T YPE

A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles

2010 taschen gmbh
Hohenzollernring 53, D-50672 Kln

T YPE
www.taschen.com

To stay informed about new taschen titles, request our free

magazine at www. taschen.com/magazine or write to taschen,
Hohenzollernring 53, D-50672 Kln
contact@taschen.com A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles
fax: 4-922-125-4919

Images from the collections of Jan Tholenaar, Reinoud

Tholenaar, and Saskia Ottenhoff-Tholenaar.

Designer: Steven Saragian

Printed in China
isbn: 978 3 8365 1514 6

Volume 2
1901 1938
Edited by Cees W de Jong
With text by Peter Biak

TASCHEN
Content

Highland in The Golden Introduction Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

Letterpress Age One Two Three Four Five
1901-1908 1909-1916 1917-1924 1925-1930 1931-1938

IX X XII 2 56 106 154 206


Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
Highland in
X Highland in Letterpress
Letterpress
To begin with, lets be clear that conceptual type is an oxy-
moron. A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is
dependent on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the
process that transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a
critical part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed,
it is not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433 , for example, or some
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence all
craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
XI
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen-
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 4848 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap. fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
Romain du Roi, a typeface commissioned by King Louis
XIV in 1692, for the exclusive use of the royal printer.
Type Foundries:
The Golden Age
To begin with, lets be clear that conceptual type is an oxy-
moron. A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is
dependent on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the
process that transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a
critical part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed,
it is not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433 , for example, or some posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence all
craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen-
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 4848 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
More recently, a type design project that approached the
definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts
that rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The
fonts ranged from purely formal exercises to completely
XII
abstract shapes independent from Latin construction, pur-
ported new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term concep-
tual: very often it is simply synonymous with idea or intention.
Since every act of creation arguably stems from intent, regard-
less of the function of the product, is every artwork, object
or typeface therefore conceptual? Mel Bochner, American
conceptual artist, disliked the label conceptual, because the
word concept is not always defined entirely clearly, and is there-
fore in danger of being confused with the authors intention.
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors,
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is
probably no other discipline where the difference between the
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great.
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug-
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek
government buildings, banks and the American embassy
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated
Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa-
Type Foundries XIII
nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra
Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence.
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite obvious that
the type designer has no actual say in how the typeface is actual-
ly used. While the concept of the typeface might be very clever
and original, what happens when the typeface is never used the
way it was intended? Does it make the typeface less inventive?
How about a font which never gets to be used? Can it still be
called a font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953,
Robert Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demon-
strated that destruction could also be conceptual art. Ac-
cording to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a
chance to be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in
2001 when a thief broke into our studio and stole my com-
puter and all the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final
phases of completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility.
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
In 1953, press purpose of erasing it as an artistic state-
ment. The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement The idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write code
that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of creation,
suggesting that the engineers who make the tools we use have
a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most designers do.
It makes sense then for designers themselves to reclaim this
field by designing their own creative tools. One Letterror
project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the struc-
ture of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways.
Introduction
To begin with, lets be clear that conceptual type is an oxy-
moron. A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is
dependent on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the
process that transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a
critical part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed,
it is not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433 , for example, or some
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence all
craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen-
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 4848 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
Romain du Roi, a typeface commissioned by King Louis
XIV in 1692, for the exclusive use of the royal printer.
More recently, a type design project that approached the
definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme
such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
XIV Type Foundries XV
1902 Behrens Schrift und Zierat,
Rudhardsche Gieerei,
Offenbach am Main
the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts
that rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The
fonts ranged from purely formal exercises to completely
abstract shapes independent from Latin construction, pur-
ported new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
FUSE, quarterly forum for experimental typography in-
itiated by Neville Brody and Jon Wozencroft in 1990
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term concep-
tual: very often it is simply synonymous with idea or intention.
Since every act of creation arguably stems from intent, regard-
less of the function of the product, is every artwork, object
or typeface therefore conceptual? Mel Bochner, American
conceptual artist, disliked the label conceptual, because the
word concept is not always defined entirely clearly, and is there-
fore in danger of being confused with the authors intention.
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors,
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is
probably no other discipline where the difference between the
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great.
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
 XVI

1818 Manuale tipografico Volume

primo,
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug- type by destroying months of work in mere minutes. Giambattista Bodoni,
Parma
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
government buildings, banks and the American embassy
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa-
nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence. well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement The idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite obvious that
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
the type designer has no actual say in how the typeface is actual-
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts. they write
ly used. While the concept of the typeface might be very clever
code that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of
and original, what happens when the typeface is never used the
creation, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools
way it was intended? Does it make the typeface less inventive?
we use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
How about a font which never gets to be used? Can it still be
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves to
1818 Manuale tipografico Volume
called a font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
secondo, reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools. One
Giambattista Bodoni,
Parma
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways.
that destruction could also be conceptual art. By deciding to design the process rather than controlling
According to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a the end result, Letterror embraced the possibilities of un-
chance to be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 expected results. It is the machine that makes the type.
when a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and
Selection of LTR Python Robot: 50 fonts designed
all the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases
by Python scripting, distributed by Letterror.
of completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility, he could
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
Chapter 1
19011908
Conceptual Type?
A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is dependent
on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the process that
transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a critical
part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed, it is
not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as Three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433, for example, or some
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence
all craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen-
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 48X48 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
More recently, a type design project that approached the
definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme
such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts that
rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The fonts
6
ranged from purely formal exercises to completely abstract
shapes independent from Latin construction, purported
new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term
conceptual: very often it is simply synonymous with
Idea or Intention. Since every act of creation argua-
bly stems from intent, regardless of the function of the
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated 1901 Album dApplications,
product, is every artwork, object or typeface therefore Fonderie de G Peignot & fils,
conceptual? Mel Bochner, American conceptual artist, Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa- Paris
disliked the label conceptual, because the word concept nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra
is not always defined entirely clearly, and is therefore in Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence.
danger of being confused with the authors intention.
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite ob-
vious that the type designer has no actual say in how the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors, typeface is actually used. While the concept of the type-
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes face might be very clever and original, what happens
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is when the typeface is never used the way it was intended?
probably no other discipline where the difference between the Does it make the typeface less inventive? How about a
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great. font which never gets to be used? Can it still be called a
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
that destruction could also be conceptual art. According
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a chance to
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 when
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and all
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases of
Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used
completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility, he could
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug-
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
government buildings, banks and the American embassy
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary

about a font which never gets to be used? Can it still be called
a font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated
that destruction could also be conceptual art. According
to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a chance to
be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 when
a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and all
the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases of
completion. Had the thief claimed respon sibility, he could
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write code
that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of creation,
suggesting that the engineers who make the tools we use have
a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most designers do.
It makes sense then for designers themselves to reclaim this
field by designing their own creative tools. One Letterror
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 8 9
1901 Neu-Deutsche Schriften und
Ornamente,
Genzch & Heyse,
Hamburg
project is Bitfonts, computer
code which takes the structure
of a bitmap font and interprets
it in about a font which never
gets to be used? Can it still be
called a font, or is usage at the
core of the definition of a font?
So what would be a truly
conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert Rauschenbergs Erased
de Kooning Drawing demonstrated that destruction could also
be conceptual art. According to Rauschenbergs example, I nar-
rowly missed a chance to be the co-creator of a similarly creative
opus in 2001 when a thief broke into our studio and stole my
computer and all the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the
final phases of completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility,
he could have become the designer of a rare example of concep-
tual type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write
code that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of
creation, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools
we use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves
to reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools.
One Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which
takes the structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in

1901 Neu-Deutsche Schriften und Ornamente,
Genzch & Heyse,
Hamburg
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write
code that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of
creation, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools
we use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves to
reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools. One
Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the
structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways.
By deciding to design the process rather than controlling
the end result, Letterror embraced the possibilities of un-
expected results. It is the machine that makes the type.
Ill conclude with one of my current projects, for which the
background idea is more interesting than the resulting forms.
For centuries, art has been defined as something that gives
rise to an aesthetic experience. Capturing beauty and avoid-
ing ugliness were considered to be the prime responsibilities
of the traditional artist. In this still untitled project I have
tried to identify the most beautiful examples of typography
known to mankind. I settled on a series of serif typefaces
designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th century.
In the second step, I tried to identify the ugliest examples of
type that we know. That was a bit more difficult, but finally
the prize went to eccentric Italian from the middle of the
Industrial Revolution. This reversed-contrast typeface was
designed to deliberately attract readers attention by defy-
ing their expectations. Strokes that were thick in classical
models were thin, and strokes that were thin became thick
a dirty trick to make freakish letters that stand out in the
increasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
This project (later released under the name Karloff) is not
interesting because of the forms, which have been explored
10
before, but because it creates a tight link between the two
extremes, between the beauty and the ugliness. Time will tell
if this project finds some suitable application, or whether it
remains purely an aesthetic exercise, a conceptual type.
Designing Type Systems
I remember a conversation from back in my student days
where my typophile friends and I debated what the ultimate
typeface of the 20th century was, a typeface that summed
up all of the eras advancements and knowledge into a co-
herent whole, one that would be a reference for years to
come. Helvetica was one of the candidates for its sheer ubiq-
uity, proof of its overall acceptance. Another, more subtle
proposal was Jan van Krimpens Romulus, one of the first
typefaces to have related Sans and Serif versions. And an-
other, my personal pick, was Univers by Adrian Frutiger.
Univers goes beyond the quest to design individual letters,
attempting instead to design space, to create a system of rela-
tionships between different sets of shapes which share distinc-
tive parameters. Prior to Univers, type designers concerned
themselves with the relationships between letters of the same
set, how an 'a' is different from a 'b'. Univers creates a situation
in which there are as of many different shapes, and each has to
be positioned on the axes of weight and width, distributed suffi-
ciently far away from the next, but no further, in order to create
a usable system. How heavy ought the Medium to be in order to
leave space for yet another weight, the Bold, and how will this
translate into a design with condensed proportions? These were
all new questions for type designers, and Frutiger opened up
completely new territory for those who were to come after him.
Thanks to Frutiger it is now common practice to pro-
duce a dozen or more styles when working on a new type
family. In terms of typeface innovation there is much
more room for originality than when you only look at the
individual lettershapes. Thus to create truly useful new
works, type designers need to examine not only how char-
acters relate to each other within a style, but also how
different styles relate to each other within a family.
Gardener vs Architect
Ive designed large typeface families before. Fedra, for example,
now has over 116 individual styles supporting 170 languages,
and has been used in the most complex typographic situa-
tions from dictionaries to newspapers, Bibles and information
graphics. But it is not really an example of a font designed to
be a typographic system from the start. It started in 2001 as
a relatively small family of Sans, and over the next 10 years
sketching the extreme and middle styles on paper, but also
it grew to include Serif, Monospaced, Condensed and Dis-
play styles, as well as different language versions. Fedra is an
example of a bottom to top approach, in which a relatively
simple design gets larger and more complicated over time.
Composer Brian Eno calls this the gardeners approach:
nurturing simple things towards greater complexity, carefully
planting seeds, and helping them grow to their full potential.
The opposite organising principle, again in Enos words, is the
architects approach. An architect traditionally starts with a
Chapter 1: 19011908 11
1905 Germania,
Aktiengesellschaft fr schriftgieerei und
Mashinenbau,
Offenbach am Main
concept, developing the complete idea first, working from top
to bottom. History (2008) is an example of the architectural
approach, in which each individual style contributes to a greater
purpose, sharing proportions with the rest of the family.
History (2008) as an example of the architectural ap-
proach and Fedra (2001-2010) as an example of the
gardener approach to creating a type family.
Greta Sans is another example of this approach. It has been
carefully planned from the outset, designed as a system
of interrelated styles. From the very beginning, work pro-
ceeded on multiple styles simultaneously; not only when
when converting the resulting shapes into digital format,
the emphasis was on testing how certain letterforms react to
extremely compressed dimensions as well as very generous
ones. Only after being tested at each end of the proposed
spectrum would the designs be selected and adopted into the
typeface family-to-be. Each glyph would have to anticipate
all its variations and maintain a basic structure that could
function across all designated width and weight variations.
 12
1902 Nationale Ornamente, Hof-
Schriftgiesserei Poppelbaum,
Vienna
Different design masters were conceived and drawn at the
same time, investigating how the same design characteris-
tics would be translated into extreme weights and widths.
The Problem With the System
The nature of systems is to dictate a certain direction; the
role of designers is to recognise when the original design idea
ceases to work within the system, and then to create exceptions
to the system rather than letting the system have a negative
impact on the design. In large type families of related styles
this impact is usually that while the starting point is usually
characteristic and recognisable, the design becomes blander
and less interesting as it is stretched across its variations. My
intention was to design a highly flexible system while also
ensuring that the resulting shapes were not just compromises,
but maintained the strong personality of the Greta typeface.
Sketches from 1901:
planning the Greta Sans type system.
For example, at the lighter end of the weight axis, the cir-
cular dot over I, (or in diacritics and punctuation) has to
become a rectangle to avoid becoming too small. On the
width axis, shapes would sometimes have to be modified
even more dramatically: the double storey g typical for
Greta becomes a single storey g in Compressed width, where
the lack of space demanded greater simplification. Dollar
and cent signs have full crossbars in the wider versions, but
divided crossbars in the condensed versions. Dozens of
other changes happen when taking the design to extreme
dimensions, in order to maintain the general design char-
acteristics and preserve the natural look of the shapes.
Some of the exceptions to the linear interpolation of
the Greta Sans type system: dots change from circu-
lar to rectangular; dollar signs lose their crossbars, and
g uses a single-storey form in Compressed widths.
Chapter 1: 19011908 13
While the Fedra Sans family was created from two design
masters, Light and Bold, (Book, Demi and Medium were
interpolated), Greta Sans 13 design masters were individual-
ly designed, as were another 13 masters for italics, and all 26
included Small Caps. The masters (Hairline, Regular, Black),
were interpolated and expanded to 10 weights. Four widths
were imagined and implemented, resulting in 80 styles.
The process of drawing Greta Sans started in the middle of the
imagined design space (1), and from there the extremes were
explored (2). The idea was to adapt the design to the available
proportions, while preserving the main design characteristics.
When creating the design masters, we made the heavy weight as
heavy as possible, even when those exact weights would not be
used. It is easy to interpolate and make the Black weight lighter;
making it heavier is complicated. This allowed us to keep the
design space as large as possible (3), and reduce it later when
we made the final selection of styles. We decided not to use the
Compressed Black as a master, and stepped it down one weight.
We also dropped extra-compressed styles. On the other hand,
we added an extra weight to the Extended styles (Super), when
we saw there was available space at that end of the spectrum.
Continuous Optical Sizes
In the earliest age of movable type, optical sizes became the
main organising principle of typefaces. For example, Jannons
caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s include numerous
optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points, each slightly
different. The design of the typeface would be reinterpreted
at each given point size, often resulting in different weights,
different proportions, different letter spacing. These differ-
ent designs would blend into a harmonious size progression
and function as one design. Optical sizes disappeared with
the transition from hot metal press to photocomposition
sometime in the 1950s. After about 50 years of neglect op-
tical sizes have made a comeback, and many typefaces now
come with versions specifically designed for text and display
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 14

1927 Fette Koch Antiqua,

Gebr Klingpor,
Offenbach am Main

seen on the width axis, as the Normal styles are most suited 1908 Behrens Antiqua,
Gebr Klingpor,
for small text, and extremes are optimised for large sizes. Offenbach am Main

Design Space
While the key characteristics of most typefaces are defined by
the outlines of the letterforms, Greta Sans design also extends
to the gaps between styles. All its characteristics, including the
visual contrast between styles, weights and widths have been
orchestrated into a unified typeface system. Greta Sans explores
the entire space of possibilities and is designed for extraordinary
design flexibility. It is a toolbox that addresses a broad spectrum
of design situations from the simplest to the most complex,
offering multiple options for establishing a visual hierarchy.

applications. Optical sizes, however, represent a range of Next

variations. In the old days, as in the Jannon example, type-
Gretas Latin fonts set up some formal parameters, but the most
faces would come in as many as 15 optical versions. All the
exciting phases of this project are still to come. While such a
in-between sizes progressively added or removed features,
versatile system of similar proportions is rare within the context
getting continuously darker and looser when meant for small
of Latin typefaces, it is unheard of in the domain of non-Latin
sizes, or continuously lighter and tighter for large sizes. The
type. We intend to bring this system to a number of non-Latin
word continuously is important here. There werent text or
styles planned for 201314. There is no reason why only Latin
display versions as is common now. Each size was discretely
type should benefit from these advances in typography.
adjusted for to maintain the characteristics of the typeface.

Jannons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s includes Type design competitions
15 optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points. On the left
Last autumn I was in Buenos Aires, where I sat on the jury
is a 7pt sample scaled 425% to match the 36pt version. Note
for Letter2, a type design competition. Just like bukva:raz!,
the difference in contrast between the thick and thin strokes,
the first AtypI competition in 2001, Letter2 celebrates
and overall differences in details between the two versions.
the best typefaces produced over the past decade. Out of
Greta Sans was designed as a continuous optical size system. 561 submitted entries the jury selected 53 that represent
While the basic text styles (Regular) are spaced and kerned the previous decade based on their design excellence.
for small sizes, the surrounding extremes (Hairline, Black)
No sooner had the results been announced than the wheels
are designed to be used as Display types, and therefore
of the font marketing machine rolled into action as some
tightly spaced and kerned. The resulting interpolation then
of the selected designers and foundries began to trumpet
runs continuously from Display to Text to Display use. A
that their typefaces were among the best of the decade.
similar pattern (Extended, Condensed, Extended) can be

But best of the decade is a somewhat problematic assertion
because not all designers have an equal appetite for competi-
tions. While some award-hungry designers actively seek out
all kinds of contests and prizes, others simply ignore them. So
the promise of best of the decade is reduced to best of the
submissions. And very often the submissions dont include the
highest quality work. For example, renowned author and type
designer Fred Smeijers hasnt participated in type competitions
for almost 20 years. Gerard Unger, another celebrated Dutch
type designer, enters competitions only rarely. Unger says, I
want younger designers to have a chance. And in fact these
events typically include a disproportionately high number
of young designers looking for recognition of their work.
Matthew Carter is designer whose work has received numer-
ous awards, and FontBureau, the foundry which has released
most of his fonts, sometimes submits them to competitions.
But Carter himself says, I have become less interested in
competing with other type designers and more concerned
with helping the acceptance of type design as something on
a par with other forms of graphic and industrial design.
Frantiek torm, an established Czech type designer
gives a more pragmatic reason for avoiding competi-
tions: I simply have no time for it. But then he adds, I
do however feel that contests are for the young design-
ers. Older designers that otherwise might clearly win
them should find something more worthwhile to do.
And finally, Peter Verheul, a Dutch designer of high profile type-
faces, never sends his work to competitions, one reason being
that the judging criteria are inherently vague. there is no expla-
nation why a typeface has been picked to become a winner, says
Verheul. I dont really believe that a fair judgement is possible,
given the different nature and diversity of the material to judge.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 16 Chapter 1: 19011908 17
1906 Specimans of Wood-Letter,
Harrild and Sons,
London
Of course, one might say it is easy for recognised designers
not to participate in contests; they have won them all already.
However while the stated aim of the contest is to recognise type
design professionals, almost a third of the selected projects are
by non-professional designers entering their student projects.
So what is the value of these competitions? Do they rec-
ognise talent and stimulate creation? Or is it just cheap
marketing? And is there a viable alternative? Borrowing
inspiration from such prestigious awards as the Turner Prize
or the Nobel Prize, one could imagine replacing the call
for entries with a committee of experts who would nom-
inate the best work. But the type design profession is so
small and insular, with no outside critics or curators, that
assembling a committee of recognised experts would nec-
essarily exclude a large percentage of possible contenders.
Type design competitions will likely remain problemat-
ic as long as the type design community remains so small.
Perhaps organisers should accept the fact that such com-
petitions often fail to attract well-established profession-
als, and focus their events on younger designers. Perhaps
this emphasis on younger designers could include making
the judging public, so that all can benefit from the jurors
feedback. And perhaps we should all learn to take the pub-
licised results of such competitions with a grain of salt.
What is Typography?
Before starting any discussion or argument it is useful to
define the terminology and to make sure that the words which
are used are generally understood. Typography is a craft has
been practiced since the Gutenbergs invention of the movable
type. According to the latest Encyclopedia Britannica core
definition of typography is that typography is concerned with

the determination of the appearance of the printed page.
Other dictionaries, such as Collins English Dictionary
from 2004 define the typography as the art, craft or pro-
cess of composing type and printing from it. Understood
this way, no typography was made before mid-15 century,
as it is strictly linked to the invention of the Printing Type.
Understood this way, digitally created letters that appear
on an electronic screen also escapes this definition.
That is of course problem of definitions, which are not as
flexible as the activities which they define. In the Royal
Academy of Arts in The Hague, where I teach part time, most
useful definition of typography comes from the long term
teacher Gerrit Noordzij, saying that typography is writing
with prefabricated letters. Unlike the dictionary definitions,
this one is deliberately avoiding connecting typography
to any specific medium, as they tend to change, yet the
discipline continues evolving. Noordzijs definition also
implies a complete distinction from lettering, handwriting
or graffiti, which are also concerned with creating letter-shapes,
but dont offer a repeatable system of setting these letters.
Digital technologies stimulated unprecedented possibili-
ties which blur even most open definitions of typography.
If repetition of shapes was the central concept of typog-
raphy, many designers are working in ways that challenge
this concept. OpenType fonts can include random features,
which can simulate unpredictable behavior of handwriting,
or simply present seemingly incoherent library shapes.
For the past year, Ive been working with dancers from Neth-
erlands Dance Theatre in The Hague on creating a tool which
translates text into simple choreographies. User types a
word in a typesetting-like application which plays back this
word as an uninterrupted dance sequence where dancers
body temporarily makes positions recognizable as letters.
Is this typography? Project like this, as many others using exist-
ing digital possibilities seems not much worried about it, but use
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
typographic principles to create autonomous work which cross
boundaries of various disciplines. It seems that typography
itself matured into a new creative discipline in which majority
of typographers work in a way which is guided by historical
understanding of the word, yet there is room for experimen-
tation which explores the boundaries of the profession.
In other disciplines, such debate is in fact a sign of new self-con-
sciousness. Novelist Milan Kundera argues that a contempo-
rary novel is no longer defined as a fictional narrative in prose,
but can include various forms of writing: poetry, short-story,
or interview. Kunderas books include parts which are philo-
sophical, political, comical, while still being firmly part of a
novel. The ability to absorb these various forms is Kunderas
definition of novel. Similarly, larger understanding of typog-
raphy, which is no longer defined by technology, but evolves
with it, may open this discipline to new create endeavors.
18 Chapter 1: 19011908 19
A View of Latin Typography in
Relationship to the World
It is generally acknowledged that it was Gutenberg who
invented movable type printing in 1436. It is generally for-
gotten that what is missing in that statement is the necessary
qualifier in Europe. Thanks to the present-day dominance
of Latin script we have largely forgotten that there are parallel
histories outside of Europe, but the first recorded movable type
system was more likely created in China around 1040 AD by
Bi Sheng. His early type was made of wood, which was later
abandoned in favour of baked clay, which produced smoother
imprints. Unlike Latin script which uses 26 letters, Chinese
script uses thousands of characters, making type composi-
tion particularly complicated. Nevertheless, movable type
has been in continuous use in China since the 11th century.
Elsewhere too, printing progressed. Choe Yun-ui, a Korean
1902 Nationale Ornamente, civil minister, made the transition from wood to metal mov-
Hof-Schriftgiesserei Poppelbaum,
Vienna
able type around 1230 AD. Metal movable type was also
invented independently of the Koreans in China during the
Ming Dynasty. During the Mongol Empire movable type
moved further west. According to legend, Laurens Janszoon
Coster, a respected citizen of Haarlem, could have been the
first European to invent movable type, if the account present-
ed by Hadrianus Junius is true. But the story is not widely
believed, which brings us back to Johannes Gutenberg of
Mainz, who invented movable type a decade later. In Europe.
Even today, typography as a discipline continues to be
1902Proben, plagued by a Euro-centric bias. If any of the major typogra-
Schriftgieerei E.J. Genzsch,
Offenbach am Main phy reference books are to be believed, the development of
typography has generally been limited to Western Europe.
In Type & Typography (2002), the otherwise excellent book
by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, the authors make a note
that the history of writing and the alphabet goes back thou-
sands of years, but they do not elaborate more on this. It goes
without saying that their history of typography is only the

