. This may seem like laziness on my part, but hey, I was busy. Eventually my eye began to develop, and my awareness and appreciation of good typography increased. I soon learned the pitfalls that most novice designers fall into, like utilizing a quirky novelty face does not equal creativity and usually calls attention to the wrong aspects of the solution. The important of good letterspacing became paramount. Finding the right combination of a serif and sans seraphic face to evoke the mood of the material within was now

my primary concern. The beauty of a classically rendered letterform now moved me, to quote Eric Gill, a much “as any sculpture or painted picture.” I developed an appreciation for the rules of typography.

unwanted distortions. Much care and consideration went into the design of these faces, and they should be treated with respect. There are thousands of condense faces to choose from without resorting to the horizontal and vertical scale functions.

The Rules As I’ve said, it is a common mistake among young designers to think a quirky novelty face equals creativity. Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. If anything, for the viewer, it has the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than being the total sum of individual expression, it simply calls attention to itself, detracting from, rather than adding to, the content of the piece. It is no substitute for a well-reasons conceptual solution to the design problem at hand. As a general rule, no more than two faces should be utilized in any given design, usually the combination of a serif face and a sans serif face. There are thousand to choose from, but I find I have reduced the list to five or six in each category that I have used as body text throughout my career:

Do not use text type as display. Even though the computer will enlarge the type beyond the type designer’s intention, this may result in distortions. Do not use display type as text. Often, display type that looks great large can be difficult to read when small. Do not stack type. The result is oddlooking spacing that looks as if it is about to tumble not op of itself. The thinness of the letter I is no match for the heft of an O sitting on top of it. As always, there are ways to achieve stacking successfully, but this requires care. Also, as I noted, much care should be given to letterspacing the characters of each word. This is not as simple as it seems. The computer settings for type are rife with inconsistencies that need to be corrected optically. Certain combinations of letterforms are more difficult to adjust than others. It is paramount that even optical (as opposed to actual) spacing

Serif Bodoni Caslon Cheltenham Garamond Sans Serif Franklin Gothic Futura Gill Sans News Gothic Trade Gothic You should never condense or extend type. As I stated, this leads to

is achieved, regardless of the openness or closeness of the kerning. It helps if you view the setting upside down, or backwards on a light box or sun-filled window, or squint at the copy to achieve satisfactory spacing. I would caution you in the judicious use of drop shadows. Shadows these days can be rendered easily in programs such as Adobeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Photoshop and Illustrator, and convincingly, too. The problem is, it is so easily done that it is overdone. Thus, the wholesale usage of soft drop shadows has become the typographic equivalent of clip art. Viewers know they have seen it before. Rather than being evocative, it mainly evokes the program it was created in. Hard drop shadows, ones that are 100 percent of a color, are easily achieved in Quark and placed behind the main text. This method is generally employed

when the main text is not reading against the background, because of a neutral tone or an images that varies in tone from dark to light. The handed-down wisdom is: If you need a drop shadow to make it read, the piece isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working. These solid drop shadows always look artificial, since, in reality, there is no such thing a s a solid drop shadow. There should be a be a better solution to readability. Perhaps the background or the color of the type can be adjusted.Perhaps the type should be paneled or outlined. There are an infinite number of variations. If you must use a solid drop shadow, it should never be a color. Have you ever seen a shadow in life that is blue, yellow, or green? It should certainly never be white. Why would a shadow be 100 percent lighter than what is, in theory, casting the shadow? White shadows create a hole in the background, and draw the eye to the shadow, and not where you want it to go: the text. Justified text looks more formal than flush left, rag right. Most books are set justified, while magazines are often flush left, rag right. Centered copy will appear more relaxed than asymmetrical copy. Large blocks of centered type can create odd-looking shapes that detract from the copy contained within. Another thing to consider is the point size and width of body copy. The tendency in recent times is to make type smaller and smaller, regardless of the intended audience. However, the whole purpose of text is that it be read. A magazine covering contemporary music is different from the magazine for The American Association of Retired Persons. It is also common today to see very wide columns of text, with the copy best at a small point size. The problem is

that very wide column is hard to read because it forces the eye to move back and forth, tiring the reader. On the other hand, a very narrow measure also is objectionable, because the phrases and words are too cut up, with the eye jumping from line to line. We, as readers, do not read letter by letter, or even word by word, but, rather, phrase by phrase. A consensus favors an average of ten to twelves words per line. Lastly, too much leading between lines also makes the reader work too hard jumping from line to line, while too little leading makes it hard for the reader to discern where on lines ends and another beings. The audience should always be paramount in the designer’s approach, and it is the audience—not the whim of the designer, or even the client—that defines the level of difficulty and easy with which a piece is read. As Eric Gill said in 1931, “A book is primarily a thing to be read.” A final consideration is the size of the type. As a rule of thumb, mass-market books tend to be 8 point for reasons of space. A clothbound book, magazine, or newspaper usually falls in the 9.5 point to 12 point range. Oversized art books employ larger sizes—generally, 14 point to 18 point or more. Choosing the right typeface for your design can be time-consuming. There are thousands to choose from. Questions abound. Is the face legible at the setting I want? Does it evoke what I want it to evoke? Is it appropriate to the subject matter? There are no easy answers. When a student of mine used Clarendon in a self-promotion piece, I questioned why he chose a face that has 1950s connotations, mainly in connection with Reid Miles’ Blue Note album covers. He answered, “Because I thought

