Tag Archives: Typography

Written on by

thingswithbits updates itself

I’ve never been so taken by my design website, in respect to design having been thrown into a free template, and in respect to its purpose. On Friday evening, having just finished something or other, I thought perhaps I could just throw it into the template I use for francesdath.info, and had an idea I could use various images of various websites and so on as background.

Some enjoyable coding working out how to link the full-screen background image gallery code into WordPress using custom fields met with disappointment when I discovered the design idea in my head looked fairly crap in a browser.

Not one to shy away from excessive minimalism, I kept cutting things back until I was left with a large swathe of white and a single list on the far left. When I did the redesign for supernaut, (I forget when, I think early 2005 in Taipei), I was slightly afraid of the emptiness I’d uncovered. It was as if I’d taken a rococo edifice and levelled it until only the masonry remained. It’s an approach I tend to apply to choreographing also; I’m partial to an evening of killing one’s babies, it’s just the aftermath that makes me anxious.

So, thingswithbits.info has become perhaps an un-website, I feel slightly embarrassed to say. It’s intentionally empty, though without being a placeholder.

Now with three main websites, there is still a gap. I’ve been doing more photography in the last two years since getting a very good small camera, and yet this doesn’t fit into any of the sites. It may be that thingswithbits has to die so that it can be more inclusive. For now though, it’s at least a site of mine I no longer feel is the unmentionable one (which is good, considering it’s my work).

Written on by

fontographie

Early rising to Kreuzberg and after a time to wake Matthi up in Reichenbergerstr. Breakfast peanutbutter and coffee, talking across queer and politics and Berlin and so to work.

My project for the coming months is for Daniel Schlusser, better known as our man in berlin, though he isn’t. In Berlin, I mean. Theatre director and rather talented to boot, and perhaps other things to write of with him shortly.

A new website. Excitement of jQuery, some ideas for typography. Matthi is a typographer and genius in FontLab and Illustrator, so I ask him how to dismantle a font, remove various bits that make up a letter, all of which have names I don’t know. I thrill for beautiful typography, and it’s what I enjoy possibly the most in design, but actual making of fonts is deeply unfamiliar to me. So this is a story of how I learn about fonts.

The two things I wanted to do were convert a font into an outline (not to be confused, I think, with a outline font), and chops bits off. My approach, as Matthi laughed, was very Photoshop. Much messing around ensued, and without his help, I’d have been doing it for months in my awful untrained way.

So…

Using the serif font, Tenderness from dot colon and opening in FontLab Studio, which to be uncharitable strikes me as an application ported to OSX without much thought towards standard user interface behaviour. Then opening a single letter or glyph in its own window and exporting as .eps. Now for playing.

Opening the .eps file in Illustrator and first hacking away bits (which I haven’t done in my test glyphs as I was more interested in workflow possibilities), and then turning it into an outline. The process is quite simple, once I learnt it, but I wouldn’t have stumbled onto it on my own.

Selecting the entire glyph and then setting the fill color to transparent and stroke to black, gives a one pixel outline. Opening the stroke pane and setting the weight to 6 pixels gives it some width. Then the important bit, selecting from the menu – Object – Path – Outline Stroke makes the vector path the width of the new 6 pixel outline. Saving as .eps again finishes the work in Illustrator.

Copy-Paste, back into the glyph in FontLab, aligning with the original, then shift-selecting to select the original before deleting (fixing up the mess, I called it), and saving the results…

First to export as something useful, .ttf, though it seems to not preview properly in FontExplorer… nonetheless! My first attempts at font stuff. (I’m not sure it will even be used, and there’s more work to do yet…)

celebrating 6.4.2010 a little early celebrating 6.4.2010 a little early

Written on by

buchstabenmuseum

I’m not sure where I stumbled upon this, but it wasn’t so long ago and immediately thought of someone whose love of fonts and typography is quite special. Then I discovered I ride twice every day past the Buchstabenmuseum, and so thought to bring it here as I am quite enjoying type at the moment and wish I had more time to write. Of course these small relics of a city touch me somehow. I wonder about the gradual change or decay from signage serving a purpose, information, advertising, to becoming somewhat an emotional fabric of this place in the city. (And a perfect accompaniment might be restmoderne.de die alltägliche Nachkriegsarchitektur in Berlin.)

u-bahn u, pictogramm u-bahn u, pictogramm

berliner tt bahnen, univers bold extended oblique berliner tt bahnen, univers bold extended oblique

seeterrassen bar, antique olive bold seeterrassen bar, antique olive bold

Written on by

iranian typography now

Japan design magazine PingMag has a long feature yesterday, Iranian Typography Now. It is one of the most sublime features I’ve had the pleasure of reading.

So what is it about Persian calligraphy and the writing system that makes it so desirable to work with?

The secret lies in the script and its mechanics. This script, that is written in Persian or Farsi, is known as the Arabic Script. It should be noted that the technical term Arabic Script refers to the script used in Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, other Arab countries, and more Indian regions where the Pashtu language is spoken. Moreover it used to be the official writing system in Turkey before its westernization by Ata Turk. Therefore its use for writing in over a dozen different dialects and languages has prompted a natural cultural adoption of specific styles and characteristics.

— pingmag – iranian typography now

calligraphy painting by Mohammed Ehsaei calligraphy painting by Mohammed Ehsaei

Continue reading →