history of Latin-based typography. Other books are even
more blunt when it comes to the scope they cover. Classic
volumes such as Updikes obviously nationalistic Printing
Type, first printed in 1922, or Harry Carters also already
somewhat dated A View of Early Typography (1969) can
be overlooked. But even recent books such Designing Type
(2005) by Karen Cheng or A Typographic Workbook (2005) by
Kate Clair & Cynthia Busic-Snyder dont bother to mention
that there is more to typography than Latin typography.
Most of the existing typographic classification systems also
apply exclusively to Latin type. In catalogues of the tradi-
tional type foundries such as French Imprimerie Nationale,
the house of Garamont, Didot and Romain du Roi, typefaces
other than Latin are referred as Orientales. Most contem-
porary digital type foundries such as Monotype call these
fonts Non-Latin. These terms certainly have rather colo-
nial overtones, suggesting the idea of the other, describing
foreign scripts in negative terms as non-European. In other
disciplines, language and terminology have adjusted to the
wider environment of the global village, reflecting the pro-
gress that the society has made in the last couple of decades,
and we no longer find a boxed set of paints with the name
flesh given to a light beige color. Only typography contin-
ues to display a shameless bias towards western civilization.
Some common type terminology is also inappropriate for
typefaces which didnt evolve in Western Europe. The term
Roman is customarily used to describe serif typefaces of the
early Italian Renaissance period. More recently, the term has
also come to denote the upright style of typefaces, as opposed
to the word Italic, which refers to cursive typefaces inspired
by the handwriting of Italian humanists. Thus Linotype offers
fonts called Sabon Greek Roman and Sabon Greek Italic, (de-
signed by Jan Tchichold), based on 16th century models. But
by using terminology which is typically associated with Latin
type and evokes the history of Italian typography, Linotype
makes a careless statement. Greek Roman and Greek Italic
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
are contradictions in terms, mixing two very different histo-
ries. Such slanted versions of Greek or Cyrillic types should
properly be described in more technical terms such as inclined,
oblique, or cursive. Roman and Italic suggest that the Greek
version has been Latinised, borrowing too much not only of
the terminology but also of the formal characteristics of Latin
type, ignoring the rich Greek traditions of typography.
The news is not all bad, however. Recent changes in technology
such as the introduction of the Unicode system and Open-
Type font format have inspired type designers to consider the
previously overlooked domain of non-Latin typography. It is
estimated that in the last decade, more Greek fonts were created
than in the entire preceding century. Books such as Language,
Culture, Type (2002) have been published, promoting cultur-
al pluralism, admitting that English and the Latin alphabet
account for only one segment of global communications today.
(According to 2006 Encarta statistics, the number of native
English speakers is less than the number of native Hindi and
Arabic speakers, and roughly one-third the number of native
Chinese speakers.) Such books are very important because
they also present models for alphabets less explored than the
Latin one, and offer a comprehensive history of their use.
In his concise book, The Solid Form of Language (2004),
Robert Bringhurst proposes a new classification system
of worlds various written languages and scripts. This
approach promotes a consciously inclusive approach
to typography, and considers the whole history of hu-
manity and its relationship to script and meaning.
The new possibilities are exciting for designers working
with non-Latin type. There is a modest interest in Arabic,
Cyrillic, Greek, or Indic scripts, and even type design com-
petitions have responded to the new situation by creating
special categories. The new development is also good news
even for designers working exclusively with Latin typog-
raphy: while we might think that most of the possibilities
20 Chapter 1: 19011908 21
1906 Fragmente zur Reklameschrift Negativ,
Gebr Klingspor,
Offenbach am Main
of Latin type have been explored, traditions of typography
from Greece, the Middle East, India and elsewhere can help
us to rediscover how we understand Latin type today.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media is
somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country which
is renowned for its highly-developed typographic culture, not
to mention other countries where type design is still waiting
for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the past
years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising half
dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical paper
The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold Oblique
Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics interest in type
design. (Of course, this article, which reports on the winner
of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to other news

like Sheepish Secret Service
Agent Cant Explain How Vacuum
Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspec-
tive of the general publics true level of
concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for
the outsider? Legibility studies have
caused utter confusion even within
the ranks of type designers.
Aesthetic or interpretive
evaluations of type are
vague at best, and as
far as functionality
is concerned, every
designer insists
that his fonts
work the best.
All of which only
leads to a larger
question: how can
we define criteria for good fonts? The
French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez responds:
the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good typeface fits the
need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer points
to the problem: how can a type designer design a typeface
when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean that we
need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an endless
number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform better
than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values is
dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 22 Chapter 1: 19011908 23
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
1907 Kalender Vignetten,
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement, J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his

aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Dutch type design
The Netherlands is a small country with some 15 million
inhabitants. It is flat, and has no geographical particularities.
It is situated on the western border of Germany, the north of
France and Belgium, and the east of England across the North
Sea. As a comparatively small country, the Dutch people
have always felt the influence of surrounding countries. If
they attempted to be a part of international styles, they risked
dissolving the national characteristics of the small nation.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
On the other hand, if they tried to stay untouched by foreign
influence and keep to themselves, they could easily fall into
provincialism. However, they have succeeded in creating
one of the most remarkable and outstanding cultures.
The homeland of Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg,
Gerrit Rietveld and Piet Zwart now produces designs of the
highest abstractiondesigns of letters. Holland today has
more type designers per capita than any other country in the
world, a remarkable fact considering that there is now not
one surviving Dutch type foundry, says Gerard Unger, one
of the most important typographers in Holland. Unger, a
very active typeface designer and lecturer, stands somewhere
between the classic typeface designers and the experimental
ones. Among Ungers work are the typeface for the Amster-
dam Metro, Demos, Praxis, ITC Flora designed for Hell
company, Amerigo and Oranda for Bitstream, and his latest
drawings include the newspaper faces Swift and Gulliver.
According to Unger, this has to do with the low-lying land
and cool skies of the Netherlands. Hollander is one of my
designs to reflect the inescapable Dutch horizon. The hori-
zontal parts of the curves are stretched, the resultant gentle
arches combining with the large serifs to assist the letters in
joining visually to make words and lines, describes Unger the
typeface that follows the best traditions of Dutch typography.
Is it possible that the physical character of the landscape
forms characteristics of graphic design? For the answer to
this question we go back to the beginning of the century.
While most of Europe accepted Art Nouveau as the last
international-spread art movement that influenced archi-
tecture, craft, and fine arts, the Dutch rejected Art Nouveau
as frivolous. Dutch artists considered themselves pragmatic
and realistic. Thus, they rather turned themselves towards
conventional realism that later evolved into abstraction.
Forty years ago, the Dutch society was still solidly bourgeois,
puritanical and strongly influenced by religion. It is the change
24 Chapter 1: 19011908 25
1909 Salzmann Schriften,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
after the second world war from a politically neutral country
to an active member of transatlantic and European alliances
that had far-reaching cultural effects. It totally changed the
Dutch perception of their own nationality, and revised the
traditional Dutch values. From a very religious country the
Netherlands developed into one of the most liberal societies
in the world. Life in the Netherlands became much more
open and hedonistic oriented. The prosperity of the nation
in the 60s also helped to create a mood of great expectation;
instead of looking abroad for models, the Dutch understood
the advantages of being themselves. No, this was not a sudden
turn in the history of the nation; the Dutch stayed as they
have always been, open towards international developments.
It is very unlikely that the countryside (even though it is
so remarkable in its flatness) is the only determinant of art
development in the Netherlands, although it is undoubtedly
a source of inspiration for Dutch artists. Holland has always
been an unusually tolerant place. It is the place with many
political parties, many different views and opinions. Individ-
uality here is a very important element. It seems that with
the world-wide availability of graphic software, the nation-
al characteristics of graphic design and typography would
disappear. How is it possible that there is such a phenomenon
as Dutch design in todays international style? And, what are
the characteristics of Dutch design? Reading the art history
books, I can say that realism, sobriety, outspokenness, clari-
ty, moral integrity, and social responsibility were frequently
marked as typical Dutch virtues. But these characteristics
do not in themselves define style. And even if they did, the
same qualities are related to Modernism (International style),
another movement that didnt influence Holland very much.
The Dutch found their own interpretation of Modernism.
Gerard Unger in his essay Dutch landscape with letters wrote:
the national character is only one of the components needed
for a recognizable style of type design. The chief elements of
style are the product not merely of the country, region or city

in which the designer happens to live, they are also molded
by his own personal qualities and the age in which he works.
Maybe a foreign observer can better describe what is hard to
see for the Dutch themselves. Erik Spiekermann, a German
typographer, puts it like this: All the Dutch type designs I
know, even the historical ones, have a vertical oval as one of
their basic shapes. They are narrow compared with French
designs like the types of Excoffon, which are actually broader
at the top than they are at the bottom. Clarity and openness
and high contrast are also clearly identifiable characteris-
tics in Dutch types. The clarity and openness are part of the
construction and contrast in, say, the alternation of rounded
and angular forms. The structure is always clearly visible in
the work of Dutch designers. The Dutch are more concerned
with the structure, the basic shape. You can follow the syntax
of the design processthe design can be understood im-
mediately. At the same time they are also sophisticated.
There is too much of it. Contemporary Dutch design can
be stylish and eclectic, inventive and trains-historical, sys-
tematic and non-functional, provocative and convention-
al, conceptual and random, pragmatic and nonsensical,
witty and stiff, anarchic and traditional and it still keeps
its characteristics; it is still so Dutch. It fluctuates between
rigid logic and total senselessness. In other words, there
is no style of Dutch design. Or, in the words of designer
Max Kisman, the style of Dutch design is style of styles.
There is pluriformity which is unique to Holland.
Kisman pioneered the use of computers in 1977, when he was
the first designer to create stamps for the postal/telecommu-
Chapter 1: 19011908 27
1908 Kalender Vignetten,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
nications services PTT on an Amiga computer. Kisman is also 1908 Liturgisch,
Gebr Klingspor,
known for his belief that legibility is a code that depends on Offenbach am Main
the impressions, rhythm, and expression of symbols which
may or may not be letters. Kisman has become increasingly
skeptical of designing new type, and since 1992 hasnt de-
signed any new fonts. Because my angle is shifted I am less
interested in type. There is so much of that stuff and I wonder
what I could add which hasnt been done before. Too much I
see now is somehow related to what I did years ago. Of course,
I recognize some very good designs but to me the revolution
is over and repetition began a while ago. There is no meaning
in type design, all is decoration. Everyone can do what some-
one else is doing. Type design becomes an average taste to
express a general life style. Type is available anywhere at any
time. Concepts of type are available anywhere at any time.
Like the jersey you wear or the shoe you choose. Nothing
more, nothing less. All this fuzz about type becomes a bit
irrelevant, I think sometimes. Of course, its a big industry, a
lot is involved, many typographical magazines appear, lots of
students are waiting to bring in something new. This massive
run on type is an escape from an essential question. Wheth-
er graphic design will survive or not. And if so, how? More
important at this moment is to redefine graphic design.
While in 1989 Gerard Unger could say that Dutchmen are a
folk for text types, not headlines, today he admits that young
designers have proved otherwise. One of the most prolific
contemporary type designers is the duo Letterror, formed by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum. At the ages of 24/25,
they designed their revolutionary Randomfonts. Since then,
they have produced many best-selling typefaces. In the short

time of 4 years they created 17 typeface families published
by FontShop International, excluding their font contributions
for Brodys FUSE project. Beowolf, their first randomfont, is the
typeface that for inspiration goes somewhere to pre-Gutenberg
time. Instead of the traditional system of writingrepeating of
graphical forms that become visually so unobtrusive that they
are virtually invisible, Letterror developed a special technol-
ogy that allows the random changing of letters. Randomfont
technology generates each letter separately and differently. No
two letters are the same. For instance, if you type two As in
row and print them, they look different depending on the level
of randomness you choose. This new invention is not limited
only to changing letterforms. We could change typographic
awareness of computer users around the world by creating a
font virus that would slowly transform every Helvetica into
something much more desirablethe Post-modern typog-
raphers revenge, or we could create letters that would wear
out through frequent use, combined with a feature that uses
up certain often used letters. Van Blokland and van Rossum
devoted their research to humanizing type design. A font
that does not work overtime and a font that adds typos go
28 29
1906 Patriz Huber Ornamente,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
to the extreme in their attempts to add the human quality
to computer typography. They believe that the computer can
bring back subtleties that were lost during type evolution due
economic considerations. Recognition does not come from
simple repetition of the same form, but it is something more
intelligent, something that happens in our minds... Random-
ness and change can add new dimensions to print work
The experiments of the Letterror duo certainly have a great
potential. We can add some data to a digital typeface, and it
can act very intelligently. It may adjust its shape according
the form of medium we are using it in, change its contour
according to its size and relation with color background.
The Netherlands has 13 design schools. Erik van Blokland,
Just van Rossum, Peter Verheul, Martin Majoor, Peter Mat-
thias Noordzij, (Luc)as de Groot, Evert Bloemsma, Fred
Smeijers, are all their recent graduates, and already interna-
tionally recognized ones. Most of them emerged from The
Art Academy in Arnhem and the Royal Academy of Visual
Arts in The Hague (Gerrit Noordzij and Petr van Blokland
teach in The Hague). None of the above mentioned ty-

pographers gave me the opportunity to summarize
what the Dutch style is. My hope is that even in a
new united Europe, where things are going to get all
mixed up, the Dutch personal creativity will prevail.
Experimental typography.
Whatever that means.
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly
as the word experiment. In the field of graphic design and
typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify
anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization,
or confounding expectations. As a verb, To experiment is
often synonymous with the design process itself, which may
not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result
of the design process. The term experiment can also have the
connotation of an implicit disclaimer; it suggests not taking
responsibility for the result. When students are asked what
they intend by creating certain forms, they often say, Its just
an experiment, when they dont have a better response.
In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a
set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothe-
sis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach
to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others
can build. It requires all measurements to be made ob-
jectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a
phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the
phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famous scientific experiment would be
Galileo Galileis dropping of two objects of different
weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both
would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about
gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be
a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the
transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
30
1906 Patriz Huber Ornamente,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems
to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is
applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experi-
ment can be reliably measured. What happens however when
the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure
reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Rad-
ical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal
Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized design-
ers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
As expected, the published definitions couldnt have been
more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems
and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish
Muir of 8vo writes: Every type job is experiment, Melle
Hammer insists that: experimental typography does not
exist, nor ever has. So how is it possible that there are such
diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers various interpretations, two notions of
experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulat-
ed by the American designer David Carson: experimental is
something I havent tried before something that hasnt been
seen and heard. Carson and several other designers suggest that
the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.
There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when
information travels faster than ever before and when we have
achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes
significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms.
While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that
to do it in a way that no one has done it before was sufficient
for the definition of the new typography of his day and his
work was an appropriate example of such an approach today
things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of
work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty
today can seem like historical ignorance on a designers part.
Interestingly, Carsons statement also suggests that the essence
of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns,
rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly op-
posed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment
is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design,
where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to
go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science
a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design ex-
periment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist
against the background of other conventional solutions.
In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were
the only designer on earth, because there would be no stand-
ard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going
against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If
more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion,
the scale would change, and the former convention would
become anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation
is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular,
cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Does type design and typography allow an experimental
approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent
on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound
by convention is like a private language: both lack the abili-
ty to communicate. Yet it is precisely the constraints of the
alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is
the work of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate
student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibil-
ity while physically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet.
Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While the
letters for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional
book typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification
of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Minis-
cule becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all
the details and optical corrections which are usual for fonts
designed for text reading. Huot-Marchands project builds upon
31
the work of French ophthalmologist
Louis Emile Javal, who published
similar research at the beginning
of the 20th century. The practical
contribution of both projects is
limited, since the reading process
is still guided by the physical
limitations of the human
eye, however, Huot-March-
and and Javal both
investigate the constraints of
legibility within which typography functions.
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic
Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British
designer and educator based in the USA: True experimenta-
tion means to take risks. If taken literally, such a statement is
of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and
what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however,
is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact
outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged.
A similar definition is offered by the E.A.T. (Experiment And
Typography) exhibition presenting 35 type designers and
typographers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which
coincidentally will arrive in the Netherlands shortly. Alan
Zruba and Johanna Balukov, the curators of E.A.T. put
their focus on development and process when describing the
concept of the exhibition: the show focuses on projects which
document the development of designers ideas. Attention is
paid to the process of creating innovative solutions in the field
of type design and typography, often engaging experimen-
tal processes as a means to approach unknown territory.
An experiment in this sense has no preconceived idea of
the outcome; it only sets out to determine a cause-and-ef-
fect relationship. As such, experimentation is a method of
working which is contrary to production-oriented design,
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 32
1908 Schriften und Zierat,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
where the aim of the process is not to create something new,
but to achieve an already known, pre-formulated result.
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an
experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into
account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the
silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they
lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies
according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the
highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter
(q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text
creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without
anticipation of the fixed result is an online project. Ortho-type
Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo
Palma, describe ortho-type as an exercise in perception, a stim-
ulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-di-
mensional planes on a flat surface. Ortho-type is an online
application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three
dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available
variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation,
and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also
generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
Although this kind of experimental process has no com-
mercial application, its results may feed other experiments
and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilat-
ed, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson
may have started his formal experiments out of curiosi-
ty, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted
by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no
completed project can be seriously considered experimental.
It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When
completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it
was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its
final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according
to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to
bring together various working methods which are recog-
nized separately but rarely combined. For example, language
is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly inter-
ested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing
them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
however, venture into the visible representation of language,
because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to
spoken language. Typographers on the other hand are con-
cerned with the appearance of type in print and other repro-
duction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge
of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet
often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
These contrasting interests are brought together in the
work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues
his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
His typeface Sinttik reduces the letters of the French alphabet
to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from
another) and compresses it to 16 characters. Di Sciullo stresses
the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book
being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of
the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French
words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the
simplest representation of their pronunciation po. Words set
in Sinttik can be understood only when read aloud return-
ing the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It
is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in
Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of
pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms be-
cause it can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that
Quantange would be particularly useful
to foreign students of French or to actors and
presenters who need to articulate the inflectional aspect
of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This
project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers,
the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold.
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he
designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of
Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on
record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways).
The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and
is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is
great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullos type-
faces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited,
yet like the other presented examples of experiments in
typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas
of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
Although most of the examples shown here are marked by
the recent shift of interest of European graphic design from
forms to ideas, and the best examples combine both, there is
no definitive explanation of what constitutes an experiment
in typography. As the profession develops and more people
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of
experimentation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
History of a new font
(notes on designing Fedra Serif)
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven by
technology. Each wave of technological change in printing
provoked the development of new approaches enabled by
the new possibilities. In the eighteenth century, for example,
new typefaces exploited innovations in papermaking and
improved inking techniques to greatly increase the contrast
between letters thick and thin strokes. The introduction of
pantographic punch- and matrix-cutting in the late nine-
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 34 Chapter 1: 19011908 35

Top1912 Zeuner,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig Top1914 Jacoby-Boys Bracour,
Stempel AG,
Bottom1912 Scheift, Frankfurt am Main
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main Bottom1914 Jacoby-Boys Bracour,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main

teenth century enabled numerous variations of a typeface to problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
be manufactured from a single drawing. This understanding technical problems would mean the end of the type history, but
of the mechanical scaling of forms changed the idea of the this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
alphabet; it was now a flexible system, resulting in a vast range
Carter, alongside many of the great punch-cutters, designers,
of typographic variants compressed, expanded, extruded,
and printers, has participated in the sequence of discoveries,
ad infinitum. In the mid-twentieth century the adoption of
summed up - for the sake of comprehensibility - as History.
photocomposition systems meant that spacing and kerning
They contributed to the History of the profession by respond-
could be adjusted with greater precision; among the many
ing to current situations. Their aim was not to reinvent the
novelties that photo technology enabled, more fonts simu-
existing, but to reveal an unknown aspect of the art itself.
lating connected handwriting were developed. And most
Typefaces designed to fulfill the needs of their times contrib-
recently the personal computer spurred a wave of new fonts
ute their small part to the knowledge accumulated across the
based on previously unexplored motives, such as modularity
centuries; not necessarily by inventing anything revolution-
or randomness. With each of these technological changes,
ary, but by extending and adapting collective knowledge to
typeface libraries were updated to reflect the changes.
contemporary conditions. The spirit of continuity is crucial:
Type designers are very fond of the problems imposed each new creation is an answer to what has come before and
by the technology. They work in a discipline where re- each new typeface contains accumulated knowledge.
strictions and conventions define the frame of work. A
So: contemporary type design is necessarily histori-
problem is the type designers muse, and in the last dec-
cal. Typefaces are results of the processes, they are re-
ades we were blessed by enough problems to solve.
sponses to the conditions in which they were created,
While working on the typeface to be called Charter, Matthew and they immediately take a part in the history.
Carter was confronted with a peculiar technical problem.
On the other hand, revivals, or typefaces teleporting their
Early computers were not able to process font files over a
inspirations from concluded periods of time, are unre-
certain kilobyte limit, so Carter quickly offered a solution: a
lated to contemporary demands. They discontinue the
typeface that would consist mainly of straight lines, thereby
series of inventions, becoming a game of pastiche, merely
keeping the file size small by limiting the number of points
repeating what has already been created. Revival typefac-
needed to construct the letters. Proudly he claimed to the
es are, then, ahistorical, as they place themselves outside
technicians, I think I solved your problem What problem?
their natural history. They create their short-lived par-
the technicians asked; an even quicker fixing of the comput-
allel histories and fail to participate in the big story.
ers limitations would render Carters solution useless.
History has been gravely abused, and an excuse for many
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
misdemeanors, but it always outlasts those who tried to abuse it.
limiting, reducing type design to a response mechanism a
Historys only enemy is the end of the progress. Repeating what
craft detached from its own history. When the idea of cul-
has already been created closes the circle of discoveries. The
tural progress is supplanted by technological progress, the
value of understanding history as an infinite source of accumu-
more implicit motives of type design, such as continuity or
lated knowledge is manifest in the intangible processes as much
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
as the tangible results. The history is driven by intellectual

pursuits. Most historical discoveries are the isolated discoveries
of introvert individuals rather then mainstream technologies.
The Austrian writer Herman Broch, author of a number
of formally inventive and intellectually ambitious novels,
used to repeat this mantra: the sole raison dtre of a novel
is to discover what only the novel can discover. My con-
clusion is equally optimistic: the purpose of type design
is to explore its own possibilities by its own means.
Beauty and Ugliness in Type design
In 2010 I was invited to a design conference in Copenhagen to
speak on the subject of conceptual type. The organisers were
interested in examples of typefaces whose principal design fea-
ture was not related to aesthetic considerations or legibility, but
rather some underlying non-typographical idea. In my address
I argued that there is no such thing as conceptual type, since
type design is a discipline defined by its ability to execute an
outcome; the process that transforms the pure idea into a func-
tional font is a critical part of the discipline. Having rejected
the topic of the conference, I nevertheless went on to speculate
on what a true example of a conceptual typeface might be like.
At the time I was also interested in the idea of irreconcila-
ble differences and how two extremes could be combined
into a coherent whole. As an example, I looked for the
most beautiful typeface in the history of typography as
well as the ugliest one and for a way to meld them.
The Beauty
While any choice representing beauty is bound to be very
personal and subjective, many agree that the high-con-
trast typefaces created by Giambattista Bodoni and the
Didot clan are some of the most beautiful in existence.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 36
Bodoni was one of the most widely-admired printers of his 1908 Schriften und Zierat,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
time and considered amongst the finest in the history of the Leipzig
craft. Thomas Curson Hansard wrote in 1825 that Bodonis
types had that beautiful and perfect appearance, which we
find it difficult and highly expensive to equal. In his Manu-
ale Tipografico of 1818, Bodoni laid down the four principles
of type design from which all beauty would seem to pro-
ceed, namely: regularity, clarity, good taste, and charm.
His close competitors in France were the Didots. Not only
did Franois-Ambroise Didot invent many of the machines
used in printing, but his foundry endeavoured to render
the types more beautifully than his rivals Baskerville and
(later) Bodoni. Some considered Didots works the most
beautiful types that had ever been used in France (up to that
period), though others found them delicate but lifeless.
The Ugliness
I have to admit that dealing with ugliness was a lot more
interesting than revisiting the beauty contests of the classi-
cist printers. The search for ugliness triggers a certain primal,
voyeuristic curiosity, and from the designers perspective
there is simply a lot more space to explore. Capturing beauty
has always been considered the primary responsibility of
the traditional artist, and even now it is rare to find exam-
ples of skilled and deliberate ugliness in type design, (al-
though examples of inexperience and naivet abound).
The eccentric Italian from the middle of the Industrial
Revolution was a clear choice. This reversed-contrast type-
face was designed to deliberately attract readers attention
by defying their expectations. Strokes that were thick in
classical models were thin, and vice versa a dirty trick
to create freakish letterforms that stood out in the in-
creasingly saturated world of commercial messages.