it was cool.” I lectured him profusely on selecting type simply based on its “coolness.” Later, I relayed the incident to Seymour Chwast, of the legendary Pushpin Group (formerly Pushpin Studios). He observed that Clarendon is actually a Victorian face, which he and his peers revived as young designers in the 1950s. When I asked him why they chose to bring this arcane face back to life, he replied, “Because we thought it was cool.” Breaking the Rules Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. An infinite number of faces can be used within one design, particularly when you employ a broad-side type solution, a style that developed with the woodtype settings of the nineteenth century. Another style, utilizing a myriad of faces, is that influence by the Futurist and Dada movements of the early twentieth century. As Robert N. Jones stated

in an article of the May 1960 issue of Print magazine: “It is my belief that there has never been a typeface that is so badly designed that it could not be handsomely and effectively used in the hands of the right … designer.” Of course, this was before the novelty type explosion that took place later that decade, and, again, after the advent of the Macintosh computer. Still, Jeffery Keedy, a contemporary type designer whose work appears regularly in Emigre, concurs: “Good designers can make use of almost anything. The typeface is the point of departure, not the destination.”

Note the caveat “almost.” Still, bad use of good type is much less desirable than good use of bad type. When I first began in publishing, a coworker decided to let me in on the “secrets” of picking the appropriate face. “If you get a book on Lincoln to design,” he advised, “look up an appropriate typeface in the index of the type specimen book.” He proceeded to do so. “Ah, here were go—‘Log Cabin!’” While, on the extremely rare occasion, I have found this to be a useful method, it’s a good general rule of what not to do.

seed To H e l p Yo u G ro w

BE BASIC by Antonio Carusone

Many people, designers included, think that typography consists of only selecting a typeface, choosing a font size and whether it should be regular or bold. For most people it ends there. But there is much more to achieving good typography and it’s in the details that designers often neglect. These details give the designer total control, allowing them to create beautiful and consistent typography in their designs.

Leading: Leading is the space between the lines of type in a body of copy that plays a big role in readability. Correctly spaced lines make it easier for a reader to follow the type and improves the overall appearance of the text. Leading also alters typographic color, which is the density or tone of a composition. Many factors affect leading: typeface, type size, weight, case, measure, wordspacing, etc. The longer the measure, the more leading is needed. Also, the larger the type size, the less leading is required. A good rule is to set the leading 2-5pt larger than the type size, depening on the typeface. So if you set the type at 12pt, a 15pt or 16pt leading should work well on the web.

Measure: The measure is the length of a line of type. To a reader’s eye, long or short lines can be tiring and distracting. A long measure disrupts the rhythm because the reader has a hard time locating the next line of type. The only time a narrow measure is acceptable is with a small amount of text. For optimum readability you want the measure to be between 40 – 80 characters, including spaces. For a single-column design 65 characters is considered ideal.

Hanging Quotes: Hang quotes in the margin of the body of text. By not doing so a quotation mark that is flush with the text will interrupt the left margin and dis¬rupt

small caps, type size, color, underline or a different typeface. No matter which you choose, try to limit yourself to using only one. Combinations such as caps-bolditalic are disruptive and look clumsy. Scale: Always compose with a scale, whether it’s the traditional scale developed in the sixteenth century that we’re all familiar with, or one you create on your own. A scale is important because it establishes a typgraphic hierarchy that improves readability and creates harmony and cohesiveness within the text. the rhythm of the reader. Hanging quotes keeps the left alignment intact and balanced therefore increasing readability.

Clean Rags: When setting a block of text unjustified with a left or right alignment, be sure to keep the rag (the uneven side) balanced without any sudden “holes” or awkward shapes. A bad rag can be unsettling to the eye and distract the reader. A good rag has a “soft” unevenness, without any lines that are too long or too short. These details give the designer total control, allowing them to create beautiful and consistent typography in their designs.

Vertical Rhythm: A baseline grid is the foundation for consistent typographic rhythm on a page. It allows the reader to easily follow the flow of the text, which in turn increases readability. A continuous rhythm in the vertical space keeps all the text on a consistent grid so that proportion and balance are retained throughout the page, no matter the type size, leading or measure. Widows & Orphans: A widow is a short line or single word at the end of a paragraph. An orphan is a word or short line at the beginning or end of a column that is separated from the rest of the paragraph. Widows and Orphans create awkward rags, interrupt the reader’s eye and affect readability. They can be avoided by adjusting the type size, leading, measure, wordspacing, letterspacing or by entering manual line breaks. Emphasis: Giving emphasis to a word without interrupting the reader is important. Italic is widely considered to be the ideal form of emphasis. Some other common forms of emphasis are: bold, caps,

