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The Future of Type Design
Posted by thomascbryan in
29 Apr 2010 — 8:43am
29 Apr 2010 — 8:43am
My biggest question at this point in time is that of the future of type design. Since type has been around for so long, how does one avoid overlap with designs that are already out there. What is the best way to not end up in the situation where you finish designing a typeface and discover that you just re-invented the wheel? Is there an easy way (other than flipping through the FontBook / font catalogs for hours in order to avoid re-creating an already released font?
In short, I feel like as time progresses, the chances of reinventing the wheel increase, how does one avoid this conundrum?
Thanks in advance for your input,
Tom
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8 May 2010 — 5:29am
>...prevent the deer from getting in...
I live in a densely deer-populated area where they seem to be Harvard-educated and Olympic-trained, so repellent, which runs $10-$20 per gallon and lasts up to a year, is much more cost effective for the year-round carrot cultivation practiced here.
I also had a student last year who did such a font with drawings of carrots, rather than the actually thing, which you can imagine does not render accurately on Windows or fit into a WOFF... so far.
Cheers
8 May 2010 — 10:40am
A properly motivated deer can clear an 8' fence. Our fence is 6.5' in height, which is high enough to dissuade them from coming in, but low enough that they could escape if they were to come in and encounter the terrier. That seems fair, at least to the deer. The terrier doesn't think so, because she's quite partial to venison.
8 May 2010 — 3:09pm
Each new font varies slightly from the others, and the ones fittest for use survive.
That's rather a simplistic meritocracy.
The fonts that prosper can get a lot of help from being sponsored by the big dogs in the cultural ecosystem.
Hence the success of Comic Sans.
8 May 2010 — 5:09pm
> Our fence is 6.5' in height, which is high enough to dissuade them from coming in
So, taller than WOFF and EOT then, eh? ;-)
8 May 2010 — 9:08pm
and the ones fittest for use survive.
The ones with the best promotion survive.
9 May 2010 — 3:00am
>> Each new font varies slightly from the others, and the ones fittest for use survive.
> That's rather a simplistic meritocracy.
> The fonts that prosper can get a lot of help from being sponsored by the big dogs in the cultural ecosystem.
> Hence the success of Comic Sans.
Hence the success of Arial.
The success of Comic Sans, however, had to do with other factors.
9 May 2010 — 10:25am
I don't think so.
Certainly it fulfilled the need for a disconnected casual "lay" script, and may even have prompted demand for such a style.
But being distributed free by the million gave it a distinct adaptive edge over any other species occupying the same niche.
12 May 2010 — 2:14am
The promotion of a particular font, the design-awareness of the public (or lack thereof) current fashions, cultural bias and so forth might be regarded as environmental factors that decide whether a font survives the competition or not. In that sense an analogy with Darwinian evolution may be possible. Fittest does not mean best!
12 May 2010 — 3:41am
Nick: Slots are still around too :)
12 May 2010 — 12:37pm
The promotion of a particular font ... might be regarded as environmental factors
Would you say that mass bundling of a small selection of fonts by Software megacorporations is natural?
That seems to be a neo-conservative ideology.
12 May 2010 — 4:29pm
Would you say that mass bundling of a small selection of fonts by Software megacorporations is natural?
I was speculating in a rather abstract way about about how font design and usage change over the years, not expressing an opinion of what ought to be. But to answer your question yes it is in their predatory nature to do so - it seems to suit them.
25 May 2010 — 11:04am
Thomas: My biggest question at this point in time is that of the future of type design.
It all will end with the Typocalypse, I reckon.
25 May 2010 — 11:25am
For many, DTP was the typocalypse -- if you were in the typesetting business, or Massimo Vignelli reading Emigre magazine.
25 May 2010 — 7:32pm
And then again, the collapse in font prices around 1993-93 (approximately) was the next Typocalypse.
T
27 May 2010 — 9:27am
Fontageddon!
28 May 2010 — 5:24am
>Fontageddon!
What a coincidence!, and here's a trailer from a movie of the same name.
Cheers!