1908 Schriften und Zierat,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
No other style in the history of typography has provoked such
negative reactions as the Italian. It was first presented in Caslon
& Catherwoods 1821 type specimen, and as early as 1825, in
his Typographia Thomas Hansard called the type a typograph-
ic monstrosity. Nicolete Gray called it a crude expression of
the idea of perversity , while others labeled it as degenerate.
The goal of my project was to show just how closely relat-
ed beauty and ugliness are. Donald Knuth, an American
computer scientist with a special interest in typography
identified over 60 visual parameters that control the ap-
pearance of a typeface. I was interested in designing type-
face variations that shared most of these parameters, yet
included both the ugliest and most beautiful letterforms.
Karloff, the result of this project, connects the high con-
trast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the mon-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
strous Italians. The difference between the attractive
and repulsive forms lies in a single design parameter,
the contrast between the thick and the thin.
I asked Pieter van Rosmalen for help, and both of us
worked on both versions. While at the beginning I looked
at the Didot from Imprimerie Nationale as a reference,
Pieter departed from this model and made the project
more personal. We worked on both models at the same
time, trying to be very strict about mathematically re-
versing the contrast between two weights. The advantage
of working on both versions together was that we could
adjust both of them to achieve the best forms, rather
1906 Patriz Huber Ornamente,
than creating one as an afterthought of the other.
Towards the end of the project, I worked with Nikola
Djurek, our frequent collaborator, who helped with inter-
polation and fine-tuning of the fonts. Having designed two
diametrically opposite versions, we undertook a genet-
ic experiment with the offspring of the beauty and the
beast, interpolation of the two extremes, which produced
a surprisingly neutral low contrast version. Karloff Neu-
tral required only minimal intervention, because the master
weights from which it was interpolated were well defined.
The history of History
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven
by technology, each wave of change in printing technology
provoking the development of new approaches to design. In
the eighteenth century, for example, innovations in paper-
making and inking techniques inspired new typefaces with
much higher contrast between the thick and thin strokes of
the characters. The introduction of pantographic punch- and
matrix-cutting in the late nineteenth century enabled numer-
ous variations of a typeface to be manufactured from a single
drawing, transforming typefaces into flexible systems with
vast ranges of typographic variants. In the mid-twentieth
38
century the adoption of photocomposition systems meant that
spacing and kerning could be adjusted with greater precision,
inspiring (among other things) the development of more
fonts simulating handwriting. Most recently, the personal
computer has spurred a wave of new fonts based on previously
unexplored motifs, such as modularity or random chance.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, however, reducing type design to a response mecha-
nism a craft detached from its own history. When the idea
of cultural progress is supplanted by technological progress,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
Chapter 1: 19011908 39
the less obvious motifs of type design such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
The History type system was in development longer than any
other project I ever worked on. Its beginnings can be traced
to the early 1990s when I experimented with decorative
layering systems inspired by 19th century types, trying to
dissect Tuscan typefaces into their structural components.
While most historians and designers regard this period
with horror, and many history books call the typefaces
decadent or regressive, I found Tuscans very charming and
inspirational. I started drawing a layering font that incor-
porated the possibilities of Tuscan types, but because of
technological limitations, I never completed the project.
Years later (2002) the project took a new twist as I worked on
a proposal for the Twin Cities typeface. Instead of proposing
one new typeface for St.Paul and Minneapolis, I presented
the idea of a typeface system inspired by the evolution of
typography, a conceptual typeface that reused existing fonts.
I called this proposal History. A user would select History
from the font menu, not knowing what font would be used.
History would be linked with the computers calendar and
with a predefined database of fonts, presenting a different
font every day. For example, one day it would use the forms
of Garamond, but the next day when you opened the same
document, the font would change and present the text in a
new typeface, say Granjon, that was created later than Gara-
mond. The idea was that the constant changes would confront
the user with the continuous development of typography.
And finally around 2004 I started working more intensively
on a system of layering letterforms that could be recombined.
I kept adding new styles, and because every style had to use
the same proportions as the previous one so that they would

work together, it was getting increasingly more complicated to
draw them. The danger was that this could be a never-ending
project, and I could keep adding more and more styles, which
would take more and more time to incorporate. In 2008, I
finally decided to limit the number of styles to 21. It was an
arbitrary decision, but I liked the number, as it reflected the 21
centuries of typographic history encompassed by the project.
Based on a skeleton of Roman inscriptional capitals, Histo-
ry includes 21 layers, 21 independent typefaces which share
widths and other metric information so that they can be
recombined. Thus History has the potential to generate an
infinite number of unique styles through the superimposition
of layers encompassing humanist renaissance, transitional,
baroque, script-like, early grotesque, 19th century vernacular
and digital types. While careless use can generate freakish
results resembling Frankensteins monster, more careful
experimentation can produce not only amusing, but surpris-
ingly fresh and usable typeface samples. With History, one can
replicate typographic history or, on the other hand, extend it.
For example, you can take a hairline skeleton of letters inspired
by Roman inscriptional capitals from year 80 AD (layer 1),
dress it up with a high contrast of thick and thin strokes as
Bodoni used in his work (layer 3), and finally apply 18th century
ultra thin serifs (layer 10) to emulate the style typical of the
40
1906 Patriz Huber Ornamente,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
work of Didot and Bodoni. Or you can take a low contrast
model of letters with oblique stress (layer 2) and combine it
with bracketed serifs derived from a broad nib pen (layer 8)
to end up with letters reminiscent of Nicolas Jensons Roman
from 1470. Making approximations of historical typefaces
is instructional, but not very interesting, (and frankly, one
should use real Didot or real Jenson typefaces); it is far more
interesting to extend history and mix styles which historically
have not co-existed. Take, for instance, bitmap letterforms
found in early low-resolution computer screens (layer 7), and
combine them with the thin serifs of Bodoni (layer 10) to
get something unexpected. And add the swooshes found in
15th century humanist calligraphy (layer 17) to top it off.
Realising that controlling 21 different layers can be a daunting
task, I proposed to supply not just the 21 font files, but also the
History Remixer application. This web-based software pro-
cesses text input through an interface which allows the user to
work with the layers, activating, deactivating, arranging, setting
colour, and luminosity. The application generates an open PDF
file which one can then fine tune in Illustrator or some other
programme. Using the Remixer is fun, but playing with History
in InDesign, although is much more work, is probably more
enjoyable because unexpectedly fresh letterforms result. One
can happen across new possibilities, and this game of discov-
ery was one of the important reasons why I did this project.
I chose History as a deliberately irreverent, cheeky
name, but by no means intended it to be disrespectful.
It is mostly a direct reference to the fact that I embraced
no single point in the past, but rather a very large part of
history of typography. My sincere intention was to par-
ticipate in the sequence of typographic discoveries and
allow the user to actively engage in this process as well.
I should acknowledge some sources of inspiration behind
this project. Of course the history of typography was the
primary inspiration. In addition, however, there are some
works which were particularly inspiring to me at the time.
The polyhistorical model of Milan Kunderas Immortality
provided the theoretical foundation of the project in the way
it mixes personalities of the past and present, describing an
imaginary dialogue between, say, the German poet Goethe
(1749-1832) and the American novelist Hemingway (1899-
1961), even though those two could never really have met.
But there are also some precedents in the history of typogra-
phy that allowed me to explore the area of multiform works.
Oswald Coopers experiments from 1936, which involved
applying 15 serifs applied to stems of similar weight to test
their influence in letter design, was of particular interest.
And more recently, Matthew Carters typeface for Walker
Art Center opened my eyes to new possibilities. I should
also mention other useful experiments, such as the early
manifestation of Multiple Master technology documented
in typefaces such as Adobes Penumbra designed in 1994
by Lance Hidy. With the use of Multiple Master, Penumbra
can continuously change from sans serif to fully serifed.
Some reviews and user responses suggest that History is more
of an educational tool than a functional typeface system. Yes,
surely one can use it to explain and explore the constructions
of Roman letterforms, but I still would like to emphasise
Chapter 1: 19011908 41
the practical aspect of the system. I sincerely hoped, but
couldnt predict, that fonts would be used commercially.
Running a type foundry for a decade, Ive learnt that though
our clients are often extremely creative professionals, they dont
have time to learn too many new things, and many features of
our fonts go unnoticed. It is all very well and good to create
style sets, extended language support and ways to make sure
that a different (slightly higher) hyphen is used automatically
when the text is converted to capitals, but does it all matter
when most people dont even know what OpenType fonts are?
I dont have precise usage statistics, but my guess is that 90% of
our clients use only the basic character set and never realise that
the font, which they licensed for quite a bit of money, can do a
whole lot more than respond to the computer keys they push.
As evidence I can quote occasional conversations with
users of our fonts who complain that small cap fonts are
missing (when in fact they simply need to be activated by
an OpenType feature), or that when they type English text
it is still in English even though the font claims to support
Russian (indeed the font doesnt translate words automat-
ically, but only renders the content). So does it make sense
to spend nearly 15 years of (discontinuous and at times not
very intense) work on an even more complex font system
that cannot be used properly in Microsoft Word, and is
rather challenging to use in design applications as well?
Now, more than a year after the original publication of History,
I can say that it was probably worth the effort. The fonts are
indeed being used, and I am continually amazed when I see
their real-life applications. I am not sure if I only see the beauti-
ful samples because people dont bother sending me the horrible
ones, or if its the high barrier of difficulty of using History that
puts the system in the hands of dedicated designers. Whatev-
er the reason is, seeing History in use is deeply satisfying.
One things that Ive learned from this project is that despite
the ubiquitous market research in design and the calculated

decisions of designers, it is still worthwhile to do projects that
I personally believe in. Even the day before Historys release I
had no idea if anyone would ever use the system, but that was
less important, as I found the work gratifying, and I focused
on the creative process rather than its market potential. It
is satisfying to see that this naive approach can work even
in a world driven by commercial pressures. It gives me the
courage to dedicate time to personal research which, when
it is rigourous enough, can find its application in the wild.
Font hinting
Hinting, or screen optimising, is the process by which
fonts are adjusted for maximum readability on computer
monitors. I have been designing type since the early 1990s,
and for as long as I can remember, type designers have
been saying that hinting would soon be made obsolete by
new advances in hardware and software. Now, almost 20
years later, hinting seems to be more relevant than ever.
The problem is that typical modern fonts are not designed
primarily for the 7296 dpi resolution of computer screens, but
for the much higher 1,200+ dpi resolution of print media. The
letterforms are designed and stored as outlines, mathematically
perfect lines and curves which look great at high resolutions,
but can be distorted or even illegible when converted into
groups of pixels, the on-or-off dots that make up a computers
display. And although there has been much discussion about
high-definition computer monitors for decades, the fact of the
matter is that my 5 year old mobile phone still takes photos with
finer detail than my brand new computer can show on its screen.
This is the reason that webpage designers have long been
more or less limited to a dozen or so fonts (Verdana, Georgia,
Arial, etc.) that have been fine-tuned by hand so that typical
text sizes (914pt) display well at low resolutions. These fonts
are so common that most computer users think of them as
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 42
free, but the reality is that Verdana, for example, is probably 1901 La Fonderie Typographique,
Organe de la chambre des matres-
the most expensive, labor-intensive font ever produced. It fondeurs typographes franais,
Paris
includes characters used to write an extremely wide range of
languages, and each of these characters had to be adjusted
to be readable at every point size between 9 and 60 (at 60pt
the resolution is sufficient to display the letterforms accu-
rately). In other words, each of more than 890 characters
was redesigned dozens of times, once at every point size.
Outlines of Fedra Sans Screen at various sizes. Notice
how different the outlines are in order to achieve
the optimal legibility of screen. Every letter is ba-
sically designed for each point size again.
This is exactly what hinting is about: programming instruc-
tions that fine-tune a fonts rasterisation, the process by which
its mathematically ideal outlines are mapped onto a monitors
pixels. Hinting can control the heights and widths of a fonts
uppercase and lowercase letters, the widths of its individual
lines, the amount of white space around letters, the size at
which uppercase letters start to use different stem-widths from
lowercase letters, how the angle of italic characters changes
to best fit the pixel grid, and many other extremely technical
details, all on a pixel-by-pixel basis. If this sounds like a rather
tedious, time-consuming activity, it is, (even for type designers,
who are accustomed to tedious, time-consuming activities).
Last year there was considerable hype about the @font-face
declaration, a function that makes it possible for a webpage to
display any font, freeing designers from dependence on the
Web-safe fonts and opening new design possibilities (not
the least of which is the creation of visual identities which are
consistent across both print and web media). On the other
hand, this also raises new issues, including poor onscreen
display of non-hinted fonts. And because hinting is tedious,
time-consuming and widely believed to be nearly obsolete,
99% of all fonts, even commercial ones, are non-hinted.
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 44
1902 Jubilums und Victoria,
Bauersche Gieerei,
Frankfurt am Main
Hinting TrueType and PostScript fonts
Even when fonts are hinted optimum onscreen results are still
not guaranteed, as different font technologies approach hinting
differently. In the PostScript system most of the font scaling
is handled not by the fonts, but by the rasteriser software,
so fonts in PostScript format look often good with relatively
simple hinting or no hinting at all. In the TrueType system,
however, the rasteriser is controlled by sophisticated hinting
instructions contained within the font software; without this
information TrueType fonts do not display well onscreen.
Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. One
advantage of the PostScript system is that the Intelligence is
concentrated in the rasteriser, so any improvement to the ras-
teriser immediately produces better rendering of all PostScript
fonts. Even 20 year old fonts render nicely on the latest Mac.
In the TrueType system, rasteriser updates require all fonts
to be updated as well for optimal results. Thus fonts hinted
for black and white or greyscale rendering will not work as
well with Windows ClearType rasteriser. On the other hand,
TrueType hinting provides direct, pixel-by-pixel control over
the rasterising process, which PostScript hinting does not.
Macro photography of Apple Mac Book Pro. On LCD
monitors (flat screens) every pixel is made from three
elements which can be controlled separately. Subpixel
rendering takes advantage of the way your eyes perceive
colour, using shades of blue, red and green to simulate
higher screen resolution in horizontal direction.
Mac OS vs. Windows
A lot has been written about how Mac OS renders text com-
pared to Windows. I will not go into details here, but the prima-
ry difference is that Microsofts rasteriser tries to align charac-
ters to whole pixel grid, with the result that Regular weights
look lighter, Bold weights look heavier, and subtle details of
design can be lost at small point sizes. Apples rasteriser tries to
preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, some-
times at the cost of image clarity. Windows rasterising software
produces extremely good results with a few built-in TrueType
fonts, but sub-optimal results with 99% of other typefaces. The
Mac OS Quartz technology ignores font hinting completely and
renders all fonts equally well regardless of their font format.
So lets focus now on Windows this is where hinting
makes a difference and lets focus on TrueType fonts,
which look superior in Windows at the moment.
Hinting Black and White rendering
(Grid-Fitting), 1-bit
Black and white hinting, developed in the days when operating
systems could only turn pixels on or off, controls which pixels
will be displayed at a given point size. This kind of hinting is
called grid-fitting because the outlines of the font are signifi-
cantly modified to fit the pixel grid of the screen. It is the most
time-consuming hinting process, and it takes an experienced
hinter at least 80 hours to hint a single font with the basic
256 character set. Fonts with extensive character sets and/
or numerous styles of course take much longer. This process
Chapter 1: 19011908 45
also usually adds white pixels
between characters to improve
legibility, which can create a
difference in length between printed
and screen versions of a text. Micro-
softs Verdana and Georgia are examples
of black and white hinted fonts. Newer technology has made
black and white hinting obsolete and permitted onscreen
results that are much truer to the original letterforms.
Practical Implications
What does all this mean to a type designer? Hinting can
improve the rendering of fonts. But those fonts will be
rendered differently by different rasterisers on different
platforms and often in different applications as well, (com-
pare for example text in the Safari and Explorer browsers
on the same Windows computer). If the designers inten-
tion is consistent cross-platform rendering, the fonts also
need to use consistent design across similar letters.
It is clear that one day font hinting will finally become obsolete,
but it is not clear when that day will come. The most widely
used operating system in the world, Windows XP (still 58.4%
market share, as of this writing), has ClearType turned off by
default, so unhinted fonts typically do not display well at small
sizes. Whether we like it or not, it looks like hinting will be
around for quite some time. But if you like how fonts display
on the Mac at small sizes, you can take that as proof that it is
already possible to render text well without any hinting at all.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-

grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
1903 Spcimen Album, waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
Fonderie Gustave Mayeur,
Paris past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex- process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
Chapter 1: 19011908 47
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning

only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Graphic Design in the White Cube
Organizing graphic design exhibitions is always problemat-
ic: graphic design does not exist in a vacuum, and the walls
of the exhibition space effectively isolate the work of design
from the real world. Placing a book, a music album, or a
poster in a gallery removes it from the cultural, commercial,
and historical context without which the work cannot be
understood. The entire raison dtre of the work is lost as a
side effect of losing the context of the work, and the result is
frozen appearance stripped of meaning, liveliness and dyna-
mism of use. Presenting design in an exhibition space in this
way is akin to looking at a collection of stuffed birds in order
to study how they fly and sing. In spite of this, it is more and
more common to see design as object, not only in books and
magazines, but also in the White cube of the exhibition space.
Graphic designers struggled for a long time for recognition
and professionalization of their field, and exhibits are consid-
ered one way of promoting the trade aspect of design. Every-
one is happy: the designer whose work was selected by the
institution; the original client who received an admired and
acclaimed design, and the gallery which acquires the work
to be presented. Work designed for a completely different
purpose is recycled, and re-presented in a foreign environ-
ment. The same scenario is even more common in design
publishing, and nearly instant books full of vague collections
of work with little or no commentary take up increasingly
more space on designers shelves, crowding out other books
which are more laborious to research, write and publish.
A more recent trend is design which refuses to be seen only
as an object of consumerism but draws parallels with art,
48 Chapter 1: 19011908 49
1906 Patriz Huber Ornamente, J.G.
Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
reflecting the autonomy of the designer in his work, as well as
a willingness to initiate projects himself. This generation of
designers is not the first one that doesnt rely solely on clients to
come up with project briefs. Renowned Dutch designer Karel
Martens, who taught some of the designers represented in this
exhibition, has done uncommissioned, artistic work apart from
his design career. Building on the tradition of the experimental
printing of fellow designers such as Hendrik Nicolaas Werk-
man or Willem Sandberg, Martens prints and collages were
done in his spare time as studies and experiments which fueled
his other, more practical design work. Some designers today
however integrate self-initiated work into their daily practice,
no longer distinguishing between projects done in and outside
of their working hours. Self-initiated work in graphic design is
becoming increasingly more important for designers, starting
up projects which probably would otherwise never see the light
of day. The group of people who work in this way is still margin-
al, and it is no surprise that most of them live in countries with
prosperous economies, occasionally receiving cultural funding
to facilitate their unconventional approach to their work.
Graphic design has for a long time been defined as a service
of a designer for a client, rooted in external impulses rather
than internal ones. Design work done without a client hangs
in a limbo between art and design. Graphic design is a fairly
young profession, and as such still in a state of development. It
is expanding to encompass various activities: writing, organiz-
ing, conceptualizing, reflecting. This is no longer design which
is only defined by business cards and logos. Here we come to
a problem of definition: until now I have been using the term
graphic design with the assumption that everyone knows what
it means. Especially in the context of the 22nd International
Biennale of Graphic Design Brno with its 43 years of history,
people have created expectations of what a typical graphic
design exhibition might include. Let us understand graphic
design then, to mean a field in flux which is as flexible as the
work that it embraces. Unlike the work of other professionals,
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 50
1904 Ornamenten hoofdlijisten en sluitstukken,
Joh Ensched & Zonen,
Haariem
the work of a designer is not restricted or defined by its content;
in fact designers are trained to accommodate and express
various, often contradicting ideas. It is a ghost discipline as
Stuart Bailey writes: graphic design only exists when other
subjects exist first. It isnt an a priori discipline, but a ghost;
both a grey area and a meeting point Bailey calls attention
to an area that many designers struggle with: the way that they
refer to their activity in their field transcends the established
notion of its definition. Designers represented in the exhibition
Graphic Design in the White Cube move fluently between the
worlds of art, design, music, theatre and writing. I and everyone
I work with just think of what we do as merely work. I studied
typography and graphic designthats my background and
it informs what I dobut now I do a variety of work, which
may or may not come under those headings, says Bailey in a
recent interview. Others such as French designers M/M Paris
directly challenge the definition of graphic design: graphic
design could embody a lot of activities, and the definition is
not fixed, but continually evolving. Because it is still a new
profession, the best graphic designers are the ones who reinvent
their field and surprise. Members of Amsterdam-based design
studio Experimental Jetset say that limited notion of design is a
misunderstanding: personally, we situate the birth of modern
graphic design somewhere roughly between Marinettis Futur-
ist manifestos, Piet Zwarts leaflets for the Dutch Cable Factory,
and Kurt Schwitters Merz publications (to name some obvious
examples). So in our understanding, graphic design has always
been an area where very different elements are synthesized:
art, politics, poetry, industry, etc. In their view, all the people
invited to exhibit here are then part of this great tradition, and
are graphic designers in the traditional sense of the word.
M/M, Bailey and Experimental Jetset are no strangers to
the gallery world. M/M has held numerous solo exhibitions
in prestigious art galleries and collaborated on major events
(Venice Biennales). Bailey has directed theatre performanc-
es and more recently together with David Reinfurt (Dexter
Sinister) is involved in organizing Manifesta 6, the European
Biennial of Contemporary Art in Cyprus, where they set up a
model of economic production, responsible for all publishing
activities of the Manifesta 6 school. Jetset activities include solo
exhibitions in galleries in London, Utrecht and Arnhem, and
group shows in SFMOMA San Francisco, Kunsthal Rotter-
dam, or Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam amongst others.
In 2005, M/M were invited to Paris contemporary art museum
Palais de Tokyo to exhibit their work next to major artworks
of the late 20th century in an exhibition which featured works
by a variety of artists including Joseph Kosuth, Jeff Koons,
Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Takashi Murakami and
Mike Kelley. The intentions of the exhibition was to explore
how different contexts cause the same work to be read in
different ways, blurring the boundaries between disciplines.
Graphic design, because of its ubiquitous nature, makes a
considerable impact on the visual culture that surrounds us,
so it makes a lot of sense to study this influence and critically
discuss the work in the context of other visual arts as well.
When presented in a museum however, the exhibition should
attempt more than just passive presentation in glass cases.
The isolated work lacks any real information about the rea-
sons and processes behind it. What needs to become evident
is the explicit purpose of the work, to see things otherwise
inaccessible, otherwise the visitor is better off going to any
bookstore or strolling down a busy street to get first hand
experience of and physical interaction with graphic design.
There have been some design exhibitions which attempt to
deal with these issues. Rick Poynor recently organized a
major retrospective of British graphic design entitled Com-
municate first held in London, now travelling world wide.
The exhibition sets out to examine graphic designs influence
on contemporary culture, highlighting experimental work
created by designers who arent limited by working to fulfill a
commercial clients brief. The exhibition occupied eight rooms
Chapter 1: 19011908 51
of the Barbican Art Gallery, and Poynor, whose background
is in journalism and publishing, organized these rooms as
chapters of a book, each section presenting a different aspect
of work, with introductory texts explaining each section of
the exhibition. The points and comparisons of the work were
made through careful visual editing of the presented pieces.
Another example is the exhibition of Dutch graphic design
that I was asked to organize a few years ago for the Brno
Biennale. Given the fact that for practical reasons the work
was to be displayed in a gallery space involving a certain
degree of isolation of graphic design, the presentation at-
tempted to clarify its function more, sketching out the trian-
gle of client-designer-public. Since the work of the designer
was brought to the gallery to be judged by the local public,
the focus was on presenting the missing component, that is,
providing space for the clients. The words of the commis-
sioners in the formulation of the original brief were present-
ed instead of the designers retrospective comments. The
original brief illuminated the purpose of the work, while the
public could evaluate how successfully it communicated.
However, a retrospective attempt to recreate the context for a
work may not be the ultimate solution either and has its own
pitfalls, as Experimental Jetset points out: theres also some-
thing false about it: trying to recreate the outside world
inside a museum/gallery, as if the museum/gallery is not a
valid context in itself. In our opinion, in these cases, we think
that its best to underline the museum context as much as
possible, to be brutally honest that the context in which the
object is shown is totally different from the context the object
was originally designed for.So it is in this context that we set
to organize a graphic design exhibition, with the intention
of the commissioner, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, to pres-
ent to the public certain specific aspects and tendencies of
contemporary graphic design worldwide. Being extremely
self-conscious, we propose a possibility: instead of bringing
work from the outside to the gallery, lets make the work for the
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 52 Chapter 1: 19011908 53

gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibits, lets
make the gallery conditions the context for the work. Nine-
teen designers and collectives were commissioned to design a
poster for the design exhibition in which they participate. The
posters will function on two levels: the collection of posters is
to constitute the exhibition, and copies of the posters will be
spread around the city to inform visitors about the exhibition.
This is obviously a dangerous snake-eating-its-own-tail strategy,
yet the self-referential nature of the brief makes it possible to
illustrate otherwise invisible mechanics of the work process.
The usual conditions of design are created in the gallery:
designers were directly commissioned to make the poster in
four weeks time, were offered a (minimal) design fee, and
were asked to treat the commission just like any other projects
they work on. What is perhaps unusual about the exhibi-
tion is that it makes some invisible components visible. The
original brief of the project is dominantly presented in the
exhibition, as are all sketches that the designers made. The
objective is not to lionize the work, or create easy material for
value judgment, but to uncover the process of work, present-
ing all the sketches that designers made, including those not
leading anywhere. Failures can provide more information
about visual art than just a presentation of its successes.
One of the most brilliant self-referential works of design is
XTCs album Go 2 (1978) designed by British art design
group Hipgnosis which exposes the mechanics of marketing
persuasion, blatantly including them in the design. The cover
of the album reads: This is a RECORD COVER. This writ-
ing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is
to help to SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention
to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done
that maybe youll be persuaded to listen to the music in this
case XTCs Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The
idea being that the more of you that you buy this record the
more money Virgin Record, the manager Ian Reid and XTC
themselves will make. [] The text goes on to call the buyer 1908 Inegeborg Antiqua,
D. Stempel AG,
a victim, explaining the tricks of marketing, suggesting that it Frankfurt am Main
is foolish to buy a product based on the design of the cover.
Our strategy for the exhibition was to strip the design process
of its deceptive aura, propose a possible format for design
exhibitions, and yet present everything that a visitor to a
graphic design show might expect.

The focus on itself, the self-referential nature of the project is

certainly not new. It has been explored in fine art for a long
time, one famous example being Ren Magrittes seeming
contradiction Ceci nest pas une pipe, which questions the
representation of objects in art. In the 1960s, Sol LeWitt
and other conceptual artists worked on reducing the artis-
tic process to its bare elements. Four Basic Kinds of Lines &
Colour, is a book project investigating basic book printing
techniques. Using standard CMYK colours, LeWitt drew
lines at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degree angles following the standard
angles of reproduction techniques. Starting with four inks,
he was able to mix 16 elementary colours, and using different
densities of the black ink, also 16 grayscale equivalents.
Chapter 2
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 58

1916 Neue Schriften und Ornamente,

19091916
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
Frankfurt am Main

Conceptual Type? object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is dependent self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the process that than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen-
transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a critical berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed, it is
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes, Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
was defined as Three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha- Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes. commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 48X48 units,
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other More recently, a type design project that approached the
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration, definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
some exceptions John Cages 433, for example, or some posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
all craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman- they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline. described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts
that rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The
fonts ranged from purely formal exercises to completely
abstract shapes independent from Latin construction, pur-
ported new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term concep-
tual: very often it is simply synonymous with Idea or Inten-
tion. Since every act of creation arguably stems from intent, re-
gardless of the function of the product, is every artwork, object
or typeface therefore conceptual? Mel Bochner, American con-
ceptual artist, disliked the label conceptual, because the word
concept is not always defined entirely clearly, and is therefore
in danger of being confused with the authors intention.
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors,
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is
probably no other discipline where the difference between the
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great.
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug-
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek
government buildings, banks and the American embassy
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 60 Chapter 2: 19091916 61

1916 Neue Schriften und Ornamente,

Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
Frankfurt am Main

Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa- reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools. One Designing Type Systems
nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the
Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence. structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways. I remember a conversation from back in my student days
By deciding to design the process rather than controlling where my typophile friends and I debated what the ultimate
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite ob- typeface of the 20th century was, a typeface that summed
the end result, Letterror embraced the possibilities of un-
vious that the type designer has no actual say in how the up all of the eras advancements and knowledge into a co-
expected results. It is the machine that makes the type.
typeface is actually used. While the concept of the type- herent whole, one that would be a reference for years to
face might be very clever and original, what happens Ill conclude with one of my current projects, for which the come. Helvetica was one of the candidates for its sheer ubiq-
when the typeface is never used the way it was intended? background idea is more interesting than the resulting forms. uity, proof of its overall acceptance. Another, more subtle
Does it make the typeface less inventive? How about a For centuries, art has been defined as something that gives proposal was Jan van Krimpens Romulus, one of the first
font which never gets to be used? Can it still be called a rise to an aesthetic experience. Capturing beauty and avoid- typefaces to have related Sans and Serif versions. And an-
font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font? ing ugliness were considered to be the prime responsibilities other, my personal pick, was Univers by Adrian Frutiger.
of the traditional artist. In this still untitled project I have
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert Univers goes beyond the quest to design individual letters,
tried to identify the most beautiful examples of typography
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated attempting instead to design space, to create a system of rela-
known to mankind. I settled on a series of serif typefaces
that destruction could also be conceptual art. According tionships between different sets of shapes which share distinc-
designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th century.
to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a chance to tive parameters. Prior to Univers, type designers concerned
be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 when In the second step, I tried to identify the ugliest examples of themselves with the relationships between letters of the same
a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and all type that we know. That was a bit more difficult, but finally set, how an 'a' is different from a 'b'. Univers creates a situation
the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases of the prize went to eccentric Italian from the middle of the in which there are as of many different shapes, and each has to
completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility, he could Industrial Revolution. This reversed-contrast typeface was be positioned on the axes of weight and width, distributed suffi-
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual designed to deliberately attract readers attention by defy- ciently far away from the next, but no further, in order to create
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes. ing their expectations. Strokes that were thick in classical a usable system. How heavy ought the Medium to be in order to
models were thin, and strokes that were thin became thick leave space for yet another weight, the Bold, and how will this
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
a dirty trick to make freakish letters that stand out in the translate into a design with condensed proportions? These were
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
increasingly saturated world of commercial messages. all new questions for type designers, and Frutiger opened up
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
completely new territory for those who were to come after him.
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing. This project (later released under the name Karloff) is not
interesting because of the forms, which have been explored Thanks to Frutiger it is now common practice to pro-
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
before, but because it creates a tight link between the two duce a dozen or more styles when working on a new type
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
extremes, between the beauty and the ugliness. Time will tell family. In terms of typeface innovation there is much
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
if this project finds some suitable application, or whether it more room for originality than when you only look at the
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
remains purely an aesthetic exercise, a conceptual type. individual lettershapes. Thus to create truly useful new
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write
works, type designers need to examine not only how char-
code that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of
acters relate to each other within a style, but also how
creation, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools
different styles relate to each other within a family.
we use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves to

Gardener vs Architect
Ive designed large typeface families before. Fedra, for example,
now has over 116 individual styles supporting 170 languages,
and has been used in the most complex typographic situa-
tions from dictionaries to newspapers, Bibles and information
graphics. But it is not really an example of a font designed to
be a typographic system from the start. It started in 2001 as
a relatively small family of Sans, and over the next 10 years
it grew to include Serif, Monospaced, Condensed and Dis-
play styles, as well as different language versions. Fedra is an
example of a bottom to top approach, in which a relatively
simple design gets larger and more complicated over time.
Composer Brian Eno calls this the gardeners approach:
nurturing simple things towards greater complexity, carefully
planting seeds, and helping them grow to their full potential.
The opposite organising principle, again in Enos words, is the
architects approach. An architect traditionally starts with a
concept, developing the complete idea first, working from top
to bottom. History (2008) is an example of the architectural
approach, in which each individual style contributes to a greater
purpose, sharing proportions with the rest of the family.
History (2008) as an example of the architectural ap-
proach and Fedra (2001-2010) as an example of the
gardener approach to creating a type family.
Greta Sans is another example of this approach. It has been
carefully planned from the outset, designed as a system
of interrelated styles. From the very beginning, work pro-
ceeded on multiple styles simultaneously; not only when
sketching the extreme and middle styles on paper, but also
when converting the resulting shapes into digital format,
the emphasis was on testing how certain letterforms react to
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 62
1916 Neue Schriften und Ornamente,
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer, Frankfurt
am Main
extremely compressed dimensions as well as very generous
ones. Only after being tested at each end of the proposed
spectrum would the designs be selected and adopted into the
typeface family-to-be. Each glyph would have to anticipate
all its variations and maintain a basic structure that could
function across all designated width and weight variations.
Different design masters were conceived and drawn at the
same time, investigating how the same design characteris-
tics would be translated into extreme weights and widths.
The Problem With the System
The nature of systems is to dictate a certain direction; the
role of designers is to recognise when the original design idea
ceases to work within the system, and then to create exceptions
to the system rather than letting the system have a negative
impact on the design. In large type families of related styles
this impact is usually that while the starting point is usually
characteristic and recognisable, the design becomes blander
and less interesting as it is stretched across its variations. My
intention was to design a highly flexible system while also
ensuring that the resulting shapes were not just compromises,
but maintained the strong personality of the Greta typeface.
Sketches from 1910:
planning the Greta Sans type system.
For example, at the lighter end of the weight axis, the cir-
cular dot over I, (or in diacritics and punctuation) has to
become a rectangle to avoid becoming too small. On the
width axis, shapes would sometimes have to be modified
even more dramatically: the double storey g typical for
Greta becomes a single storey g in Compressed width, where
the lack of space demanded greater simplification. Dollar
and cent signs have full crossbars in the wider versions, but
divided crossbars in the condensed versions. Dozens of
other changes happen when taking the design to extreme
dimensions, in order to maintain the general design char-
acteristics and preserve the natural look of the shapes.
Some of the exceptions to the linear interpolation of
the Greta Sans type system: dots change from circu-
lar to rectangular; dollar signs lose their crossbars, and
g uses a single-storey form in Compressed widths.
While the Fedra Sans family was created from two design
masters, Light and Bold, (Book, Demi and Medium were
interpolated), Greta Sans 13 design masters were individual-
ly designed, as were another 13 masters for italics, and all 26
included Small Caps. The masters (Hairline, Regular, Black),
were interpolated and expanded to 10 weights. Four widths
were imagined and implemented, resulting in 80 styles.
The process of drawing Greta Sans started in the middle of the
imagined design space (1), and from there the extremes were
explored (2). The idea was to adapt the design to the available
proportions, while preserving the main design characteristics.
When creating the design masters, we made the heavy weight as
heavy as possible, even when those exact weights would not be
used. It is easy to interpolate and make the Black weight lighter;
making it heavier is complicated. This allowed us to keep the
design space as large as possible (3), and reduce it later when
we made the final selection of styles. We decided not to use the
Compressed Black as a master, and stepped it down one weight.
We also dropped extra-compressed styles. On the other hand,
we added an extra weight to the Extended styles (Super), when
we saw there was available space at that end of the spectrum.
Chapter 2: 19091916 63
Continuous Optical Sizes
In the earliest age of movable type, optical sizes became the
main organising principle of typefaces. For example, Jan-
nons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s include
numerous optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points, each
slightly different. The design of the typeface would be rein-
terpreted at each given point size, often resulting in different
weights, different proportions, different letter spacing. These
different designs would blend into a harmonious size progres-
sion and function as one design. Optical sizes disappeared
with the transition from hot metal press to photocomposition
sometime in the 1950s. After about 50 years of neglect op-
tical sizes have made a comeback, and many typefaces now
come with versions specifically designed for text and display
applications. Optical sizes, however, represent a range of
variations. In the old days, as in the Jannon example, type-
faces would come in as many as 15 optical versions. All the
in-between sizes progressively added or removed features,
getting continuously darker and looser when meant for small
sizes, or continuously lighter and tighter for large sizes. The
word continuously is important here. There werent text or
display versions as is common now. Each size was discretely
adjusted for to maintain the characteristics of the typeface.
Jannons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s includes
15 optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points. On the left
is a 7pt sample scaled 425% to match the 36pt version. Note
the difference in contrast between the thick and thin strokes,
and overall differences in details between the two versions.
Greta Sans was designed as a continuous optical size system.
While the basic text styles (Regular) are spaced and kerned
for small sizes, the surrounding extremes (Hairline, Black)
are designed to be used as Display types, and therefore
tightly spaced and kerned. The resulting interpolation then
runs continuously from Display to Text to Display use. A
similar pattern (Extended, Condensed, Extended) can be
 64
1910 Eine Deutsche Schrift,
Gebr Klingspor,
Offenbach am Main
seen on the width axis, as the Normal styles are most suited
for small text, and extremes are optimised for large sizes.
Design Space
While the key characteristics of most typefaces are defined by
the outlines of the letterforms, Greta Sans design also extends
to the gaps between styles. All its characteristics, including the
visual contrast between styles, weights and widths have been
orchestrated into a unified typeface system. Greta Sans explores
the entire space of possibilities and is designed for extraordinary
design flexibility. It is a toolbox that addresses a broad spectrum
of design situations from the simplest to the most complex,
offering multiple options for establishing a visual hierarchy.
Next
Gretas Latin fonts set up some formal parameters, but the most
exciting phases of this project are still to come. While such a
versatile system of similar proportions is rare within the context
of Latin typefaces, it is unheard of in the domain of non-Latin
type. We intend to bring this system to a number of non-Latin
styles planned for 201314. There is no reason why only Latin
type should benefit from these advances in typography.
Type design competitions
Last autumn I was in Buenos Aires, where I sat on the jury
for Letter2, a type design competition. Just like bukva:raz!,
the first AtypI competition in 2001, Letter2 celebrates
the best typefaces produced over the past decade. Out of
561 submitted entries the jury selected 53 that represent
the previous decade based on their design excellence.
No sooner had the results been announced than the wheels
of the font marketing machine rolled into action as some
of the selected designers and foundries began to trumpet
that their typefaces were among the best of the decade.
Chapter 2: 19091916 65
But best of the decade is a somewhat problem-
atic assertion because not all designers have an
equal appetite for competitions. While some
award-hungry designers actively seek out all
kinds of contests and prizes, others simply
ignore them. So the promise of best of the
decade is reduced to best of the submissions. And very
often the submissions dont include the highest quality
work. For example, renowned author and type designer
Fred Smeijers hasnt participated in type competitions for
almost 20 years. Gerard Unger, another celebrated Dutch
type designer, enters competitions only rarely. Unger says, I
want younger designers to have a chance. And in fact these
events typically include a disproportionately high number
of young designers looking for recognition of their work.
Matthew Carter is designer whose work has received
numerous awards, and FontBureau, the foundry which
has released most of his fonts, sometimes submits
them to competitions. But Carter himself says, I
have become less interested in competing with other
type designers and more concerned with helping
the acceptance of type design as something on a par
with other forms of graphic and industrial design.
Frantiek torm, an established Czech type designer
gives a more pragmatic reason for avoiding competi-
tions: I simply have no time for it. But then he adds, I
do however feel that contests are for the young design-
ers. Older designers that otherwise might clearly win
them should find something more worthwhile to do.
And finally, Peter Verheul, a Dutch designer of high pro-
file typefaces, never sends his work to competitions,
one reason being that the judging criteria are inherently
vague. there is no explanation why a typeface has been
picked to become a winner, says Verheul. I dont really
believe that a fair judgement is possible, given the dif-

ferent nature and diversity of the material to judge.
Of course, one might say it is easy for recognised designers
not to participate in contests; they have won them all already.
However while the stated aim of the contest is to recognise type
design professionals, almost a third of the selected projects are
by non-professional designers entering their student projects.
So what is the value of these competitions? Do they rec-
ognise talent and stimulate creation? Or is it just cheap
marketing? And is there a viable alternative? Borrowing
inspiration from such prestigious awards as the Turner Prize
or the Nobel Prize, one could imagine replacing the call
for entries with a committee of experts who would nom-
inate the best work. But the type design profession is so
small and insular, with no outside critics or curators, that
assembling a committee of recognised experts would nec-
essarily exclude a large percentage of possible contenders.
Type design competitions will likely remain problemat-
ic as long as the type design community remains so small.
Perhaps organisers should accept the fact that such com-
petitions often fail to attract well-established profession-
als, and focus their events on younger designers. Perhaps
this emphasis on younger designers could include making
the judging public, so that all can benefit from the jurors
feedback. And perhaps we should all learn to take the pub-
licised results of such competitions with a grain of salt.
What is Typography?
Before starting any discussion or argument it is useful to define
the terminology and to make sure that the words which are
used are generally understood. Typography is a craft has been
practiced since the Gutenbergs invention of the movable type.
According to the latest Encyclopedia Britannica core definition
of typography is that typography is concerned with the deter-
mination of the appearance of the printed page. Other diction-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
aries, such as Collins English Dictionary from 2004 define the
typography as the art, craft or process of composing type and
printing from it. Understood this way, no typography was made
before mid-15 century, as it is strictly linked to the invention of
the Printing Type. Understood this way, digitally created letters
that appear on an electronic screen also escapes this definition.
That is of course problem of definitions, which are not as
flexible as the activities which they define. In the Royal
Academy of Arts in The Hague, where I teach part time, most
useful definition of typography comes from the long term
teacher Gerrit Noordzij, saying that typography is writing
with prefabricated letters. Unlike the dictionary definitions,
this one is deliberately avoiding connecting typography to
any specific medium, as they tend to change, yet the disci-
pline continues evolving. Noordzijs definition also implies
a complete distinction from lettering, handwriting or graf-
fiti, which are also concerned with creating letter-shapes,
but dont offer a repeatable system of setting these letters.
Digital technologies stimulated unprecedented possibili-
ties which blur even most open definitions of typography.
If repetition of shapes was the central concept of typog-
raphy, many designers are working in ways that challenge
this concept. OpenType fonts can include random features,
which can simulate unpredictable behavior of handwriting,
or simply present seemingly incoherent library shapes.
For the past year, Ive been working with dancers from Neth-
erlands Dance Theatre in The Hague on creating a tool which
translates text into simple choreographies. User types a
word in a typesetting-like application which plays back this
word as an uninterrupted dance sequence where dancers
body temporarily makes positions recognizable as letters.
Is this typography? Project like this, as many others using exist-
ing digital possibilities seems not much worried about it, but use
typographic principles to create autonomous work which cross
boundaries of various disciplines. It seems that typography
66
itself matured into a new creative discipline in which majority
of typographers work in a way which is guided by historical
understanding of the word, yet there is room for experimen-
tation which explores the boundaries of the profession.
In other disciplines, such debate is in fact a sign of new self-con-
sciousness. Novelist Milan Kundera argues that a contempo-
rary novel is no longer defined as a fictional narrative in prose,
but can include various forms of writing: poetry, short-story,
or interview. Kunderas books include parts which are philo-
sophical, political, comical, while still being firmly part of a
novel. The ability to absorb these various forms is Kunderas
definition of novel. Similarly, larger understanding of typog-
raphy, which is no longer defined by technology, but evolves
with it, may open this discipline to new create endeavors.
A View of Latin Typography in
Relationship to the World
It is generally acknowledged that it was Gutenberg who in-
vented movable type printing in 1436. It is generally forgotten
that what is missing in that statement is the necessary qualifier
in Europe. Thanks to the present-day dominance of Latin
script we have largely forgotten that there are parallel histo-
Chapter 2: 19091916 67
1914 Neue Schriften und Ornamente,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
ries outside of Europe, but the first recorded movable type
system was more likely created in China around 1040 AD by
Bi Sheng. His early type was made of wood, which was later
abandoned in favour of baked clay, which produced smoother
imprints. Unlike Latin script which uses 26 letters, Chinese
script uses thousands of characters, making type composi-
tion particularly complicated. Nevertheless, movable type
has been in continuous use in China since the 11th century.
Elsewhere too, printing progressed. Choe Yun-ui, a Korean
civil minister, made the transition from wood to metal
movable type around 1230 AD. Metal movable type was also
invented independently of the Koreans in China during the
Ming Dynasty. During the Mongol Empire movable type
moved further west. According to legend, Laurens Janszoon
Coster, a respected citizen of Haarlem, could have been the
first European to invent movable type, if the account present-
ed by Hadrianus Junius is true. But the story is not widely
believed, which brings us back to Johannes Gutenberg of
Mainz, who invented movable type a decade later. In Europe.
Even today, typography as a discipline continues to be
plagued by a Euro-centric bias. If any of the major typogra-
phy reference books are to be believed, the development of
typography has generally been limited to Western Europe.
In Type & Typography(2002), the otherwise excellent book
by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, the authors make a note
that the history of writing and the alphabet goes back thou-
sands of years, but they do not elaborate more on this. It goes
without saying that their history of typography is only the
history of Latin-based typography. Other books are even
more blunt when it comes to the scope they cover. Classic
volumes such as Updikes obviously nationalistic Printing
Type, first printed in 1922, or Harry Carters also already
somewhat dated A View of Early Typography (1969) can be
overlooked. But even recent books such Designing Type (2005)
by Karen Cheng or A Typographic Workbook (2005) by
Kate Clair & Cynthia Busic-Snyder dont bother to mention