back to basics S t o p p i ng Sl o p p y Ty p o g raph y by John D. Berry There’s a billboard along the freeway in San Francisco that’s entirely typographic, and very simple. Against a bright blue background, white letters spell out a single short line, set in quotation marks: “Are you lookin’ at me?” The style of letters is tradition, with serifs; it looks like a line of dialogue, which is exactly what it’s supposed to look like. Since this is a billboard, and the text is the entire message of the billboard, it’s a witty comment on the fact that you are looking at “me”—that is, the message on the billboard—as you drive past. But, as my partner and I drove past and spotted this billboard for the first time, we both simultaneously voiced the same response: “No, I’m looking at your apostrophe!” The quotation marks around the sentence are real quotation marks, which blend in with the style of the lettering— “typographers’ quotes,” as they’re sometimes called—but the apostrophe at the end of “lookin’” is, disconcertingly, a single “typewriter quote,” a straight upand-down line with a rounded top and a teardrop tail at the bottom. To anyone with any sensitivity to te shapes of letters, whether they know

the terms of typesetting or not, this straight apostrophe is like a fart in a symphony—boorish, crude, out of place, and distracting. The normal quotation marks at the beginning and end of the sentence just serve make the loud “blat!” of the apostrophe stand out. If that had been the purpose of the billboard, it would have been very effective. But unless the billboards along Highway 101 have become the scene of an exercise in typographic irony, it’s just a big ol’ mistake. Really big, and right out their in plain sight. The Devil Is in the Details This may be a particularly large-scale example, but it’s not unusual. Too much of the signing and printed matter that we read—and that we, if we’re designers or typographers, create—is riddle with mistakes like this. It seems that an amazing number of people responsible for creating graphic matter are incapable of noticing when they get the type wrong. This should not be so. These fine points ought to be covered in every basic class of typography, and basic typography ought to be part of the education of every graphic designer. But clearly, this

the apostrophes are straight.) But those same automatic typesetting routines have created another almost universal mistake: where an apostrophe at the beginning of a word appears backwards, as a single open quotation mark. You see this in abbreviated dates (’99, ’01), and in colloquial spellings, like ‘em for them. The program can turn straight quotes into typographers’ quotes automatically, making any quotation mark at the start of a word into an upon quote, but it has no way of telling that the apostrophe at the beginning of ‘em isn’t supposed to be a single open quote, so it change it into one. The only way to catch this is to make the correction by hand—every time.

isn’t the case—or else a lot of designers skipped that part of the class, or have simply forgotten what they once learned about type. Or, they naively believe the software they use will do the job for them. Maybe it’s time for a nationwide—no, worldwide—program of remedial courses in using type.

Anemic Type The other rude noise that has become common in the symphony hall is fake small caps. Small caps are a wonderful thing; very useful and sometimes elegant; fake small caps are a distraction and an abomination. Fake caps are what you get when you use a program’s “small caps” command. The software just shrinks the full-size

Automated Errors As my own small gesture toward improvement, I’ll point out a couple of the more obvious problems—in the hope that maybe, maybe, they’ll become slightly less commonplace, at least for awhile. Typewriter quotes and straight apostrophes are actually on the wane, thanks to word-processing programs and page-layout programs that offer the option of automatically changing them to typographers’ quotes on the fly. (I’m not sure what has made the phenomenon I spotted on that billboard so common, but I’ve noticed a lot of examples recently of text where the double quotation marks are correct but

capital letters down by a predetermined percentage—which gives you a bunch of small, spindly-looking caps all huddled together in the middle of the text. If the design calls for caps and small caps—that is, small caps for the word but a full cap for the first letter—it’s even worse, since the full-size caps draw attention to themselves because they look so much heavier than the smaller caps next to them. (If you’re using caps and small caps to spell out an acronym, this might make sense; in that case, you might want the initial caps to stand out. Otherwise, it’s silly. (And—here comes that word again—distracting.) If it weren’t for a single exception, I’d advise everyone to just forget about the “small caps” command—forget it ever existed, and never, ever, touch it again. (The exception is Adobe InDesign, which is smart enough to find the real small caps in an OpenType font that includes them, and use them when the “small caps” command is invoked. Unfortunately, InDesign isn’t smart enough, or independent enough, to say, “No, thanks,” when you invoke “small caps” in a font that doesn’t actually have any. It just goes ahead and makes those familiar old fake small caps.” You don’t really need small caps at all, in most

typesetting situations; small caps are a typographic refinement, not a crutch, If you’re going to use them, use real small caps: properly designed letters with the form of caps, but usually a little wider, only as tall as the x-height or a little taller, and with stroke weights that match the weight of the lowercase and the full caps of the same typeface. Make sure you’re using a typeface that has true small caps, if you want small caps. Letterspace them a little, and set them slightly loose, the same way you would (or at least should) with a word in all caps; it makes the word much more readable. Pay Attention, Now There are plenty of other bits of remedial typesetting that we ought to study, but those will do for now. The obvious corollary to all this is, to produce well-typeset words, whether in a single phrase on a billboard or several pages of text, you have to pay attention, proofread. Proofread again. Don’t trust the defaults of any program you use. Look at good typesetting and figure out how it was done, then do it yourself. Don’t be sloppy. Aim for the best. Words to live by, I suppose. And, certainly, words to set type by.