that there is more to typography than Latin typography.
Most of the existing typographic classification systems also
apply exclusively to Latin type. In catalogues of the tradi-
tional type foundries such as French Imprimerie Nationale,
the house of Garamont, Didot and Romain du Roi, typefaces
other than Latin are referred as Orientales. Most contem-
porary digital type foundries such as Monotype call these
fonts Non-Latin. These terms certainly have rather colo-
nial overtones, suggesting the idea of the other, describing
foreign scripts in negative terms as non-European. In other
disciplines, language and terminology have adjusted to the
wider environment of the global village, reflecting the pro-
gress that the society has made in the last couple of decades,
and we no longer find a boxed set of paints with the name
flesh given to a light beige color. Only typography contin-
ues to display a shameless bias towards western civilization.
Some common type terminology is also inappropriate for
typefaces which didnt evolve in Western Europe. The term
Roman is customarily used to describe serif typefaces of the
early Italian Renaissance period. More recently, the term has
also come to denote the upright style of typefaces, as opposed
to the word Italic, which refers to cursive typefaces inspired
by the handwriting of Italian humanists. Thus Linotype offers
fonts called Sabon Greek Roman and Sabon Greek Italic, (de-
signed by Jan Tchichold), based on 16th century models. But
by using terminology which is typically associated with Latin
type and evokes the history of Italian typography, Linotype
makes a careless statement. Greek Roman and Greek Italic scripts, and even type design
are contradictions in terms, mixing two very different histo-
ries. Such slanted versions of Greek or Cyrillic types should
properly be described in more technical terms such as inclined,
oblique, or cursive. Roman and Italic suggest that the Greek
version has been Latinised, borrowing too much not only of
the terminology but also of the formal characteristics of Latin
type, ignoring the rich Greek traditions of typography.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
The news is not all bad, however. Recent changes in technology
such as the introduction of the Unicode system and Open-
Type font format have inspired type designers to consider the
previously overlooked domain of non-Latin typography. It
is estimated that in the last decade, more Greek fonts were
created than in the entire preceding century. Books such as
Language, Culture, Type (2002) have been published, promot-
ing cultural pluralism, admitting that English and the Latin
1915 Jacoby-Boys Bracour-Kursiv,
alphabet account for only one segment of global communica-
Frankfurt am Main
tions today. (According to 2006 Encarta statistics, the number
of native English speakers is less than the number of native
Hindi and Arabic speakers, and roughly one-third the number
of native Chinese speakers.) Such books are very important be-
cause they also present models for alphabets less explored than
the Latin one, and offer a comprehensive history of their use.
In his concise book, The Solid Form of Language (2004),
Robert Bringhurst proposes a new classification system of
worlds various written languages
and scripts. This approach promotes
a consciously inclusive approach
to typography, and considers the
whole history of humanity and its re-
lationship to script and meaning.
The new possibilities are exciting for
designers working with non-Latin
type. There is a modest interest in
Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, or Indic
competitions have responded
to the new situation by creat-
ing special categories. The new
development is also good news even
for designers working exclusively
with Latin typography: while we might
think that most of the possibilities of Latin
type have been explored, traditions of typog-
68
D. Stempel AG,
raphy from Greece, the Middle East, India and elsewhere can
help us to rediscover how we understand Latin type today.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
Chapter 2: 19091916 69
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex-
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 70

even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his 1910 Lyrisch,
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality Frankfurt am Main

knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion. explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes Dutch type design
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something The Netherlands is a small country with some 15 million
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement, inhabitants. It is flat, and has no geographical particularities.
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching It is situated on the western border of Germany, the north of
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the France and Belgium, and the east of England across the North
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be Sea. As a comparatively small country, the Dutch people
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal- have always felt the influence of surrounding countries. If
they attempted to be a part of international styles, they risked

dissolving the national characteristics of the small nation.
On the other hand, if they tried to stay untouched by foreign
influence and keep to themselves, they could easily fall into
provincialism. However, they have succeeded in creating
one of the most remarkable and outstanding cultures.
The homeland of Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg,
Gerrit Rietveld and Piet Zwart now produces designs of the
highest abstractiondesigns of letters. Holland today has
more type designers per capita than any other country in the
world, a remarkable fact considering that there is now not
one surviving Dutch type foundry, says Gerard Unger, one
of the most important typographers in Holland. Unger, a
very active typeface designer and lecturer, stands somewhere
between the classic typeface designers and the experimental
ones. Among Ungers work are the typeface for the Amster-
dam Metro, Demos, Praxis, ITC Flora designed for Hell
company, Amerigo and Oranda for Bitstream, and his latest
drawings include the newspaper faces Swift and Gulliver.
According to Unger, this has to do with the low-lying land
and cool skies of the Netherlands. Hollander is one of my
designs to reflect the inescapable Dutch horizon. The hori-
zontal parts of the curves are stretched, the resultant gentle
arches combining with the large serifs to assist the letters in
joining visually to make words and lines, describes Unger the
typeface that follows the best traditions of Dutch typography.
Is it possible that the physical character of the landscape
forms characteristics of graphic design? For the answer to
this question we go back to the beginning of the century.
While most of Europe accepted Art Nouveau as the last
international-spread art movement that influenced archi-
tecture, craft, and fine arts, the Dutch rejected Art Nouveau
as frivolous. Dutch artists considered themselves pragmatic
and realistic. Thus, they rather turned themselves towards
conventional realism that later evolved into abstraction.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
Forty years ago, the Dutch society was still solidly bourgeois,
puritanical and strongly influenced by religion. It is the change
after the second world war from a politically neutral country
to an active member of transatlantic and European alliances
that had far-reaching cultural effects. It totally changed the
Dutch perception of their own nationality, and revised the
traditional Dutch values. From a very religious country the
Netherlands developed into one of the most liberal societies
in the world. Life in the Netherlands became much more
open and hedonistic oriented. The prosperity of the nation
in the 60s also helped to create a mood of great expectation;
instead of looking abroad for models, the Dutch understood
the advantages of being themselves. No, this was not a sudden
turn in the history of the nation; the Dutch stayed as they
have always been, open towards international developments.
It is very unlikely that the countryside (even though it is
so remarkable in its flatness) is the only determinant of art
development in the Netherlands, although it is undoubtedly
a source of inspiration for Dutch artists. Holland has always
been an unusually tolerant place. It is the place with many
political parties, many different views and opinions. Individ-
uality here is a very important element. It seems that with
the world-wide availability of graphic software, the nation-
al characteristics of graphic design and typography would
disappear. How is it possible that there is such a phenomenon
as Dutch design in todays international style? And, what are
the characteristics of Dutch design? Reading the art history
books, I can say that realism, sobriety, outspokenness, clari-
ty, moral integrity, and social responsibility were frequently
marked as typical Dutch virtues. But these characteristics
do not in themselves define style. And even if they did, the
same qualities are related to Modernism (International style),
another movement that didnt influence Holland very much.
The Dutch found their own interpretation of Modernism.
Gerard Unger in his essay Dutch landscape with letters wrote:
the national character is only one of the components needed
72 73
1910 Lyrisch,
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
Frankfurt am Main
for a recognizable style of type design. The chief elements of
style are the product not merely of the country, region or city
in which the designer happens to live, they are also molded
by his own personal qualities and the age in which he works.
Maybe a foreign observer can better describe what is hard to
see for the Dutch themselves. Erik Spiekermann, a German
typographer, puts it like this: All the Dutch type designs I
know, even the historical ones, have a vertical oval as one of
their basic shapes. They are narrow compared with French
designs like the types of Excoffon, which are actually broader
at the top than they are at the bottom. Clarity and openness
and high contrast are also clearly identifiable characteris-
tics in Dutch types. The clarity and openness are part of the
signed any new fonts. Because my angle is shifted I am less
construction and contrast in, say, the alternation of rounded
interested in type. There is so much of that stuff and I wonder
and angular forms. The structure is always clearly visible in
what I could add which hasnt been done before. Too much I
the work of Dutch designers. The Dutch are more concerned
see now is somehow related to what I did years ago. Of course,
with the structure, the basic shape. You can follow the syntax
I recognize some very good designs but to me the revolution
of the design processthe design can be understood im-
is over and repetition began a while ago. There is no meaning
mediately. At the same time they are also sophisticated.
in type design, all is decoration. Everyone can do what some-
one else is doing. Type design becomes an average taste to
There is too much of it. Contemporary Dutch design can
express a general life style. Type is available anywhere at any
be stylish and eclectic, inventive and trains-historical, sys-
time. Concepts of type are available anywhere at any time.
tematic and non-functional, provocative and convention-
Like the jersey you wear or the shoe you choose. Nothing
al, conceptual and random, pragmatic and nonsensical,
more, nothing less. All this fuzz about type becomes a bit
witty and stiff, anarchic and traditional and it still keeps
irrelevant, I think sometimes. Of course, its a big industry, a
its characteristics; it is still so Dutch. It fluctuates between
lot is involved, many typographical magazines appear, lots of
rigid logic and total senselessness. In other words, there
is no style of Dutch design. Or, in the words of designer students are waiting to bring in something new. This massive
Max Kisman, the style of Dutch design is style of styles. run on type is an escape from an essential question. Wheth-
There is pluriformity which is unique to Holland. er graphic design will survive or not. And if so, how? More
important at this moment is to redefine graphic design.
Kisman pioneered the use of computers in 1977, when he was
the first designer to create stamps for the postal/telecommu- While in 1989 Gerard Unger could say that Dutchmen are a
nications services PTT on an Amiga computer. Kisman is also folk for text types, not headlines, today he admits that young
known for his belief that legibility is a code that depends on designers have proved otherwise. One of the most prolific
the impressions, rhythm, and expression of symbols which contemporary type designers is the duo Letterror, formed by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum. At the ages of 24/25,
may or may not be letters. Kisman has become increasingly
skeptical of designing new type, and since 1992 hasnt de- they designed their revolutionary Randomfonts. Since then,

they have produced many best-selling typefaces. In the short
time of 4 years they created 17 typeface families published
by FontShop International, excluding their font contribu-
tions for Brodys FUSE project. Beowolf, their first random-
font, is the typeface that for inspiration goes somewhere to
pre-Gutenberg time. Instead of the traditional system of
writingrepeating of graphical forms that become visually
so unobtrusive that they are virtually invisible, Letterror
developed a special technology that allows the random
changing of letters. Randomfont technology generates each
letter separately and differently. No two letters are the same.
For instance, if you type two As in row and print them,
they look different depending on the level of randomness you
choose. This new invention is not limited only to changing
letterforms. We could change typographic awareness of
computer users around the world by creating a font virus that
would slowly transform every Helvetica into something much
more desirablethe Post-modern typographers revenge, or
we could create letters that would wear out through frequent
use, combined with a feature that uses up certain often used
letters. Van Blokland and van Rossum devoted their research
to humanizing type design. A font that does not work over-
time and a font that adds typos go to the extreme in their
attempts to add the human quality to computer typography.
They believe that the computer can bring back subtleties
that were lost during
type evolution due
economic consider-
ations. Recognition
does not come from
simple repetition of
the same form, but it is
something more intel-
ligent, something that
happens in our minds...
Randomness and
change can add new
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 74
1909 Mimosenzierat,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
dimensions to print work Leipzig
The experiments of the Letterror duo certainly have a great
potential. We can add some data to a digital typeface, and it
can act very intelligently. It may adjust its shape according
the form of medium we are using it in, change its contour
according to its size and relation with color background.
The Netherlands has 13 design schools. Erik van Blokland, Just
van Rossum, Peter Verheul, Martin Majoor, Peter Matthias
Noordzij, (Luc)as de Groot, Evert Bloemsma, Fred Smeijers, are
all their recent graduates, and already internationally recog-
nized ones. Most of them emerged from The Art Academy in
Arnhem and the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague
(Gerrit Noordzij and Petr van Blokland teach in The Hague).
None of the above mentioned typographers gave me the
opportunity to summarize what the Dutch style is. My hope
is that even in a new united Europe, where things are going to
get all mixed up, the Dutch personal creativity will prevail.
Experimental typography.
Whatever that means.
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly
as the word experiment. In the field of graphic design and
typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify
anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization,
or confounding expectations. As a verb, To experiment is
often synonymous with the design process itself, which may
not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result
of the design process. The term experiment can also have the
connotation of an implicit disclaimer; it suggests not taking
responsibility for the result. When students are asked what
they intend by creating certain forms, they often say, Its just
an experiment, when they dont have a better response.

In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a
set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothe-
sis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach
to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others
can build. It requires all measurements to be made ob-
jectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a
phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the
phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famous scientific experiment would be
Galileo Galileis dropping of two objects of different
weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both
would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about
gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be
a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the
transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems
to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is
applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experi-
ment can be reliably measured. What happens however when
the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure
reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Rad-
ical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal
Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized design-
ers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
As expected, the published definitions couldnt have been
more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems
and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish
Muir of 8vo writes: Every type job is experiment, Melle
Hammer insists that: experimental typography does not
76 Chapter 2: 19091916 77
1909 Mimosenzierat,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
exist, nor ever has. So how is it possible that there are such Leipzig
diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers various interpretations, two notions of
experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulat-
ed by the American designer David Carson: experimental is
something I havent tried before something that hasnt been
seen and heard. Carson and several other designers suggest that
the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.
There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when
information travels faster than ever before and when we have
achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes
significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms.
While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that
to do it in a way that no one has done it before was sufficient
for the definition of the new typography of his day and his
work was an appropriate example of such an approach today
things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of
work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty
today can seem like historical ignorance on a designers part.
Interestingly, Carsons statement also suggests that the essence
of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns,
rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly op-
posed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment
is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design,
where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to
go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science
a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design ex-
periment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist
against the background of other conventional solutions.
In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were
the only designer on earth, because there would be no stand-

ard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going
against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If
more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion,
the scale would change, and the former convention would
become anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation
is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular,
cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Does type design and typography allow an experimental
approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent
on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound
by convention is like a private language: both lack the abili-
ty to communicate. Yet it is precisely the constraints of the
alphabet which inspire many designers. A recent example is
the work of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate
student of type-design who investigates the limits of legibil-
ity while physically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet.
Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography. While
the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to con-
ventional book typefaces, each step down in size results in
simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes
(2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the alpha-
bet, free of all the details and optical corrections which are
78
1910 Eine Deutsche Schrift,
Gebr Klingspor,
Offenbach am Main
usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchands
project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist
Louis Emile Javal, who published similar research at the
beginning of the 20th century. The practical contribution
of both projects is limited, since the reading process is
still guided by the physical limitations of the human eye,
however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the
constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Ty-
pographic Experiment was formulated by Michael Wor-
thington, a British designer and educator based in the
USA: True experimentation means to take risks. If taken
literally, such a statement is of little value: immediate-
ly we would ask what is at stake and what typographers
are really risking. Worthington, however, is referring to
the risk involved with not knowing the exact outcome of
the experiment in which the designers are engaged.
A similar definition is offered by the E.A.T. (Experiment
And Typography) exhibition presenting 35 type designers
and typographers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
which coincidentally will arrive in the Netherlands shortly.
Alan Zruba and Johanna Balukov, the curators of E.A.T.
put their focus on development and process when describing
the concept of the exhibition: the show focuses on projects
which document the development of designers ideas. Attention
is paid to the process of creating innovative solutions in the
field of type design and typography, often engaging experi-
mental processes as a means to approach unknown territory.
An experiment in this sense has no preconceived idea of
the outcome; it only sets out to determine a cause-and-ef-
fect relationship. As such, experimentation is a method of
working which is contrary to production-oriented design,
where the aim of the process is not to create something new,
but to achieve an already known, pre-formulated result.
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an
experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into
account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the
silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they
lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies
according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the
highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter
(q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text
creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without
anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type
Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo
Palma, describe ortho-type as an exercise in perception, a stim-
ulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-di-
mensional planes on a flat surface. Ortho-type is an online
application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three
dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available
variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation,
and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also
generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
Although this kind of experimental process has no com-
Chapter 2: 19091916 79
mercial application, its results may feed other experiments
and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilat-
ed, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson
may have started his formal experiments out of curiosi-
ty, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted
by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no
completed project can be seriously considered experimental.
It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When
completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it
was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its
final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according
to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to
bring together various working methods which are recog-
nized separately but rarely combined. For example, language
is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly inter-
ested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing
them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
however, venture into the visible representation of language,
because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to
spoken language. Typographers on the other hand are con-
cerned with the appearance of type in print and other repro-
duction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge
of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet
often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
These contrasting interests are brought together in the
work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues
his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
His typeface Sinttik reduces the letters of the French alphabet
to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from
another) and compresses it to 16 characters. Di Sciullo stresses
the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book
being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of
the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French
 80
1909 Neue Jahreszeten Bilder,
Gebr Klingspor,
words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the
Offenbach am Main simplest representation of their pronunciation po. Words set
in Sinttik can be understood only when read aloud return-
ing the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It
is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in
Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of
pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange
would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or
to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional
aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This
project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers,
the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold.
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he
designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of
Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on
record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways,).
The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and
is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is
great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullos type-
faces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited,
yet like the other presented examples of experiments in
typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas
of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
Although most of the examples shown here are marked by
the recent shift of interest of European graphic design from
forms to ideas, and the best examples combine both, there is
no definitive explanation of what constitutes an experiment
in typography. As the profession develops and more people
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of
experimentation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
Chapter 2: 19091916 81
History of a new font
(notes on designing Fedra Serif)
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven by
technology. Each wave of technological change in printing
provoked the development of new approaches enabled by
the new possibilities. In the eighteenth century, for example,
new typefaces exploited innovations in papermaking and
improved inking techniques to greatly increase the contrast
between letters thick and thin strokes. The introduction of
pantographic punch- and matrix-cutting in the late nine- 1909 Kalender Vignetten,
teenth century enabled numerous variations of a typeface to J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
be manufactured from a single drawing. This understanding
of the mechanical scaling of forms changed the idea of the
alphabet; it was now a flexible system, resulting in a vast range
of typographic variants compressed, expand-
ed, extruded, ad infinitum. In the mid-twentieth
century the adoption of photocomposition systems
meant that spacing and kerning could be adjusted
with greater precision; among the many novelties
that photo technology enabled, more fonts sim-
ulating connected handwriting were developed.
And most recently the personal computer spurred a
wave of new fonts based on previously unexplored
motives, such as modularity or randomness. With
each of these technological changes, typeface
libraries were updated to reflect the changes.
Type designers are very fond of the problems
imposed by the technology. They work in a
discipline where restrictions and conven-
tions define the frame of work. A problem is
the type designers muse, and in the last dec-
ades we were blessed by enough problems to solve.
While working on the typeface to be called Charter, Matthew
Carter was confronted with a peculiar technical problem.