bud N e w Ty p e f a ce s

FLY HIGH by Monica Stauffer

Selling more than 100,000 toys, GoldieBlox has changed “the natural way of things”, fighting against the social norms on what a female can and cannot do. The idea of opening up new worlds for young girls and teaching them engineering will be translated through the following inspiration: aerospace blueprints. The goal is to help girls reach new heights, both physically and mentally. Aerospace is one of the most popular fields of engineering. Flying was unthinkable until the Wright Brothers arrived. Engineering a plane - which they named Flyer - was against the natural order of things. And they were reaching new heights. Based on this idea, a new typeface was born. Meet the typeface Flyer, designed specifically with GoldieBloks in mind. Drawn from the blueprints for the first plane, this modular typeface brings to the

floor engineering, as well as resembling building blocks, therefore being both kid-friendly and complex. The name Flyer is taken from the Wright Brothers’ airplane designed in 1903. The Wright Brothers achieved a feat that nobody thought possible, similar to Debbie Sterling and her goal to teach young girls engineering. Also, flyer is a term for a cheerleader that is in the air during a stunt, a stereotypical feminine sport that requires endurance and strength. The term is reflective of the subject matter and the audience, respectively. Inspired by blueprints for aerospace engineering, the font will be based on the blueprints for the Wright Brothers’ plane ‘Flyer’. The series of lines and curves from the airplane blueprints will be the modules that, when combined, will make the typeface.

Flyer by Monica Stauffer

grooming the font M a ke Yo u r Ty p e Wo rth y by Robert Bringhurst Writing begins with the making of meaningful marks. That is to say, leaving the traces of meaningful gestures. Typography begins with arranging meaningful marks that are already made. In that respect, the practice of typography is like playing the piano – an instrument quite different from the human voice. On the piano, the notes are already fixed, although their order, duration and amplitude are not. The notes are fixed but they can be endlessly rearranged, into meaningful music or meaningless noise. Pianos, however, need to be tuned. The same is true of fonts. To put this in more literary terms, fonts need to be edited just as carefully as texts do – and may need to be re-edited, like texts, when their circumstances change. The editing of fonts, like the editing of texts, begins before their birth and never ends. You may prefer to entrust the editing of your fonts, like the tuning of your piano, to a professional. If you are the editor of a magazine or the manager of a publishing house, that is probably the best way to proceed. But devoted typographers, like lutenists and guitarists, often feel that they themselves

must tune the instruments they play. Legal Considerations Check the license before tuning a digital font. Digital fonts are usually licensed to the user, not sold outright, and the license terms vary. Some manufacturers claim to believe that improving a font produced by them is an infringement of their rights. No one believes that tuning a piano or pumping up the tires of a car infringes on the rights of the manufacturer – and this is true no matter whether the car or the piano has been rented, leased or purchased. Printing type was treated the same way from Bí Sheng’s time until the 1980s. Generally speaking, metal type and phototype are treated that way still. In the digital realm, where the font is wholly intangible, those older notions of ownership are under pressure to change. The Linotype Library’s standard font license says that “You may modify the Font-Software to satisfy your design requirements.” FontShop’s standard license has a similar provision: “You do have the right to modify and alter Font Software for your customary personal and business use, but not for resale or

further distribution.” Adobe’s and Agfa Monotype’s licenses contain no such provision. Monotype’s says instead that “You may not alter Font Software for the purpose of adding any functionality… You agree not to adapt, modify, alter, translate, convert, or otherwise change the Font Software….” If your license forbids improving the font itself, the only legal way to tune it is through a software override. For example, you can use an external kerning editor to override the kerning table built into the font. This is the least elegant way to do it, but a multitude of errors in fitting and kerning can be masked, if need be, by this means.

need tuning or fixing shouldn’t be touched. If you want to revise the font just for the sake of revising it, you might do better to design your own instead. And if you hack up someone else’s font for practice, like a biology student cutting up at frog, you might cremate or bury the results. If the font is out of tune, fix it once and for all. One way to refine the typography of a text to work your way through it line by line, putting space in here, removing it there, and repositioning errant characters one by one. But if these refinements are made to the font itself, you will never need to make them again. They are done for good.

Ethical & aesthetic considerations If it ain’t broke… Any part of the font can be tuned– lettershapes, character set, character encoding, fitting and sidebearings, kerning table, hinting, and, in an OpenType font, rules governing character substitution. What doesn’t

Respect the text first of all, the letterforms second, the type designer third, the foundry fourth. The needs of the text should take precedence over the layout of the font, the integrity of the letterforms over the ego of the designer, the artistic sensibility of the designer over the

You may find for example that analphabetic characters such as @ + ± × = . - − © are too big or too small, too light or too dark, too high or too low, or are otherwise out of tune with the basic alphabet. You may also find that diacritics in glyphs such as å ç é ñ ô ü are poorly drawn, poorly positioned, or out of scale with the letterforms. If text figures, ligatures or other glyphs you need on a regular basis don’t reside on the base font, move them. For readable text, you almost always need text figures, but most digital fonts are sold with titling figures instead. Most digital fonts also include the ligatures fi and fl but not ff, ffi, fj or ffj. You may find at least some of the missing glyphs on a supplementary font (an ‘expert font’), but that is not enough. Put all the basic glyphs together on the base font. If, like a good Renaissance typographer, you use only upright parentheses and brackets (see §5.3.2), copy the upright forms from the roman to the italic font. Only then can they be kerned and spaced correctly without fuss.

foundry’s desire for profit, and the founder’s craft over a good deal else. Keep on fixing. Check every text you set to see where improvements can be made. Then return to the font and make them. Little by little, you and the instrument – the font, that is – will fuse, and the type you set will start to sing. Remember, though, this process never ends. There is no such thing as the perfect font.