Early computers were not able to process font files over a
certain kilobyte limit, so Carter quickly offered a solution: a
typeface that would consist mainly of straight lines, thereby
keeping the file size small by limiting the number of points
needed to construct the letters. Proudly he claimed to the
technicians, I think I solved your problem What problem? ary, but by extending and adapting collective knowledge to
the technicians asked; an even quicker fixing of the comput-
ers limitations would render Carters solution useless. each new creation is an answer to what has come before and
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, reducing type design to a response mechanism a
craft detached from its own history. When the idea of cul-
tural progress is supplanted by technological progress, the
more implicit motives of type design, such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of the type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
Carter, alongside many of the great punch-cutters, designers,
and printers, has participated in the sequence of discoveries,
summed up - for the sake of comprehensibility - as History.
They contributed to the History of the profession by respond-
82
1913 The Packard Series of Type,
American Type Founders Company,
Boston
ing to current situations. Their aim was not to reinvent the
existing, but to reveal an unknown aspect of the art itself.
Typefaces designed to fulfill the needs of their times contrib-
ute their small part to the knowledge accumulated across the
centuries; not necessarily by inventing anything revolution-
interested in examples of typefaces whose principal design fea-
contemporary conditions. The spirit of continuity is crucial:
rather some underlying non-typographical idea. In my address
each new typeface contains accumulated knowledge.
So: contemporary type design is necessarily histori-
cal. Typefaces are results of the processes, they are re-
sponses to the conditions in which they were created,
and they immediately take a part in the history.
On the other hand, revivals, or typefaces teleporting their
At the time I was also interested in the idea of irreconcila-
inspirations from concluded periods of time, are unre-
lated to contemporary demands. They discontinue the
series of inventions, becoming a game of pastiche, merely
repeating what has already been created. Revival typefac-
es are, then, ahistorical, as they place themselves outside
their natural history. They create their short-lived par-
allel histories and fail to participate in the big story.
History has been gravely abused, and an excuse for many
misdemeanors, but it always outlasts those who tried to abuse it.
Historys only enemy is the end of the progress. Repeating what
has already been created closes the circle of discoveries. The
value of understanding history as an infinite source of accumu-
lated knowledge is manifest in the intangible processes as much
as the tangible results. The history is driven by intellectual
pursuits. Most historical discoveries are the isolated discoveries
of introvert individuals rather then mainstream technologies.
The Austrian writer Herman Broch, author of a number
of formally inventive and intellectually ambitious novels,
used to repeat this mantra: the sole raison dtre of a novel
is to discover what only the novel can discover. My con-
clusion is equally optimistic: the purpose of type design
is to explore its own possibilities by its own means.
Beauty and Ugliness in Type design
In 2010 I was invited to a design conference in Copenhagen to
speak on the subject of conceptual type. The organisers were
beautiful types that had ever been used in France (up to that
ture was not related to aesthetic considerations or legibility, but
I argued that there is no such thing as conceptual type, since
type design is a discipline defined by its ability to execute an
outcome; the process that transforms the pure idea into a func-
tional font is a critical part of the discipline. Having rejected
the topic of the conference, I nevertheless went on to speculate
on what a true example of a conceptual typeface might be like.
ble differences and how two extremes could be combined
into a coherent whole. As an example, I looked for the
most beautiful typeface in the history of typography as
well as the ugliest one and for a way to meld them.
Chapter 2: 19091916 83
The Beauty
While any choice representing beauty is bound to be very
personal and subjective, many agree that the high-con-
trast typefaces created by Giambattista Bodoni and the
Didot clan are some of the most beautiful in existence.
Bodoni was one of the most widely-admired printers of his
time and considered amongst the finest in the history of the
craft. Thomas Curson Hansard wrote in 1825 that Bodonis
types had that beautiful and perfect appearance, which we
find it difficult and highly expensive to equal. In his Manu-
ale Tipografico of 1818, Bodoni laid down the four principles
of type design from which all beauty would seem to pro-
ceed, namely: regularity, clarity, good taste, and charm.
His close competitors in France were the Didots. Not only
did Franois-Ambroise Didot invent many of the machines
used in printing, but his foundry endeavoured to render
the types more beautifully than his rivals Baskerville and
(later) Bodoni. Some considered Didots works the most
period), though others found them delicate but lifeless.
The Ugliness
I have to admit that dealing with ugliness was a lot more
interesting than revisiting the beauty contests of the classi-
cist printers. The search for ugliness triggers a certain primal,
voyeuristic curiosity, and from the designers perspective
there is simply a lot more space to explore. Capturing beauty
has always been considered the primary responsibility of
the traditional artist, and even now it is rare to find exam-
ples of skilled and deliberate ugliness in type design, (al-
though examples of inexperience and naivet abound).
The eccentric Italian from the middle of the Industrial
Revolution was a clear choice. This reversed-contrast type-
face was designed to deliberately attract readers attention

by defying their expectations. Strokes that were thick in
classical models were thin, and vice versa a dirty trick
to create freakish letterforms that stood out in the in-
creasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
No other style in the history of typography has provoked such
negative reactions as the Italian. It was first presented in Caslon
& Catherwoods 1821 type specimen, and as early as 1825, in
his Typographia Thomas Hansard called the type a typograph-
ic monstrosity. Nicolete Gray called it a crude expression of
the idea of perversity , while others labeled it as degenerate.
The goal of my project was to show just how closely relat-
ed beauty and ugliness are. Donald Knuth, an American
computer scientist with a special interest in typography
identified over 60 visual parameters that control the ap-
pearance of a typeface. I was interested in designing type-
face variations that shared most of these parameters, yet
included both the ugliest and most beautiful letterforms.
Karloff, the result of this project, connects the high
contrast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the
monstrous Italians. The difference between the attrac-
tive and repulsive forms lies in a single design param-
eter, the contrast between the thick and the thin.
I asked Pieter van Rosmalen for help, and both of us worked
on both versions. While at the beginning I looked at the Didot
from Imprimerie Nationale as a reference, Pieter departed from
this model and made the project more personal. We worked
on both models at the same time, trying to be very strict about
mathematically reversing the contrast between two weights.
The advantage of working on both versions together was
that we could adjust both of them to achieve the best forms,
rather than creating one as an afterthought of the other.
Towards the end of the project, I worked with Nikola
Djurek, our frequent collaborator, who helped with in-
terpolation and fine-tuning of the fonts. Having designed
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 84
two diametrically opposite versions, we undertook a ge-
netic experiment with the offspring of the beauty and the
beast, interpolation of the two extremes, which produced
a surprisingly neutral low contrast version. Karloff Neutral
required only minimal intervention, because the master
weights from which it was interpolated were well defined.
The history of History
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven
by technology, each wave of change in printing technology
provoking the development of new approaches to design. In
the eighteenth century, for example, innovations in paper-
making and inking techniques inspired new typefaces with
much higher contrast between the thick and thin strokes of
the characters. The introduction of pantographic punch- and
matrix-cutting in the late nineteenth century enabled numer-
ous variations of a typeface to be manufactured from a single
drawing, transforming typefaces into flexible systems with
vast ranges of typographic variants. In the mid-twentieth 1910 Eine Deutsche Schrift,
Gebr Klingspor,
century the adoption of photocomposition systems meant that Offenbach am Main
spacing and kerning could be adjusted with greater precision,
inspiring (among other things) the development of more
fonts simulating handwriting. Most recently, the personal
computer has spurred a wave of new fonts based on previously
unexplored motifs, such as modularity or random chance.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, however, reducing type design to a response mecha-
nism a craft detached from its own history. When the idea
of cultural progress is supplanted by technological progress,
the less obvious motifs of type design such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 86

The History type system was in development longer than any
other project I ever worked on. Its beginnings can be traced
to the early 1990s when I experimented with decorative
layering systems inspired by 19th century types, trying to
dissect Tuscan typefaces into their structural components.
While most historians and designers regard this period
with horror, and many history books call the typefaces
decadent or regressive, I found Tuscans very charming and
inspirational. I started drawing a layering font that incor-
porated the possibilities of Tuscan types, but because of
arbitrary decision, but I liked the number, as it reflected the 21 work with the layers, activating, deactivating, arranging, setting
centuries of typographic history encompassed by the project. colour, and luminosity. The application generates an open PDF
file which one can then fine tune in Illustrator or some other
Based on a skeleton of Roman inscriptional capitals, Histo-
programme. Using the Remixer is fun, but playing with History
ry includes 21 layers, 21 independent typefaces which share
in InDesign, although is much more work, is probably more
widths and other metric information so that they can be
enjoyable because unexpectedly fresh letterforms result. One
recombined. Thus History has the potential to generate an
can happen across new possibilities, and this game of discov-
infinite number of unique styles through the superimposition
ery was one of the important reasons why I did this project.
of layers encompassing humanist renaissance, transitional,
by Lance Hidy. With the use of Multiple Master, Penumbra 1910 Eine Deutsche Schrift,
baroque, script-like, early grotesque, 19th century vernacular I chose History as a deliberately irreverent, cheeky Gebr Klingspor,
and digital types. While careless use can generate freakish name, but by no means intended it to be disrespectful. can continuously change from sans serif to fully serifed. Offenbach am Main

technological limitations, I never completed the project.
Years later (2002) the project took a new twist as I worked on
a proposal for the Twin Cities typeface. Instead of proposing
one new typeface for St.Paul and Minneapolis, I presented
the idea of a typeface system inspired by the evolution of
typography, a conceptual typeface that reused existing fonts.
I called this proposal History. A user would select History
from the font menu, not knowing what font would be used.
History would be linked with the computers calendar and
with a predefined database of fonts, presenting a different
font every day. For example, one day it would use the forms
of Garamond, but the next day when you opened the same
document, the font would change and present the text in a
new typeface, say Granjon, that was created later than Gara-
mond. The idea was that the constant changes would confront
the user with the continuous development of typography.
And finally around 2004 I started working more intensively
on a system of layering letterforms that could be recombined.
I kept adding new styles, and because every style had to use
the same proportions as the previous one so that they would
work together, it was getting increasingly more complicated to
draw them. The danger was that this could be a never-ending
project, and I could keep adding more and more styles, which
would take more and more time to incorporate. In 2008, I
finally decided to limit the number of styles to 21. It was an
results resembling Frankensteins monster, more careful
experimentation can produce not only amusing, but surpris-
ingly fresh and usable typeface samples. With History, one can
replicate typographic history or, on the other hand, extend it.
For example, you can take a hairline skeleton of letters inspired
by Roman inscriptional capitals from year 80 AD (layer 1),
dress it up with a high contrast of thick and thin strokes as
this project. Of course the history of typography was the
Bodoni used in his work (layer 3), and finally apply 18th century
ultra thin serifs (layer 10) to emulate the style typical of the
work of Didot and Bodoni. Or you can take a low contrast
model of letters with oblique stress (layer 2) and combine it
with bracketed serifs derived from a broad nib pen (layer 8)
to end up with letters reminiscent of Nicolas Jensons Roman
from 1470. Making approximations of historical typefaces
is instructional, but not very interesting, (and frankly, one
should use real Didot or real Jenson typefaces); it is far more
interesting to extend history and mix styles which historically
have not co-existed. Take, for instance, bitmap letterforms
found in early low-resolution computer screens (layer 7), and
combine them with the thin serifs of Bodoni (layer 10) to
get something unexpected. And add the swooshes found in
15th century humanist calligraphy (layer 17) to top it off.
Realising that controlling 21 different layers can be a daunting
task, I proposed to supply not just the 21 font files, but also the
History Remixer application. This web-based software pro-
cesses text input through an interface which allows the user to
It is mostly a direct reference to the fact that I embraced
no single point in the past, but rather a very large part of
history of typography. My sincere intention was to par-
ticipate in the sequence of typographic discoveries and
allow the user to actively engage in this process as well.
I should acknowledge some sources of inspiration behind
primary inspiration. In addition, however, there are some
works which were particularly inspiring to me at the time.
The polyhistorical model of Milan Kunderas Immortality
provided the theoretical foundation of the project in the way
it mixes personalities of the past and present, describing an
imaginary dialogue between, say, the German poet Goethe
(1749-1832) and the American novelist Hemingway (1899-
1961), even though those two could never really have met.
But there are also some precedents in the history of typogra-
phy that allowed me to explore the area of multiform works.
Oswald Coopers experiments from 1936, which involved
applying 15 serifs applied to stems of similar weight to test
their influence in letter design, was of particular interest.
And more recently, Matthew Carters typeface for Walker
Art Center opened my eyes to new possibilities. I should
also mention other useful experiments, such as the early
manifestation of Multiple Master technology documented
in typefaces such as Adobes Penumbra designed in 1994
Some reviews and user responses suggest that History is more
of an educational tool than a functional typeface system. Yes,
surely one can use it to explain and explore the constructions
of Roman letterforms, but I still would like to emphasise
the practical aspect of the system. I sincerely hoped, but
couldnt predict, that fonts would be used commercially.
Running a type foundry for a decade, Ive learnt that though
our clients are often extremely creative professionals, they dont
have time to learn too many new things, and many features of
our fonts go unnoticed. It is all very well and good to create
style sets, extended language support and ways to make sure
that a different (slightly higher) hyphen is used automatically
when the text is converted to capitals, but does it all matter
when most people dont even know what OpenType fonts are?
I dont have precise usage statistics, but my guess is that 90% of
our clients use only the basic character set and never realise that
the font, which they licensed for quite a bit of money, can do a
whole lot more than respond to the computer keys they push.
As evidence I can quote occasional conversations with
users of our fonts who complain that small cap fonts are
missing (when in fact they simply need to be activated by
an OpenType feature), or that when they type English text
it is still in English even though the font claims to support
Russian (indeed the font doesnt translate words automat-
ically, but only renders the content). So does it make sense

to spend nearly 15 years of (discontinuous and at times not
very intense) work on an even more complex font system
that cannot be used properly in Microsoft Word, and is
rather challenging to use in design applications as well?
Now, more than a year after the original publication of History,
I can say that it was probably worth the effort. The fonts are
indeed being used, and I am continually amazed when I see
their real-life applications. I am not sure if I only see the beauti-
ful samples because people dont bother sending me the horrible
ones, or if its the high barrier of difficulty of using History that
puts the system in the hands of dedicated designers. Whatev-
er the reason is, seeing History in use is deeply satisfying.
One things that Ive learned from this project is that despite
the ubiquitous market research in design and the calculated
decisions of designers, it is still worthwhile to do projects that
I personally believe in. Even the day before Historys release I
had no idea if anyone would ever use the system, but that was
less important, as I found the work gratifying, and I focused
on the creative process rather than its market potential. It
is satisfying to see that this naive approach can work even
in a world driven by commercial pressures. It gives me the
courage to dedicate time to personal research which, when
it is rigourous enough, can find its application in the wild.
Font hinting
Hinting, or screen optimising, is the process by which
fonts are adjusted for maximum readability on computer
monitors. I have been designing type since the early 1990s,
and for as long as I can remember, type designers have
been saying that hinting would soon be made obsolete by
new advances in hardware and software. Now, almost 20
years later, hinting seems to be more relevant than ever.
The problem is that typical modern fonts are not designed
primarily for the 7296 dpi resolution of computer screens, but
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 88
for the much higher 1,200+ dpi resolution of print media. The 1912 Neuer Akzidenz- und
Kalender-Schmuck,
letterforms are designed and stored as outlines, mathematically Schriftgieerei C.F. Rhl,
Leipzig
perfect lines and curves which look great at high resolutions,
but can be distorted or even illegible when converted into
groups of pixels, the on-or-off dots that make up a computers
display. And although there has been much discussion about
high-definition computer monitors for decades, the fact of the
matter is that my 5 year old mobile phone still takes photos with
finer detail than my brand new computer can show on its screen.
This is the reason that webpage designers have long been
more or less limited to a dozen or so fonts (Verdana, Georgia,
Arial, etc.) that have been fine-tuned by hand so that typical
text sizes (914pt) display well at low resolutions. These fonts
are so common that most computer users think of them as
free, but the reality is that Verdana, for example, is probably
the most expensive, labor-intensive font ever produced. It
includes characters used to write an extremely wide range of
languages, and each of these characters had to be adjusted
to be readable at every point size between 9 and 60 (at 60pt
the resolution is sufficient to display the letterforms accu-
rately). In other words, each of more than 890 characters
was redesigned dozens of times, once at every point size.
Outlines of Fedra Sans Screen at various sizes. Notice
how different the outlines are in order to achieve
the optimal legibility of screen. Every letter is ba-
sically designed for each point size again.
This is exactly what hinting is about: programming instruc-
tions that fine-tune a fonts rasterisation, the process by which
its mathematically ideal outlines are mapped onto a monitors
pixels. Hinting can control the heights and widths of a fonts
uppercase and lowercase letters, the widths of its individual
lines, the amount of white space around letters, the size at
which uppercase letters start to use different stem-widths from
lowercase letters, how the angle of italic characters changes
to best fit the pixel grid, and many other extremely technical

details, all on a pixel-by-pixel basis. If this sounds like a rather
tedious, time-consuming activity, it is, (even for type designers,
who are accustomed to tedious, time-consuming activities).
Last year there was considerable hype about the @font-face
declaration, a function that makes it possible for a webpage to
display any font, freeing designers from dependence on the
Web-safe fonts and opening new design possibilities (not
the least of which is the creation of visual identities which are
consistent across both print and web media). On the other
hand, this also raises new issues, including poor onscreen
display of non-hinted fonts. And because hinting is tedious,
time-consuming and widely believed to be nearly obsolete,
99% of all fonts, even commercial ones, are non-hinted.
Hinting TrueType and PostScript fonts
Even when fonts are hinted optimum onscreen results are still
not guaranteed, as different font technologies approach hinting
differently. In the PostScript system most of the font scaling
is handled not by the fonts, but by the rasteriser software,
so fonts in PostScript format look often good with relatively
simple hinting or no hinting at all. In the TrueType system,
however, the rasteriser is controlled by sophisticated hinting
instructions contained within the font software; without this
information TrueType fonts do not display well onscreen.
Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. One
advantage of the PostScript system is that the Intelligence is
concentrated in the rasteriser, so any improvement to the ras-
teriser immediately produces better rendering of all PostScript
fonts. Even 20 year old fonts render nicely on the latest Mac.
In the TrueType system, rasteriser updates require all fonts
to be updated as well for optimal results. Thus fonts hinted
for black and white or greyscale rendering will not work as
well with Windows ClearType rasteriser. On the other hand,
TrueType hinting provides direct, pixel-by-pixel control over
the rasterising process, which PostScript hinting does not.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
Macro photography of Apple Mac Book Pro. On LCD
monitors (flat screens) every pixel is made from three
elements which can be controlled separately. Subpixel
rendering takes advantage of the way your eyes perceive
colour, using shades of blue, red and green to simulate
higher screen resolution in horizontal direction.
Mac OS vs. Windows
A lot has been written about how Mac OS renders text com-
pared to Windows. I will not go into details here, but the prima-
ry difference is that Microsofts rasteriser tries to align charac-
ters to whole pixel grid, with the result that Regular weights
look lighter, Bold weights look heavier, and subtle details of
design can be lost at small point sizes. Apples rasteriser tries to
preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, some-
times at the cost of image clarity. Windows rasterising software
produces extremely good results with a few built-in TrueType
fonts, but sub-optimal results with 99% of other typefaces. The
Mac OS Quartz technology ignores font hinting completely and
renders all fonts equally well regardless of their font format.
So lets focus now on Windows this is where hinting
makes a difference and lets focus on TrueType fonts,
which look superior in Windows at the moment.
Hinting Black and White
rendering (Grid-Fitting), 1-bit
Black and white hinting, developed in the days when operating
systems could only turn pixels on or off, controls which pixels
will be displayed at a given point size. This kind of hinting is
called grid-fitting because the outlines of the font are signifi-
cantly modified to fit the pixel grid of the screen. It is the most
time-consuming hinting process, and it takes an experienced
hinter at least 80 hours to hint a single font with the basic
256 character set. Fonts with extensive character sets and/or
numerous styles of course take much longer. This process also
90
usually adds white pixels between characters to improve legi-
bility, which can create a difference in length between printed
and screen versions of a text. Microsofts Verdana and Georgia
are examples of black and white hinted fonts. Newer technol-
ogy has made black and white hinting obsolete and permitted
onscreen results that are much truer to the original letterforms.
Practical Implications
What does all this mean to a type designer? Hinting can
improve the rendering of fonts. But those fonts will be
rendered differently by different rasterisers on different
platforms and often in different applications as well, (com-
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
pare for example text in the Safari and Explorer browsers
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
on the same Windows computer). If the designers inten-
tion is consistent cross-platform rendering, the fonts also
need to use consistent design across similar letters.
It is clear that one day font hinting will finally become obsolete,
but it is not clear when that day will come. The most widely
used operating system in the world, Windows XP (still 58.4%
market share, as of this writing), has ClearType turned off by
default, so unhinted fonts typically do not display well at small
sizes. Whether we like it or not, it looks like hinting will be
around for quite some time. But if you like how fonts display
on the Mac at small sizes, you can take that as proof that it is
already possible to render text well without any hinting at all.
Chapter 2: 19091916 91
1913 Eine Deutsche Schrift,
American Type Founders Company,
Boston
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex-
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)

What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1913 Glass-Antiqua Magere,
Genzsch & Heyse,
Hamburg
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
92
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Graphic Design in the White Cube
Organizing graphic design exhibitions is always problematic:
graphic design does not exist in a vacuum, and the walls of the
exhibition space effectively isolate the work of design from
the real world. Placing a book, a music album, or a poster in a
gallery removes it from the cultural, commercial, and histor-
ical context without which the work cannot be understood.
The entire raison dtre of the work is lost as a side effect of
losing the context of the work, and the result is frozen appear-
ance stripped of meaning, liveliness and dynamism of use.
Presenting design in an exhibition space in this way is akin to
Chapter 2: 19091916 93
looking at a collection of stuffed birds in order to study how
they fly and sing. In spite of this, it is more and more common
to see design as object, not only in books and magazines,
but also in the White cube of the exhibition space.
Graphic designers struggled for a long time for recognition
and professionalization of their field, and exhibits are con-
sidered one way of promoting the trade aspect of design.
Everyone is happy: the designer whose work was selected by
the institution; the original client who received an admired
and acclaimed design, and the gallery which acquires the work
to be presented. Work designed for a completely different
purpose is recycled, and re-presented in a foreign environ-
ment. The same scenario is even more common in design
publishing, and nearly instant books full of vague collections
of work with little or no commentary take up increasingly
more space on designers shelves, crowding out other books
which are more laborious to research, write and publish.
A more recent trend is design which refuses to be seen only
as an object of consumerism but draws parallels with art,
reflecting the autonomy of the designer in his work,
as well as a willingness to initiate projects himself.
This generation of designers is not the first
one that doesnt rely solely on clients to
come up with project briefs. Renowned
Dutch designer Karel Martens, who
taught some of the designers repre-
sented in this exhibition, has done
uncommissioned, artistic work apart
from his design career. Building on
the tradition of the experimental
printing of fellow designers such
as Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman or
Willem Sandberg, Martens prints
and collages were done in his spare
time as studies and experiments which
fueled his other, more practical design