If glyphs you need are missing altogether, make them. Standard ISO digital text fonts (PostScript or TrueType) have 256 slots and carry a basic set of Western European characters. Eastern European characters such asą ć đ ė ğ ħ ī ň ő ŗ ș ť ů are usually missing. So are the Welsh sorts ŵ and ŷ, and host of characters needed for African, Asian and Native American languages. The components required to make these characters may be present on the font, and assembling the pieces is not hard, but you need a place to put whatever characters you make. If you need only a few and do not care about

Honing the character set If there are defective glyphs, mend them. If the basic lettershapes of your font are poorly drawn, it is probably better to abandon it rather than edit it. But many fonts combine superb basic letterforms with alien or sloppy supplementary characters. Where this is the case, you can usually rest assured that the basic letterforms are the work of a real designer, whose craftsmanship merits respect, and that the supplementary characters were added by an inattentive foundry employee. The latter’s errors should be remedied at once.

system compatibility, you can place them in wasted slots – e.g. the ^ < > \ | ~ ` positions, which are accessible directly from the keyboard, or slots such as ¢ ÷123 ™ 0/00 1/1, which can be reached through insertion utilities or by typing character codes or by customizing the keyboard. If you need to add many such characters, you will need to make a supplementary font or, better yet, an enlarged font (TrueType or OpenType). If these are for your own use only, the extra characters can be placed wherever you wish. If the fonts are to be shared, every new glyph should be labeled with its PostScript name and Unicode number.

Check and correct the sidebearings. The spacing of letters is part of the essence of their design. A well-made font should need little adjustment, except for refining the kerning. Remember, however, that kerning tables exist for the sake of problematical sequences such as f*, gy, “A, To, Va and 74. If you find that simple pairs such as oo or oe require kerning, this is a sign that the letters are poorly fitted. It is better to correct the sidebearings than to write a bloated kerning table. The spacing of many analphabetics, however, has as much to do with editorial style as with typographic design. Unless

your fonts are custom made, neither the type designer nor the founder can know what you need to prefer. I habitually increase the left sidebearing of semicolon, colon, question and exclamation marks, and the inner bearings of guillemets and parentheses, in search of a kind of Channel Island compromise: neither the tight fitting preferred by most Anglophone editors nor the wide-open spacing customary in France. If I worked in French all the time, I might increase these sidebearings further.

you know what you want and you want it consistently, to incorporate your preferences into the font. Refine the kerning table. Digital type can be printed in three dimensions, suing zinc or polymer plates, and metal type can be printed flat, from photos or scans of the letterpress proofs. Usually, however, metal type is printed in three dimensions and digital type is printed in two. Two-dimensional type can be printed more cleanly and sharply than three-dimensional type, but the gain in sharpness rarely equals what is lost in depth and texture. A digital page is therefore apt to look aenemic next to a page printed directly from handset metal. This imbalance can be addressed by going deeper into two dimensions. Digital type is capable of refinements of spacing and kerning beyond those attainable in metal, and the primary means of achieving this refinement is the kerning table. Always check the sidebearings of figures and letters before you edit the kerning table. Sidebearings can be checked quickly for errors by disabling kerning and setting characters, at ample size, in pairs: 11223344… qqwweerrttyy…. If the spacing within the pairs appears to vary, or if it appears consistently cramped or loose, the sidebearings probably need to be changed. The function of a kerning table is to achieve what perfect sidebearings cannot. A thorough check of the kerning table therefore involves checking all feasible permutations of characters: 1213141516 … qwqeqrqtqyquqiqoqpq … (a(s(d(f(g(h)j)k)l … )a)s)d)f)g … -1-23-4-5 … TqTwTeTrTtTyTuTiToTp …

abc: def; ghx? klm! <<non>> abc: def; ghx? klm! <<hmm>> abç: déf; ghx? klm! <<oui>> Three options for the spacing of basic analphabetics in Monotype digital Centaur: foundry issue (top); French spacing (bottom); and something in between. Making such adjustments one by one by the insertion of fixed spaces can be tedious. It is easier by far, if

and so on. This will take several hours for a standard ISO font. For a full panEuropean font, it will take several days. Class-based kerning (now a standard capability of font editing software) can be used to speed the process. In class-based kerning, similar letters, such as a á â ä à å ā ă ä ą, are treated as one and kerned alike. This is an excellent way to begin when you are kerning a large font, but not a way to finish. The combinations Ta and Tä, Ti and T ï, il and íl, i) and ï), are likely to require different treatment. Kerning sequences such as Tp, Tt and f( may seem to you absurd, but they can and do occur in legitimate text. (Tpig is the name of a town in the mountains of Dagestan, near the southern tip of the Russian Federation; Ttanuu is an important historical site on the British Columbia coast; sequences such as y = f(x) occur routinely in mathematics.) If you know what texts you wish to set with a given font, and know that combinations such as these will never occur, you can certainly omit