work. Some designers today however integrate self-initiat-
ed work into their daily practice, no longer distinguishing
between projects done in and outside of their working hours.
Self-initiated work in graphic design is becoming increasing-
ly more important for designers, starting up projects which
probably would otherwise never see the light of day. The
group of people who work in this way is still marginal, and it
is no surprise that most of them live in countries with pros-
perous economies, occasionally receiving cultural funding
to facilitate their unconventional approach to their work.
Graphic design has for a long time been defined as a service
of a designer for a client, rooted in external impulses rather
than internal ones. Design work done without a client hangs
1909 Zieraten,
J.G. Schelter & Giescke, in a limbo between art and design. Graphic design is a fairly
Leipzig
young profession, and as such still in a state of development. It
is expanding to encompass various activities: writing, organiz-
ing, conceptualizing, reflecting. This is no longer design which
is only defined by business cards and logos. Here we come to
a problem of definition: until now I have been using the term
graphic design with the assumption that everyone knows what
it means. Especially in the context of the 22nd International
Biennale of Graphic Design Brno with its 43 years of history,
people have created expectations of what a typical graphic
design exhibition might include. Let us understand graphic
design then, to mean a field in flux which is as flexible as the
work that it embraces. Unlike the work of other professionals,
the work of a designer is not restricted or defined by its content;
in fact designers are trained to accommodate and express vari-
ous, often contradicting ideas. It is a ghost discipline as Stuart
Bailey writes: graphic design only exists when other subjects
exist first. It isnt an a priori discipline, but a ghost; both a grey
area and a meeting point Bailey calls attention to an area
that many designers struggle with: the way that they refer to
their activity in their field transcends the established notion of
its definition. Designers represented in the exhibition Graphic
Design in the White Cube move fluently between the worlds
Chapter 2: 19091916 95
of art, design, music, theatre and writing. I and everyone I
work with just think of what we do as merely work. I studied
typography and graphic designthats my background and
it informs what I dobut now I do a variety of work, which
may or may not come under those headings, says Bailey in a
recent interview. Others such as French designers M/M Paris
directly challenge the definition of graphic design: graphic
design could embody a lot of activities, and the definition is
not fixed, but continually evolving. Because it is still a new
profession, the best graphic designers are the ones who reinvent
their field and surprise. Members of Amsterdam-based design
studio Experimental Jetset say that limited notion of design is a
misunderstanding: personally, we situate the birth of modern
graphic design somewhere roughly between Marinettis Futur-
ist manifestos, Piet Zwarts leaflets for the Dutch Cable Factory,
and Kurt Schwitters Merz publications (to name some obvious
examples). So in our understanding, graphic design has always
been an area where very different elements are synthesized:
art, politics, poetry, industry, etc. In their view, all the people
invited to exhibit here are then part of this great tradition, and
are graphic designers in the traditional sense of the word.
M/M, Bailey and Experimental Jetset are no
strangers to the gallery world. M/M has held
numerous solo exhibitions in prestigious
art galleries and collaborated on major
events (Venice Biennales). Bailey has
directed theatre performances and
more recently together with David
Reinfurt (Dexter Sinister) is in-
volved in organizing Manifesta 6,
the European Biennial of Contem-
porary Art in Cyprus, where they set
up a model of economic production,
responsible for all publishing activ-
ities of the Manifesta 6 school. Jetset
activities include solo exhibitions in
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1915 Neue Schriften und Ornamente,
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
Frankfurt am Main
96
galleries in London, Utrecht and Arnhem, and group
shows in SFMOMA San Francisco, Kunsthal Rotterdam,
or Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam amongst others.
In 2005, M/M were invited to Paris contemporary art museum
Palais de Tokyo to exhibit their work next to major artworks
of the late 20th century in an exhibition which featured works
by a variety of artists including Joseph Kosuth, Jeff Koons,
Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Takashi Murakami and
Mike Kelley. The intentions of the exhibition was to explore
how different contexts cause the same work to be read in
different ways, blurring the boundaries between disciplines.
graphic design, because of its ubiquitous nature, makes a
considerable impact on the visual culture that surrounds us,
so it makes a lot of sense to study this influence and critically
discuss the work in the context of other visual arts as well.
When presented in a museum however, the exhibition should
attempt more than just passive presentation in glass cases.
The isolated work lacks any real information about the rea-
sons and processes behind it. What needs to become evident
is the explicit purpose of the work, to see things otherwise
inaccessible, otherwise the visitor is better off going to any
bookstore or strolling down a busy street to get first hand
experience of and physical interaction with graphic design.
There have been some design exhibitions which attempt to
deal with these issues. Rick Poynor recently organized a
major retrospective of British graphic design entitled Com-
municate first held in London, now travelling world wide.
The exhibition sets out to examine graphic designs influence
on contemporary culture, highlighting experimental work
created by designers who arent limited by working to fulfill a
commercial clients brief. The exhibition occupied eight rooms
of the Barbican Art Gallery, and Poynor, whose background
is in journalism and publishing, organized these rooms as
chapters of a book, each section presenting a different aspect
of work, with introductory texts explaining each section of
Chapter 2: 19091916 97
the exhibition. The points and comparisons of the work were
made through careful visual editing of the presented pieces.
Another example is the exhibition of Dutch graphic design
that I was asked to organize a few years ago for the Brno
Biennale. Given the fact that for practical reasons the work
was to be displayed in a gallery space involving a certain
degree of isolation of graphic design, the presentation at-
tempted to clarify its function more, sketching out the trian-
gle of client-designer-public. Since the work of the designer
was brought to the gallery to be judged by the local public,
the focus was on presenting the missing component, that is,
providing space for the clients. The words of the commis-
sioners in the formulation of the original brief were present-
ed instead of the designers retrospective comments. The
original brief illuminated the purpose of the work, while the
public could evaluate how successfully it communicated.
However, a retrospective attempt to recreate the context for a
work may not be the ultimate solution either and has its own
pitfalls, as Experimental Jetset points out: theres also some-
thing false about it: trying to recreate the outside world
inside a museum/gallery, as if the museum/gallery is not a
valid context in itself. In our opinion, in these cases, we think
that its best to underline the museum context as much as
possible, to be brutally honest that the context in which the
object is shown is totally different from the context the object
was originally designed for.So it is in this context that we set
to organize a graphic design exhibition, with the intention
of the commissioner, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, to pres-
ent to the public certain specific aspects and tendencies of
contemporary graphic design worldwide. Being extremely
self-conscious, we propose a possibility: instead of bringing
work from the outside to the gallery, lets make the work for the
gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibits, lets
make the gallery conditions the context for the work. Nine-
teen designers and collectives were commissioned to design a
poster for the design exhibition in which they participate. The
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 98

posters will function on two levels: the collection of posters is persuasion, blatantly including them in the design. The cover 1915 Neue Schriften und Ornamente,
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
to constitute the exhibition, and copies of the posters will be of the album reads: This is a RECORD COVER. This writ- Frankfurt am Main

spread around the city to inform visitors about the exhibition.
This is obviously a dangerous snake-eating-its-own-tail strategy,
yet the self-referential nature of the brief makes it possible to
illustrate otherwise invisible mechanics of the work process.
The usual conditions of design are created in the gallery:
designers were directly commissioned to make the poster in
four weeks time, were offered a (minimal) design fee, and
were asked to treat the commission just like any other projects
they work on. What is perhaps unusual about the exhibi-
tion is that it makes some invisible components visible. The
original brief of the project is dominantly presented in the
exhibition, as are all sketches that the designers made. The
objective is not to lionize the work, or create easy material for
value judgment, but to uncover the process of work, present-
ing all the sketches that designers made, including those not
leading anywhere. Failures can provide more information
about visual art than just a presentation of its successes.
ing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is
to help to SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention
to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done
that maybe youll be persuaded to listen to the music in this
case XTCs Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The
idea being that the more of you that you buy this record the
more money Virgin Record, the manager Ian Reid and XTC
themselves will make. [] The text goes on to call the buyer
a victim, explaining the tricks of marketing, suggesting that it
is foolish to buy a product based on the design of the cover.
Our strategy for the exhibition was to strip the design
process of its deceptive aura, propose a possible format
for design exhibitions, and yet present everything that
a visitor to a graphic design show might expect.

The focus on itself, the self-referential nature of the project is

certainly not new. It has been explored in fine art for a long
time, one famous example being Ren Magrittes seeming
contradiction Ceci nest pas une pipe, which questions the
representation of objects in art. In the 1960s, Sol LeWitt
and other conceptual artists worked on reducing the artis-
tic process to its bare elements. Four Basic Kinds of Lines &
Colour, is a book project investigating basic book printing
techniques. Using standard CMYK colours, LeWitt drew
lines at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degree angles following the standard
angles of reproduction techniques. Starting with four inks,
he was able to mix 16 elementary colours, and using different
densities of the black ink, also 16 grayscale equivalents.

One of the most brilliant self-referential works of design is

XTCs album Go 2 (1978) designed by British art design
group Hipgnosis which exposes the mechanics of marketing
Chapter 3
19171924
Conceptual Type?
A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is dependent
on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the process that
transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a critical
part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed, it is
not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as Three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433, for example, or some definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence
all craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen-
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 48X48 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
Romain du Roi, a typeface commissioned by King Louis
XIV in 1692, for the exclusive use of the royal printer.
More recently, a type design project that approached the
Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme
such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
104
1924 Deutiche Unzeigenichrift,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts
that rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The
fonts ranged from purely formal exercises to completely
abstract shapes independent from Latin construction, pur-
ported new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term concep-
tual: very often it is simply synonymous with Idea or Inten-
tion. Since every act of creation arguably stems from intent, re-
gardless of the function of the product, is every artwork, object
or typeface therefore conceptual? Mel Bochner, American con-
ceptual artist, disliked the label conceptual, because the word
concept is not always defined entirely clearly, and is therefore
in danger of being confused with the authors intention.
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors,
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is
probably no other discipline where the difference between the
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great.
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug-
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek

government buildings, banks and the American embassy
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated
Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa-
nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra
Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence.
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite ob-
vious that the type designer has no actual say in how the
typeface is actually used. While the concept of the type-
face might be very clever and original, what happens
when the typeface is never used the way it was intended?
Does it make the typeface less inventive? How about a
font which never gets to be used? Can it still be called a
font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated
that destruction could also be conceptual art. According
to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a chance to
be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 when
a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and all
the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases of
completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility, he could
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write
code that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
creation, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools
we use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves to
reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools. One
Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the
structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways.
By deciding to design the process rather than controlling
the end result, Letterror embraced the possibilities of un-
expected results. It is the machine that makes the type.
Ill conclude with one of my current projects, for which the
background idea is more interesting than the resulting forms.
For centuries, art has been defined as something that gives
rise to an aesthetic experience. Capturing beauty and avoid-
ing ugliness were considered to be the prime responsibilities
of the traditional artist. In this still untitled project I have
tried to identify the most beautiful examples of typography
known to mankind. I settled on a series of serif typefaces
designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th century.
In the second step, I tried to identify the ugliest examples of
type that we know. That was a bit more difficult, but finally
the prize went to eccentric Italian from the middle of the
Industrial Revolution. This reversed-contrast typeface was
designed to deliberately attract readers attention by defy-
ing their expectations. Strokes that were thick in classical
models were thin, and strokes that were thin became thick
a dirty trick to make freakish letters that stand out in the
increasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
This project (later released under the name Karloff) is not
interesting because of the forms, which have been explored
before, but because it creates a tight link between the two
extremes, between the beauty and the ugliness. Time will tell
if this project finds some suitable application, or whether it
remains purely an aesthetic exercise, a conceptual type.
106 107
Designing Type Systems
I remember a conversation from back in my student days
where my typophile friends and I debated what the ultimate
typeface of the 20th century was, a typeface that summed
up all of the eras advancements and knowledge into a co-
herent whole, one that would be a reference for years to
come. Helvetica was one of the candidates for its sheer ubiq-
uity, proof of its overall acceptance. Another, more subtle
proposal was Jan van Krimpens Romulus, one of the first
typefaces to have related Sans and Serif versions. And an-
other, my personal pick, was Univers by Adrian Frutiger.
Univers goes beyond the quest to design individual letters,
attempting instead to design space, to create a system of rela-
tionships between different sets of shapes which share distinc-
tive parameters. Prior to Univers, type designers concerned
themselves with the relationships between letters of the same
set, how an 'a' is different from a 'b'. Univers creates a situation
in which there are as of many different shapes, and each has to
be positioned on the axes of weight and width, distributed suffi-
ciently far away from the next, but no further, in order to create
a usable system. How heavy ought the Medium to be in order to
leave space for yet another weight, the Bold, and how will this
translate into a design with condensed proportions? These were
all new questions for type designers, and Frutiger opened up
completely new territory for those who were to come after him.
Thanks to Frutiger it is now common practice to pro-
duce a dozen or more styles when working on a new type
family. In terms of typeface innovation there is much
more room for originality than when you only look at the
individual lettershapes. Thus to create truly useful new
works, type designers need to examine not only how char-
acters relate to each other within a style, but also how
different styles relate to each other within a family.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 108 Chapter 3: 19171924 109

Gardener vs Architect 1923 Dolmen von Max Salzmann,

J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig

Ive designed large typeface families before. Fedra, for example,

now has over 116 individual styles supporting 170 languages,
and has been used in the most complex typographic situa-
tions from dictionaries to newspapers, Bibles and information
graphics. But it is not really an example of a font designed to
be a typographic system from the start. It started in 2001 as
a relatively small family of Sans, and over the next 10 years
it grew to include Serif, Monospaced, Condensed and Dis-
play styles, as well as different language versions. Fedra is an
example of a bottom to top approach, in which a relatively
simple design gets larger and more complicated over time.
Composer Brian Eno calls this the gardeners approach:
nurturing simple things towards greater complexity, carefully
planting seeds, and helping them grow to their full potential.

The opposite organising principle, again in Enos words, is the

architects approach. An architect traditionally starts with a
concept, developing the complete idea first, working from top
to bottom. History (2008) is an example of the architectural
approach, in which each individual style contributes to a greater
purpose, sharing proportions with the rest of the family.

History (2008) as an example of the architectural ap-

proach and Fedra (2001-2010) as an example of the
gardener approach to creating a type family.

Greta Sans is another example of this approach. It has been

carefully planned from the outset, designed as a system
of interrelated styles. From the very beginning, work pro-
ceeded on multiple styles simultaneously; not only when
sketching the extreme and middle styles on paper, but also
when converting the resulting shapes into digital format,
the emphasis was on testing how certain letterforms react to
extremely compressed dimensions as well as very generous
ones. Only after being tested at each end of the proposed
spectrum would the designs be selected and adopted into the

typeface family-to-be. Each glyph would have to anticipate
all its variations and maintain a basic structure that could
function across all designated width and weight variations.
Different design masters were conceived and drawn at the
same time, investigating how the same design characteris-
tics would be translated into extreme weights and widths.
The Problem With the System
The nature of systems is to dictate a certain direction; the
role of designers is to recognise when the original design idea
ceases to work within the system, and then to create exceptions
to the system rather than letting the system have a negative
impact on the design. In large type families of related styles
this impact is usually that while the starting point is usually
characteristic and recognisable, the design becomes blander
and less interesting as it is stretched across its variations. My
intention was to design a highly flexible system while also
ensuring that the resulting shapes were not just compromises,
but maintained the strong personality of the Greta typeface.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1924 Edel Grotesk,
Ludwig Wagner AG,
Leipzig
Sketches from 1917:
planning the Greta Sans type system.
For example, at the lighter end of the weight axis, the cir-
cular dot over I, (or in diacritics and punctuation) has to
become a rectangle to avoid becoming too small. On the
width axis, shapes would sometimes have to be modified
even more dramatically: the double storey g typical for
Greta becomes a single storey g in Compressed width, where
the lack of space demanded greater simplification. Dollar
and cent signs have full crossbars in the wider versions, but
divided crossbars in the condensed versions. Dozens of
other changes happen when taking the design to extreme
dimensions, in order to maintain the general design char-
acteristics and preserve the natural look of the shapes.
Some of the exceptions to the linear interpolation of
the Greta Sans type system: dots change from circu-
lar to rectangular; dollar signs lose their crossbars, and
g uses a single-storey form in Compressed widths.
While the Fedra Sans family was created from two design
masters, Light and Bold, (Book, Demi and Medium were
interpolated), Greta Sans 13 design masters were individual-
ly designed, as were another 13 masters for italics, and all 26
included Small Caps. The masters (Hairline, Regular, Black),
were interpolated and expanded to 10 weights. Four widths
were imagined and implemented, resulting in 80 styles.
The process of drawing Greta Sans started in the middle of the
imagined design space (1), and from there the extremes were
explored (2). The idea was to adapt the design to the available
proportions, while preserving the main design characteristics.
When creating the design masters, we made the heavy weight as
heavy as possible, even when those exact weights would not be
used. It is easy to interpolate and make the Black weight lighter;
making it heavier is complicated. This allowed us to keep the
design space as large as possible (3), and reduce it later when
110
we made the final selection of styles. We decided not to use the
Compressed Black as a master, and stepped it down one weight.
We also dropped extra-compressed styles. On the other hand,
we added an extra weight to the Extended styles (Super), when
we saw there was available space at that end of the spectrum.
Continuous Optical Sizes
In the earliest age of movable type, optical sizes became the
main organising principle of typefaces. For example, Jannons
caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s include numerous
optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points, each slightly
different. The design of the typeface would be reinterpreted
at each given point size, often resulting in different weights,
different proportions, different letter spacing. These differ-
ent designs would blend into a harmonious size progression
and function as one design. Optical sizes disappeared with
the transition from hot metal press to photocomposition
sometime in the 1950s. After about 50 years of neglect op-
tical sizes have made a comeback, and many typefaces now
come with versions specifically designed for text and display
applications. Optical sizes, however, represent a range of
variations. In the old days, as in the Jannon example, type-
faces would come in as many as 15 optical versions. All the
in-between sizes progressively added or removed features,
getting continuously darker and looser when meant for small
sizes, or continuously lighter and tighter for large sizes. The
word continuously is important here. There werent text or
display versions as is common now. Each size was discretely
adjusted for to maintain the characteristics of the typeface.
Jannons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s includes system to a number of non-Lat-
15 optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points. On the left
is a 7pt sample scaled 425% to match the 36pt version. Note
the difference in contrast between the thick and thin strokes,
and overall differences in details between the two versions.
Chapter 3: 19171924 111
Greta Sans was designed as a continuous optical size system.
While the basic text styles (Regular) are spaced and kerned
for small sizes, the surrounding extremes (Hairline, Black)
are designed to be used as Display types, and therefore
tightly spaced and kerned. The resulting interpolation then
runs continuously from Display to Text to Display use. A
similar pattern (Extended, Condensed, Extended) can be
seen on the width axis, as the Normal styles are most suited
for small text, and extremes are optimised for large sizes.
Design Space
While the key characteristics of most typefaces are defined
by the outlines of the letterforms, Greta Sans design also
1923 Dolmen von Max Salzmann,
extends to the gaps between styles. All its characteris- J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
tics, including the visual contrast between styles, weights
and widths have been orchestrated into a unified typeface
system. Greta Sans explores the entire space of possibil-
ities and is designed for extraordinary design flexibility.
It is a toolbox that addresses a broad spectrum of design
situations from the simplest to the most complex, offer-
ing multiple options for establishing a visual hierarchy.
Next
Gretas Latin fonts set up some formal parameters, but the
most exciting phases of this project are still to come. While
such a versatile system of similar propor-
tions is rare within the context of Latin
typefaces, it is unheard of in the domain of
non-Latin type. We intend to bring this
in styles planned for 201314.
There is no reason why only
Latin type should benefit from
these advances in typography.
 112
1924 Deutsche Anzeigenschrift,
D. Stempel, Type design competitions
Frankfurt am Main
Last autumn I was in Buenos Aires, where I sat on the jury
for Letter2, a type design competition. Just like bukva:raz!,
the first AtypI competition in 2001, Letter2 celebrates
the best typefaces produced over the past decade. Out of
561 submitted entries the jury selected 53 that represent
the previous decade based on their design excellence.
No sooner had the results been announced than the wheels
of the font marketing machine rolled into action as some
of the selected designers and foundries began to trumpet
that their typefaces were among the best of the decade.
But best of the decade is a somewhat problematic assertion
because not all designers have an equal appetite for competi-
tions. While some award-hungry designers actively seek out
all kinds of contests and prizes, others simply ignore them. So
the promise of best of the decade is reduced to best of the
submissions. And very often the submissions dont include the
highest quality work. For example, renowned author and type
designer Fred Smeijers hasnt participated in type competitions
for almost 20 years. Gerard Unger, another celebrated Dutch
type designer, enters competitions only rarely. Unger says, I
want younger designers to have a chance. And in fact these
events typically include a disproportionately high number
of young designers looking for recognition of their work.
Matthew Carter is designer whose work has received numer-
ous awards, and FontBureau, the foundry which has released
most of his fonts, sometimes submits them to competitions.
But Carter himself says, I have become less interested in
competing with other type designers and more concerned
with helping the acceptance of type design as something on
a par with other forms of graphic and industrial design.
Frantiek torm, an established Czech type designer
gives a more pragmatic reason for avoiding competi-
tions: I simply have no time for it. But then he adds, I
Chapter 3: 19171924 113
do however feel that contests are for the young design-
ers. Older designers that otherwise might clearly win
them should find something more worthwhile to do.
And finally, Peter Verheul, a Dutch designer of high profile type-
faces, never sends his work to competitions, one reason being
that the judging criteria are inherently vague. there is no expla-
nation why a typeface has been picked to become a winner, says
Verheul. I dont really believe that a fair judgement is possible,
given the different nature and diversity of the material to judge.
Of course, one might say it is easy for recognised designers
not to participate in contests; they have won them all already.
However while the stated aim of the contest is to recognise type
design professionals, almost a third of the selected projects are
by non-professional designers entering their student projects.
So what is the value of these competitions? Do they rec-
ognise talent and stimulate creation? Or is it just cheap
marketing? And is there a viable alternative? Borrowing
inspiration from such prestigious awards as the Turner Prize
or the Nobel Prize, one could imagine replacing the call
for entries with a committee of experts who would nom-
inate the best work. But the type design profession is so
small and insular, with no outside critics or curators, that
assembling a committee of recognised experts would nec-
essarily exclude a large percentage of possible contenders.
Type design competitions will likely remain problemat-
ic as long as the type design community remains so small.
Perhaps organisers should accept the fact that such com-
petitions often fail to attract well-established profession-
als, and focus their events on younger designers. Perhaps
this emphasis on younger designers could include making
the judging public, so that all can benefit from the jurors
feedback. And perhaps we should all learn to take the pub-
licised results of such competitions with a grain of salt.