them from the table. But if you are preparing a font for general use, even in a single language, remember that it should accommodate the occasional foreign phrase and the names of real and fictional people, places and things. These can involve some unusual combinations. (A few additional examples: McTavish, FitzWilliam, O’Quinn, dogfish, jack o’-lantern, Hallowe’en.) It is also wise to check the font by running a test file – a specially written text designed to hunt out missing or malformed characters and kerning pairs that are either too tight or too loose. On pages 204 – 205 is a short example of such a test file, showing the difference between an ungroomed font and a groomed one. It is nothing unusual for a wellgroomed ISO font (which might contain around two hundred working characters) to have a kerning table listing a thousands pairs. Kerning instructions for large OpenType fonts are usually

stored in a different form, but if converted to tabular form, the kerning data for a pan-European Latin font may easily reach 30,000 pairs. For a wellgroomed Latin-Greek-Cyrillic font, decompiling the kerning instructions can generate a table of 150,000 pairs. Remember, though, that the number isn’t what counts. What matters is the intelligence and style of kerning. Remember too that there is no such thing as a font whose kerning cannot be improved.

from a preceding lowercase f in either roman or italic. A cautionary example. Most of the Monotype digital revivals I have tested over the years have serious flaws in the kerning tables. One problem in particular recurs in Monotype Baskerville, Centaur & Arrighi, Dante, Fournier, Gill Sans, Poliphilus & Blado, Van Dijck and other masterworks in the Monotype collection. These are well-tired faces of superb design – yet in defiance of tradition, the maker’s kerning tables call for a large space (as much as M/4) to be added whenever the f is followed by a word space. The result is a large white blotch after every word ending in f unless a mark of punctuation intervenes. Is it east of the sun and west of the moon – or is it west of the moon and east of the sun?

Check the kerning of the word space. The word space – that invisible blank box – is the most common character in almost every text. It is normally kerned against sloping and undercut glyphs: quotation marks, apostrophe, the letters A, T, V, W, Y, and often to the numerals 1, 3, 5. It is not, however, normally kerned more than a half either to or away

Monotype digital Van Dijck, before and after editing the kerning table. As issued, the kerning table adds 127 units (thousandths of an em) in the roman, and 228 in the italic, between the letter f and the word space. The corrected table adds 6 units in the roman, none in the italic. Other, less drastic refinements have also been made to the kerning table used in the second two lines. Professional typographers may argue about whether the added space should be zero, or ten, or even 25 thousandths of an em. But there is no professional dispute about whether it should be on the order of an eighth of a quarter of an em. An extra space that large is a prefabricated typographic error â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one that would bring snorts of disbelief and instantaneous correction from Stanley Morison, Bruce Rogers, Jan van Krimpen, Eric Gill and others on whose expertise and genius the Monotype

heritage is built. But it is an easy error to fix for anyone equipped with the requisite tool: a digital font editor. Hinting If the font looks poor at low resolutions, check the hinting. Digital hints are important chiefly for the sake of how the type will look on screen. Broadly speaking, hints are of two kinds: generic hints that apply to the font as a whole and specific hints applicable only to individual characters. Many fonts are sold unhinted, and few fonts indeed are sold with hints that cannot be improved. Manual hinting is tedious in the extreme but any good font editor of recent vintage will include routines for automated hinting. These routines are usually enough to make a poorly hinted text font more legible on screen (In the long run, the solution is high-resolution

screens, making the hinting of fonts irrelevant except at tiny sizes.) Naming conventions The presumption of common law is that inherited designs, like inherited texts, belong in the public domain. New designs (or in the USA, the software in which they are enshrined) are protected for a certain term by copyright; the names of the designs are also normally protected by trademark legislation. The names are often better protected, in fact, because infringements on the rights conferred by a trademark are often much easier to prove than infringements of copyright. Nevertheless there are times when a typographer must tinker with the names manufacturers give to their digital fonts. Text fonts are generally sold in families, which may include a smorgasbord of weights and variations. Most editing and typesetting software takes a narrower, more stereotypical view. It recognizes only the nuclear family of roman, italic, bold, and bold italic. Keyboard shortcuts make it easy to switch from one to another of these, and switch codes employed are

generic. Instead of saying “Switch to such and such a font at such and such a size,” they say, for instance, “Switch to this font’s italic counterpart, whatever that may be.” This convention makes the instructions transferable. You can change the face and size of a whole paragraph or file and the roman, italic and bold should all convert correctly. The slightest inconsistency in font names can prevent this trick from working – and not all manufacturers name their fonts according to the same conventions. For the fonts to be linked, their family names must be identical and the font names must abide by rules known to the operating system and software in use. If, for example, you install Martin Majoor’s Scala or Scala Sans (issued by FontShop) on a PC, you will find that the italic and the roman are unlinked. These are superbly designed fonts, handsomely kerned and fully equipped with the requisite text figures and small caps – almost everything a digital font should be – but the PC versions must be placed in a font editor and renamed in order to make them work as expected.

flower B l oo mi ng Ty p e I ns t a l l atio n s

MOSS POETRY by Joan-Maree Hargreaves

Locally sourced mud and moss was used to create an outdoor gallery of poetry on the walls of Sydney’s iconic Paddington Reservoir Gardens. The typographic installation, Modern Day Mossages, features words and phrases by emerging Sydney poets pays tribute to John Thompson – founder of Australia’s first resident action group, the Paddington Society. Modern Day Mossages is the brainchild of Popperbox, a collective of Sydney artists with backgrounds in illustration, design, fine art, comics and software engineering. The original Popperbox team includes Matt Huynh, Tak Tran, Wil Loeng, Kevin Vo, Tina Tran and Haline Ly. Haline Ly in collaboration with Sonya Gee and Wil Loeng created a moss poem on the reservoir walls that quietly explores growth, nourishment, rejuvenation and

the future. “The typography is made up of living moss, which we attached to the wall using a mixture of heavy clay soil, beer and yoghurt,” says Ly. The designers enlisted the help of artistic horticulturalist Danielle Collier to determine where the moss would grow best, and together spent hours collecting moss for the piece. “This whole project is a little bit of an experiment so we’re not entirely sure if the moss will survive. We’re maintaining it daily, watering it every morning and giving it a little bit of love in hope that it will grow,” Ly adds. The City of Sydney invited Expressions of Interest from artistic and creative groups to design temporary art installations, photographic or other exhibitions. Modern Day Mossages is one of three projects which will help activate the space over the next 12 months.

The Paddington Reservoir Gardens were given an extensive makeover, transforming the historic ruin into a new public playground with a water feature fish pond, lawns, flower beds and shaded seating. Designed by the City Engineer, Edward Bell, the Paddington Reservoir was a key element in Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s early water supply. The former underground reservoir consisted

of two 1,023 square metre chambers built in 1866 and 1878 respectively. The historic reservoir structure reopened in 2009 after a $10 million restoration which includes a sunken garden within the ruins of the western chamber, preserved vivid graffiti art in the eastern chamber and architectural lighting highlighting beautiful timber work and stunning stone throughout the site.

abundant Ty pog ra p h y St u d e nt s Le t Lo o s e by Monica Stauffer W hat happens when Graphic Design students are given a chance to display their love and appreciation for typography in a creative way? They turn their city into a typographical experience for the city’s monthly First Friday Art Walk. Nine installations popped up in the town for a night in an attempt to make others aware of what typography is and how it affects our lives, and to draw the attention of passerby’s and show how anything and everything is typography by using a vibrant and intriguing form of typographic narrative in St. Augustine, Florida. But one installation was so successful that it stood longer than the others. This installation was titled Abundant. Three students — Abbey Osley, Rachel Blankenship, and Monica Stauffer — attempted to convey the idea of typography’s presence in our lives. Their research started with taking in their surroundings and seeing how typography was present in our daily lives: how we interacted with it, where it was, how we saw it, and how we responded to it. Collaborating as a group, they landed upon a characteristic of typography that they wanted to pursue. The insights

gained from their investigation and research fueled the concept. They decided to create an installation that would show the overwhelming presence of typography in everyone’s lives, no matter who we are or where we may be. The aspect they kept going back to was: typography is abundant. And so was born a concept. Their idea centered on the desire to raise awareness of how present typography is in our lives, no matter the location. The next question that had to be asked was, what is abundant in our world? What can you find no matter where you live, something that everyone is familiar with? Research was important in deciding upon the word that would be used to reach people unfamiliar with typography and its impact on our lives. To do this, they had to take a step back as designers and begin looking at their lives from an indifferent stand point. They had to see where typography was, how we responded to it, what it evoked in us, and where it was. This would help decide what characteristic of typography we wanted to focus on and display. The thing that is most striking

about typography was its presence. It’s everywhere. You can’t go a single place without being bombarded by typography; it directs us, informs us, and affects our decisions. It’s on street signs, in stores, on food packaging, even on clothing. All in all, typography is abundant. To successfully demonstrate the abundance of typography, materials had to be chosen. What abundant material could be used to create a connection with the abundance of typography? What item (or items) could you find no matter where you went in the world, and how could those items be utilized and manipulated to create an impacting word? Relevant to these questions was also the location where the installation would be set up. The three girls wanted the materials to relate to the location: the material utilized would be so commonly used and applicable to the location that it would seem so simple, but discretely clever in the choice of location. To choose this, the group took a walk around St. Augustine. The group knew that if they could find a good enough location, the materials would come with the location. The two had to be connected, had to have relevancy to each other. One couldn’t be decided upon without deciding on the other as well. And that was finally the “aha!” moment the group needed to make a successful installation. The idea centered on the desire to bring to light what typography was and one of its many characteristics. This was accomplished with an installation consisting of cotton balls glued to string which was tied tightly between o-hooks screwed into dowels. Cotton balls and string are highly abundant; everyone knows what they are and there aren’t

many places you can go where you can’t buy these materials. The chosen location was Antoinette’s Bath House; a store full of soaps, bath bombs, and things you would generally see in a bathroom, just like cotton balls. Plus, the cotton balls resemble bubbles in a way, making them the perfect material to use to spell out the word. A small postcard containing information about the installation and the meaning behind it was handed out to passerby’s to help people realize the relevancy of typography and its presence in our lives. The intention for this card was to give people something to remember the piece, to allow them to look back at and read again and be reminded of what typography is and how it’s relevant to our lives. In creating “Abundant”, the challenge was to create something that was applicable to everyone, while still hitting people in the face with what they were looking at. It had to be clever, but not too clever, where people who didn’t know anything about typography could look at and understand what we were trying to convey. During this project, the girls faced challenges, like every designer. However, through perseverance and encouragement from their loving friends, they were able to push through and find solutions to these issues. For example, during the gluing process, the

cotton balls were sticking to the paper template, rather than just the string. This, however, turned to be a blessing in disguise, as the paper backing made the cotton balls stronger, and helped them retain their shape. Another problem was the constant entanglement of strings, a problem that is easily solved, but caused numerous headaches and crossed eyes. The girls also withstood numerous burns to their hands from the hot glue, but this

simply made them tougher and immune to the hot glue. This installation was an incredible success. Complimented extensively by viewers, the group felt relieved and exhilarated. Everything had been worth it â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the long hours, the tired, cramping fingers, the too many cups of coffee downed â&#x20AC;&#x201D; everything had turned out perfectly. The materials, the colors, the font, and the size all came together

in a final swoop of brilliance. The installation went along with the store incredibly well. So well, in fact, that the owner requested the installation stay up for another week. Most important of all, though, was the impact it had on the community. People were able to observe and understand typography; it provoked thought, encouraged conversation, and was aesthetically pleasing to look at.

people involved Abbey Osley | Rachel Blankenship Monica Stauffer | Tim Webster Amy Salvato | Jack Cheney

materials & cost Glue guns: $12 | Glue sticks: $6 String: $6 | Black spray paint: $4 Wooden Dowels: $24 | O-Hooks: $24

pollen S p re a d Yo u r Ty p e

GO VIRAL by Jacob Cass

goes viral, it can get upwards of a million views. That’s a lot of people looking at one piece of media. You might believe that nothing is done out of the ordinary, and that it’s random what content goes viral. However, that isn’t the case. Some strategies are employed to create a piece of work that’s designed to go viral. If you want to bring more attention to work you’ve published on the internet, here are some strategies you can use to help your content go viral.

2. Be creative. Use humor. Be unique. Anyone can write informative articles, but it takes some creativity to make them funny, interesting and unique. People are more drawn to humor, as it makes whatever they are reading that much more memorable. A great example of this would be The Oatmeal who uses illustrations to tell funny stories. By putting a unique spin on what you’re writing, more people will be attracted to your work and are more likely to share it with other readers. 3. Know your visitors and know when to post. Look at the stats of your blog and determine when are the peak hours of visitors. This lets you know when your blog is being visited the most. Set up a schedule so that you’re posting during those peak hours.

1. Break the news first to your readers. Using RSS feeds and Google News & Alerts, you can be the first to hear about a certain story. This requires a lot of time and patience to find a story that you have an opinion on, as well as being the first to discuss it. Write on your personal opinion about the piece and be the first to share it. With time, your readers will come to rely on your blog as the place to go to hear about the news first, and will spread the word about it to their friends.

4. Interact with your readers. You should try as much as possible not to separate yourself from your blog. Readers want to know that you care about people reading your blog. Respond to

content types are popular, you’ll be aware of what you should be writing about. 7. Be active with social media. The only way your information is going to be spread to the rest of the people is if you’re active with how it is disseminated. Social media has made it much easier for people to share links with other people, with the simple click of a button. Participating through these social media will help to bring more attention to the information you’re publishing on the Internet. 8. Find out which social media sites work best for you. There are several you can use, such as Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and del. icio.us. Check your analytics and see where your traffic comes from. Improve your weaknesses and capitalize on your strengths. By putting buttons on your articles, you can find out which ones are bringing you the most traffic, and you can focus on those.

comments or highlight certain comments in future blog posts. That way, your readers will be aware that you do pay attention to what they say.

9. Provide links to older posts at the end of your articles. This is especially useful if the articles are related to each other, or are part of a series that help solve your readers problems. It will make your blog seem more complete, and will make it much easier for your readers to find similar articles, rather than having to search through the archive of your posts.

5. Stay in the loop. Creation of work doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You’re going to need to read other blogs to stay up-to-date to know what’s current in the news. Review posts from other bloggers and leave comments. Be honest about your opinions without being inflammatory.

10. Interact with your readers. Make them feel appreciated. Hold surveys or polls that your readers can be involved in and determine what is published on your blog. You could also hold contents and give prizes to those

6. Find out what people actually like & search for. Use specific keywords in your Internet searches to determine what is at the top of people’s search lists. By identifying what

who leave a certain number of comments, or is the nth person to leave comment in your blog. Alternatively, you can have a random drawing of a name of those who leave comments on a certain article. Readers want to fill like their attention to your blog is appreciated, and this can be one of the best ways of doing that.

more about whatever problem they are having. It can help your readers save a lot of time having to root through the vast number of webpages in order to find what they’re looking for. Having your content go viral can be beneficial to bringing more traffic to your blog and garnering more attention to what you’re publishing. However, be aware that that means that there are more eyes on your blog, and it might result in being scrutinized more deeply. Don’t allow any negative light to distract you from what you enjoy doing, as long as other people are also enjoying what you’re putting up on your blog.

11. Make your article and whole blog valuable. You want to create a resource that readers can use with any problems that they have. Provide useful tips, problem solving strategies, and links to other great resources that they can use to discover

illustration by

tim webster submit your plant illustrations to spinemag.com for the chance to be featured in an issue of spine magazine.