What is Typography?
Before starting any discussion or argument it is useful to define
the terminology and to make sure that the words which are
used are generally understood. Typography is a craft has been
practiced since the Gutenbergs invention of the movable type.
According to the latest Encyclopedia Britannica core definition
of typography is that typography is concerned with the deter-
mination of the appearance of the printed page. Other diction-
aries, such as Collins English Dictionary from 2004 define the
typography as the art, craft or process of composing type and
printing from it. Understood this way, no typography was made
before mid-15 century, as it is strictly linked to the invention of
the Printing Type. Understood this way, digitally created letters
that appear on an electronic screen also escapes this definition.
That is of course problem of definitions, which are not as
flexible as the activities which they define. In the Royal
Academy of Arts in The Hague, where I teach part time, most
useful definition of typography comes from the long term
teacher Gerrit Noordzij, saying that typography is writing
with prefabricated letters. Unlike the dictionary definitions,
this one is deliberately avoiding connecting typography to
any specific medium, as they tend to change, yet the disci-
pline continues evolving. Noordzijs definition also implies
a complete distinction from lettering, handwriting or graf-
fiti, which are also concerned with creating letter-shapes,
but dont offer a repeatable system of setting these letters.
Digital technologies stimulated unprecedented possibili-
ties which blur even most open definitions of typography.
If repetition of shapes was the central concept of typog-
raphy, many designers are working in ways that challenge
this concept. OpenType fonts can include random features,
which can simulate unpredictable behavior of handwriting,
or simply present seemingly incoherent library shapes.
For the past year, Ive been working with dancers from Neth-
erlands Dance Theatre in The Hague on creating a tool which
translates text into simple choreographies. User types a
word in a typesetting-like application which plays back this
word as an uninterrupted dance sequence where dancers
body temporarily makes positions recognizable as letters.
Is this typography? Project like this, as many others using exist-
ing digital possibilities seems not much worried about it, but use
typographic principles to create autonomous work which cross
boundaries of various disciplines. It seems that typography
itself matured into a new creative discipline in which majority
of typographers work in a way which is guided by historical
understanding of the word, yet there is room for experimen-
tation which explores the boundaries of the profession.
In other disciplines, such debate is in fact a sign of new self-con-
sciousness. Novelist Milan Kundera argues that a contempo-
rary novel is no longer defined as a fictional narrative in prose,
but can include various forms of writing: poetry, short-story,
or interview. Kunderas books include parts which are philo-
sophical, political, comical, while still being firmly part of a
novel. The ability to absorb these various forms is Kunderas
definition of novel. Similarly, larger understanding of typog-
raphy, which is no longer defined by technology, but evolves
with it, may open this discipline to new create endeavors.
115
Left 1921 Abendschule Fur Das Handelsfach,
H. Berthold AG
Berlin
Right 1922 Groffert,
D. Stempel
Leipzig
A View of Latin Typography in
Relationship to the World
It is generally acknowledged that it was Gutenberg who
invented movable type printing in 1436. It is generally for-
gotten that what is missing in that statement is the necessary
qualifier in Europe. Thanks to the present-day dominance
of Latin script we have largely forgotten that there are parallel
histories outside of Europe, but the first recorded movable type
system was more likely created in China around 1040 AD by
Bi Sheng. His early type was made of wood, which was later
abandoned in favour of baked clay, which produced smoother
imprints. Unlike Latin script which uses 26 letters, Chinese
script uses thousands of characters, making type composi-
tion particularly complicated. Nevertheless, movable type
has been in continuous use in China since the 11th century.
Elsewhere too, printing progressed. Choe Yun-ui, a Korean
civil minister, made the transition from wood to metal mov-
able type around 1230 AD. Metal movable type was also
invented independently of the Koreans in China during the
Ming Dynasty. During the Mongol Empire movable type
moved further west. According to legend, Laurens Janszoon
Coster, a respected citizen of Haarlem, could have been the
first European to invent movable type, if the account present-
ed by Hadrianus Junius is true. But the story is not widely
believed, which brings us back to Johannes Gutenberg of
Mainz, who invented movable type a decade later. In Europe.
Even today, typography as a discipline continues to be
plagued by a Euro-centric bias. If any of the major typogra-
phy reference books are to be believed, the development of
typography has generally been limited to Western Europe.
In Type & Typography (2002), the otherwise excellent book
by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, the authors make a note
that the history of writing and the alphabet goes back thou-
sands of years, but they do not elaborate more on this. It goes
without saying that their history of typography is only the
history of Latin-based typography. Other books are even
more blunt when it comes to the scope they cover. Classic
volumes such as Updikes obviously nationalistic Printing
Type, first printed in 1922, or Harry Carters also already
somewhat dated A View of Early Typography (1969) can be
overlooked. But even recent books such Designing Type
(2005) by Karen Cheng or A Typographic Workbook (2005)
by Kate Clair & Cynthia Busic-Snyder dont bother to mention
that there is more to typography than Latin typography.
Most of the existing typographic classification systems also
apply exclusively to Latin type. In catalogues of the tradi-
tional type foundries such as French Imprimerie Nationale,
the house of Garamont, Didot and Romain du Roi, typefaces
other than Latin are referred as Orientales. Most contem-
porary digital type foundries such as Monotype call these
fonts Non-Latin. These terms certainly have rather colo-
nial overtones, suggesting the idea of the other, describing
foreign scripts in negative terms as non-European. In other
disciplines, language and terminology have adjusted to the
wider environment of the global village, reflecting the pro-
gress that the society has made in the last couple of decades,
and we no longer find a boxed set of paints with the name
flesh given to a light beige color. Only typography contin-
ues to display a shameless bias towards western civilization.
Some common type terminology is also inappropriate for
typefaces which didnt evolve in Western Europe. The term
Roman is customarily used to describe serif typefaces of the
early Italian Renaissance period. More recently, the term has
also come to denote the upright style of typefaces, as opposed
to the word Italic, which refers to cursive typefaces inspired
by the handwriting of Italian humanists. Thus Linotype offers
fonts called Sabon Greek Roman and Sabon Greek Italic, (de-
signed by Jan Tchichold), based on 16th century models. But
by using terminology which is typically associated with Latin
type and evokes the history of Italian typography, Linotype
makes a careless statement. Greek Roman and Greek Italic
are contradictions in terms, mixing two very different histo-
ries. Such slanted versions of Greek or Cyrillic types should
properly be described in more technical terms such as inclined,
oblique, or cursive. Roman and Italic suggest that the Greek
version has been Latinised, borrowing too much not only of
the terminology but also of the formal characteristics of Latin
type, ignoring the rich Greek traditions of typography.
The news is not all bad, however. Recent changes in technology
such as the introduction of the Unicode system and Open-
Type font format have inspired type designers to consider the
previously overlooked domain of non-Latin typography. It is
estimated that in the last decade, more Greek fonts were created
than in the entire preceding century. Books such as Language,
Culture, Type (2002) have been published, promoting cultur-
al pluralism, admitting that English and the Latin alphabet
account for only one segment of global communications today.
(According to 2006 Encarta statistics, the number of native
English speakers is less than the number of native Hindi and
Arabic speakers, and roughly one-third the number of native
Chinese speakers.) Such books are very important because
they also present models for alphabets less explored than the
Latin one, and offer a comprehensive history of their use.
In his concise book, The Solid Form of Language (2004),
Robert Bringhurst proposes a new classification system
of worlds various written languages and scripts. This
approach promotes a consciously inclusive approach
to typography, and considers the whole history of hu-
manity and its relationship to script and meaning.
The new possibilities are exciting for designers working
with non-Latin type. There is a modest interest in Arabic,
Cyrillic, Greek, or Indic scripts, and even type design com-
petitions have responded to the new situation by creating
special categories. The new development is also good news
even for designers working exclusively with Latin typog-
raphy: while we might think that most of the possibilities
1924 Deutiche Unzeigenichrift,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
of Latin type have been explored, traditions of typography
from Greece, the Middle East, India and elsewhere can help
us to rediscover how we understand Latin type today.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex-
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.

It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
118
1922 Groffert,
D. Stempel
Leipzig
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
Chapter 3: 19171924 119
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Dutch type design
The Netherlands is a small country with
some 15 million inhabitants. It is flat, and
has no geographical particularities. It
is situated on the western border of
Germany, the north of France and
Belgium, and the east of England
across the North Sea. As a compara-
tively small country, the Dutch people
have always felt the influence of surrounding countries. If
they attempted to be a part of international styles, they risked
dissolving the national characteristics of the small nation.
On the other hand, if they tried to stay untouched by foreign
influence and keep to themselves, they could easily fall into
provincialism. However, they have succeeded in creating
one of the most remarkable and outstanding cultures.
The homeland of Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg,
Gerrit Rietveld and Piet Zwart now produces designs of the
highest abstractiondesigns of letters. Holland today has

more type designers per capita than any other country in the
world, a remarkable fact considering that there is now not
one surviving Dutch type foundry, says Gerard Unger, one
of the most important typographers in Holland. Unger, a
very active typeface designer and lecturer, stands somewhere
between the classic typeface designers and the experimental
ones. Among Ungers work are the typeface for the Amster-
dam Metro, Demos, Praxis, ITC Flora designed for Hell
company, Amerigo and Oranda for Bitstream, and his latest
drawings include the newspaper faces Swift and Gulliver.
According to Unger, this has to do with the low-lying land
and cool skies of the Netherlands. Hollander is one of my
designs to reflect the inescapable Dutch horizon. The hori-
zontal parts of the curves are stretched, the resultant gentle
arches combining with the large serifs to assist the letters in
joining visually to make words and lines, describes Unger the
typeface that follows the best traditions of Dutch typography.
Is it possible that the physical character of the landscape
forms characteristics of graphic design? For the answer to
this question we go back to the beginning of the century.
While most of Europe accepted Art Nouveau as the last
international-spread art movement that influenced archi-
tecture, craft, and fine arts, the Dutch rejected Art Nouveau
as frivolous. Dutch artists considered themselves pragmatic
and realistic. Thus, they rather turned themselves towards
conventional realism that later evolved into abstraction.
Forty years ago, the Dutch society was still solidly bourgeois,
puritanical and strongly influenced by religion. It is the change
after the second world war from a politically neutral country
to an active member of transatlantic and European alliances
that had far-reaching cultural effects. It totally changed the
Dutch perception of their own nationality, and revised the
traditional Dutch values. From a very religious country the
Netherlands developed into one of the most liberal societies
in the world. Life in the Netherlands became much more
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
open and hedonistic oriented. The prosperity of the nation
in the 60s also helped to create a mood of great expectation;
instead of looking abroad for models, the Dutch understood
the advantages of being themselves. No, this was not a sudden
turn in the history of the nation; the Dutch stayed as they
have always been, open towards international developments.
It is very unlikely that the countryside (even though it is
so remarkable in its flatness) is the only determinant of art
development in the Netherlands, although it is undoubtedly
a source of inspiration for Dutch artists. Holland has always
been an unusually tolerant place. It is the place with many
political parties, many different views and opinions. Individ-
uality here is a very important element. It seems that with
the world-wide availability of graphic software, the nation-
al characteristics of graphic design and typography would
disappear. How is it possible that there is such a phenomenon
as Dutch design in todays international style? And, what are
the characteristics of Dutch design? Reading the art history
books, I can say that realism, sobriety, outspokenness, clari-
ty, moral integrity, and social responsibility were frequently
marked as typical Dutch virtues. But these characteristics
do not in themselves define style. And even if they did, the
same qualities are related to Modernism (International style),
another movement that didnt influence Holland very much.
The Dutch found their own interpretation of Modernism.
Gerard Unger in his essay Dutch landscape with letters wrote:
the national character is only one of the components needed
for a recognizable style of type design. The chief elements of
style are the product not merely of the country, region or city in
which the designer happens to live, they are also molded by his
own personal qualities and the age in which he works. Maybe a
foreign observer can better describe what is hard to see for the
Dutch themselves. Erik Spiekermann, a German typographer,
puts it like this: All the Dutch type designs I know, even the
historical ones, have a vertical oval as one of their basic shapes.
They are narrow compared with French designs like the types
120
of Excoffon, which are actually broader at the
top than they are at the bottom. Clarity and
openness and high contrast are also clearly
identifiable characteristics in Dutch types.
The clarity and openness are part of the con-
struction and contrast in, say, the alternation
of rounded and angular forms. The structure
is always clearly visible in the work of Dutch
designers. The Dutch are more concerned
with the structure, the basic shape. You can
follow the syntax of the design processthe
design can be understood immediately. At
the same time they are also sophisticated.
There is too much of it. Contemporary Dutch design can
be stylish and eclectic, inventive and trains-historical, sys-
tematic and non-functional, provocative and convention-
al, conceptual and random, pragmatic and nonsensical,
witty and stiff, anarchic and traditional and it still keeps
its characteristics; it is still so Dutch. It fluctuates between
rigid logic and total senselessness. In other words, there
is no style of Dutch design. Or, in the words of designer
Max Kisman, the style of Dutch design is style of styles.
There is pluriformity which is unique to Holland.
Kisman pioneered the use of computers in 1977, when he was
the first designer to create stamps for the postal/telecommu-
nications services PTT on an Amiga computer. Kisman is also
known for his belief that legibility is a code that depends on
the impressions, rhythm, and expression of symbols which
may or may not be letters. Kisman has become increasingly
skeptical of designing new type, and since 1992 hasnt de-
signed any new fonts. Because my angle is shifted I am less
interested in type. There is so much of that stuff and I wonder
what I could add which hasnt been done before. Too much I
see now is somehow related to what I did years ago. Of course,
I recognize some very good designs but to me the revolution
is over and repetition began a while ago. There is no meaning
in type design, all is decoration. Everyone can do what some- 1911 Eine Neue Groteske,
Schriftgieerei Ludwig & Mayer,
one else is doing. Type design becomes an average taste to Frankfurt am Main
express a general life style. Type is available anywhere at any
time. Concepts of type are available anywhere at any time.
Like the jersey you wear or the shoe you choose. Nothing
more, nothing less. All this fuzz about type becomes a bit
irrelevant, I think sometimes. Of course, its a big industry, a
lot is involved, many typographical magazines appear, lots of
students are waiting to bring in something new. This massive
run on type is an escape from an essential question. Wheth-
er graphic design will survive or not. And if so, how? More
important at this moment is to redefine graphic design.
While in 1989 Gerard Unger could say that Dutchmen are a
folk for text types, not headlines, today he admits that young
designers have proved otherwise. One of the most prolific
contemporary type designers is the duo Letterror, formed by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum. At the ages of 24/25,
they designed their revolutionary Randomfonts. Since then,
they have produced many best-selling typefaces. In the short
time of 4 years they created 17 typeface families published by
FontShop International, excluding their font contributions for
Brodys FUSE project. Beowolf, their first randomfont, is the
typeface that for inspiration goes somewhere to pre-Gutenberg
time. Instead of the traditional system of writingrepeating of
graphical forms that become visually so unobtrusive that they

are virtually invisible, Letterror developed a special technol-
ogy that allows the random changing of letters. Randomfont
technology generates each letter separately and differently. No
two letters are the same. For instance, if you type two As in
row and print them, they look different depending on the level
of randomness you choose. This new invention is not limited
only to changing letterforms. We could change typographic
awareness of computer users around the world by creating a
font virus that would slowly transform every Helvetica into
something much more desirablethe Post-modern typog-
raphers revenge, or we could create letters that would wear
out through frequent use, combined with a feature that uses
up certain often used letters. Van Blokland and van Rossum
devoted their research to humanizing type design. A font
that does not work overtime and a font that adds typos go
to the extreme in their attempts to add the human quality
to computer typography. They believe that the computer can
bring back subtleties that were lost during type evolution due
economic considerations. Recognition does not come from
simple repetition of the same form, but it is something more
intelligent, something that happens in our minds... Random-
ness and change can add new dimensions to print work
The experiments of the Letterror duo certainly have a great
potential. We can add some data to a digital typeface, and it
can act very intelligently. It may adjust its shape according
the form of medium we are using it in, change its contour
according to its size and relation with color background.
122
Left1925 Nouveauts,
Haassche Schriftgieerei,
Mnchenstein
Right1924 Garamond (10 Punkte),
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
The Netherlands has 13 design schools. Erik van Blokland, Just
van Rossum, Peter Verheul, Martin Majoor, Peter Matthias
Noordzij, (Luc)as de Groot, Evert Bloemsma, Fred Smeijers, are
all their recent graduates, and already internationally recog-
nized ones. Most of them emerged from The Art Academy in
Arnhem and the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague
(Gerrit Noordzij and Petr van Blokland teach in The Hague).
None of the above mentioned typographers gave me the
opportunity to summarize what the Dutch style is. My hope
is that even in a new united Europe, where things are going to
get all mixed up, the Dutch personal creativity will prevail.
Experimental typography.
Whatever that means.
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly
as the word experiment. In the field of graphic design and
typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify
anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization,
or confounding expectations. As a verb, To experiment is
often synonymous with the design process itself, which may
not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result
of the design process. The term experiment can also have the
connotation of an implicit disclaimer; it suggests not taking
responsibility for the result. When students are asked what
they intend by creating certain forms, they often say, Its just
an experiment, when they dont have a better response.
In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a
set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothe-
sis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach
to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others
can build. It requires all measurements to be made ob-
jectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a
phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the
phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famous scientific experiment would be
Galileo Galileis dropping of two objects of different
weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both
would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about
gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be
a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the
transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems
to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is
applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experi-
ment can be reliably measured. What happens however when
the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure
reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Rad-
Chapter 3: 19171924 123
ical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal
Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized design-
ers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
As expected, the published definitions couldnt have been
more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems
and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish
Muir of 8vo writes: Every type job is experiment, Melle
Hammer insists that: experimental typography does not
exist, nor ever has. So how is it possible that there are such
diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers various interpretations, two notions of
experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulat-
ed by the American designer David Carson: experimental is
something I havent tried before something that hasnt been
seen and heard. Carson and several other designers suggest that
the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.
There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when
information travels faster than ever before and when we have
achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes
significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms.
While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that
to do it in a way that no one has done it before was sufficient
for the definition of the new typography of his day and his
work was an appropriate example of such an approach today
things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of
work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty
today can seem like historical ignorance on a designers part.
Interestingly, Carsons statement also suggests that the essence
of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns,
rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly op-
posed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment
is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design,
where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to
go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science
a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design ex-
periment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist
against the background of other conventional solutions.
In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were

the only designer on earth, because there would be no stand-
ard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going
against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If
more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion,
the scale would change, and the former convention would
become anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation
is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular,
cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Does type design and typography allow an experimental
approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent
on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound
by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to
communicate. Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet
which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work
of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student
of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while
physically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule
is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters
for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book
typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of
the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule
becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the de-
tails and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed
for text reading. Huot-Marchands project builds upon the work
of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published
similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The prac-
tical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading
process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human
eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the
constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic
Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British
designer and educator based in the USA: True experimenta-
tion means to take risks. If taken literally, such a statement is
of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and
what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however,
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact
outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged.
A similar definition is offered by the E.A.T. (Experiment And
Typography) exhibition presenting 35 type designers and
typographers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which
coincidentally will arrive in the Netherlands shortly. Alan
Zruba and Johanna Balukov, the curators of E.A.T. put
their focus on development and process when describing the
concept of the exhibition: the show focuses on projects which
document the development of designers ideas. Attention is
paid to the process of creating innovative solutions in the field
of type design and typography, often engaging experimen-
tal processes as a means to approach unknown territory.
An experiment in this sense has no preconceived idea of
the outcome; it only sets out to determine a cause-and-ef-
fect relationship. As such, experimentation is a method of
working which is contrary to production-oriented design,
where the aim of the process is not to create something new,
but to achieve an already known, pre-formulated result.
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an
experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into
account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the
silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they
lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies
according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the
highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter
(q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text
creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without
anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type
Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo
Palma, describe ortho-type as an exercise in perception, a stim-
ulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-di-
124
1921 Eine Neue Groteske,
H. Berthold AG,
Berlin
mensional planes on a flat surface. Ortho-type is an online
application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three
dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available
variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation,
and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also
generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
Although this kind of experimental process has no com-
mercial application, its results may feed other experiments
and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilat-
ed, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson
may have started his formal experiments out of curiosi-
ty, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted
by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no
completed project can be seriously considered experimental.
It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When
completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it
was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its
final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according
to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
Chapter 3: 19171924 125
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to
bring together various working methods which are recog-
nized separately but rarely combined. For example, language
is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly inter-
ested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing
them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
however, venture into the visible representation of language,
because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to
spoken language. Typographers on the other hand are con-
cerned with the appearance of type in print and other repro-
duction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge
of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet
often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
These contrasting interests are brought together in the
work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pur-
sues his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
His typeface Sinttik reduces the letters of the French alphabet
to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from
another) and compresses it to 16 characters. Di Sciullo stresses
the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book
being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of
the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French
words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the
simplest representation of their pronunciation po. Words set
in Sinttik can be understood only when read aloud return-
ing the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It
is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in
Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of
pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange
would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or
to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional
aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This

project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers,
the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold.
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he
designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of
Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on
record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways,).
The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and
is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is
great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullos type-
faces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited,
yet like the other presented examples of experiments in
typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas
of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
Although most of the examples shown here are marked by
the recent shift of interest of European graphic design from
forms to ideas, and the best examples combine both, there is
no definitive explanation of what constitutes an experiment
in typography. As the profession develops and more people
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of
experimentation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1922 Eine Neue Groteske,
D. Stempel AG,
Leipzig
History of a new font
(notes on designing Fedra Serif)
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven by
technology. Each wave of technological change in printing
provoked the development of new approaches enabled by
the new possibilities. In the eighteenth century, for example,
new typefaces exploited innovations in papermaking and
improved inking techniques to greatly increase the contrast
between letters thick and thin strokes. The introduction of
pantographic punch- and matrix-cutting in the late nine-
teenth century enabled numerous variations of a typeface to
be manufactured from a single drawing. This understanding
of the mechanical scaling of forms changed the idea of the
alphabet; it was now a flexible system, resulting in a vast range
of typographic variants compressed, expanded, extruded,
ad infinitum. In the mid-twentieth century the adoption of
photocomposition systems meant that spacing and kerning
could be adjusted with greater precision; among the many
novelties that photo technology enabled, more fonts simu-
lating connected handwriting were developed. And most
recently the personal computer spurred a wave of new fonts
based on previously unexplored motives, such as modularity
or randomness. With each of these technological changes,
typeface libraries were updated to reflect the changes.
126 Chapter 3: 19171924 127
Type designers are very fond of the problems imposed each new creation is an answer to what has come before and
by the technology. They work in a discipline where re- each new typeface contains accumulated knowledge.
strictions and conventions define the frame of work. A
So: contemporary type design is necessarily histori-
problem is the type designers muse, and in the last dec-
cal. Typefaces are results of the processes, they are re-
ades we were blessed by enough problems to solve.
sponses to the conditions in which they were created,
While working on the typeface to be called Charter, Matthew and they immediately take a part in the history.
Carter was confronted with a peculiar technical problem.
On the other hand, revivals, or typefaces teleporting their
Early computers were not able to process font files over a
inspirations from concluded periods of time, are unre-
certain kilobyte limit, so Carter quickly offered a solution: a
lated to contemporary demands. They discontinue the
typeface that would consist mainly of straight lines, thereby
series of inventions, becoming a game of pastiche, merely
keeping the file size small by limiting the number of points
repeating what has already been created. Revival typefac-
needed to construct the letters. Proudly he claimed to the
es are, then, ahistorical, as they place themselves outside
technicians, I think I solved your problem What problem?
their natural history. They create their short-lived par-
the technicians asked; an even quicker fixing of the comput-
allel histories and fail to participate in the big story.
ers limitations would render Carters solution useless.
History has been gravely abused, and an excuse for many
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
misdemeanors, but it always outlasts those who tried to abuse it.
limiting, reducing type design to a response mechanism a
Historys only enemy is the end of the progress. Repeating what
craft detached from its own history. When the idea of cul-
has already been created closes the circle of discoveries. The
tural progress is supplanted by technological progress, the
value of understanding history as an infinite source of accumu-
more implicit motives of type design, such as continuity or
lated knowledge is manifest in the intangible processes as much
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
as the tangible results. The history is driven by intellectual
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
pursuits. Most historical discoveries are the isolated discoveries
technical problems would mean the end of the type history, but
of introvert individuals rather then mainstream technologies.
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
The Austrian writer Herman Broch, author of a number
Carter, alongside many of the great punch-cutters, designers,
of formally inventive and intellectually ambitious novels,
and printers, has participated in the sequence of discoveries,
used to repeat this mantra: the sole raison dtre of a novel
summed up - for the sake of comprehensibility - as History.
is to discover what only the novel can discover. My con-
They contributed to the History of the profession by respond-
clusion is equally optimistic: the purpose of type design
ing to current situations. Their aim was not to reinvent the
is to explore its own possibilities by its own means.
existing, but to reveal an unknown aspect of the art itself.
Typefaces designed to fulfill the needs of their times contrib-
ute their small part to the knowledge accumulated across the Beauty and Ugliness in Type design
centuries; not necessarily by inventing anything revolution-
In 2010 I was invited to a design conference in Copenhagen to
ary, but by extending and adapting collective knowledge to
speak on the subject of conceptual type. The organisers were
contemporary conditions. The spirit of continuity is crucial:
interested in examples of typefaces whose principal design fea-

ture was not related to aesthetic considerations or legibility, but
rather some underlying non-typographical idea. In my address
I argued that there is no such thing as conceptual type, since
type design is a discipline defined by its ability to execute an
outcome; the process that transforms the pure idea into a func-
tional font is a critical part of the discipline. Having rejected
the topic of the conference, I nevertheless went on to speculate
on what a true example of a conceptual typeface might be like.
At the time I was also interested in the idea of irreconcila-
ble differences and how two extremes could be combined
into a coherent whole. As an example, I looked for the
most beautiful typeface in the history of typography as
well as the ugliest one and for a way to meld them.
The Beauty
While any choice representing beauty is bound to be very
personal and subjective, many agree that the high-con-
trast typefaces created by Giambattista Bodoni and the
Didot clan are some of the most beautiful in existence.
Bodoni was one of the most widely-admired printers of his
time and considered amongst the finest in the history of the
craft. Thomas Curson Hansard wrote in 1825 that Bodonis
types had that beautiful and perfect appearance, which we
find it difficult and highly expensive to equal. In his Manu-
ale Tipografico of 1818, Bodoni laid down the four principles
of type design from which all beauty would seem to pro-
ceed, namely: regularity, clarity, good taste, and charm.
His close competitors in France were the Didots. Not only
did Franois-Ambroise Didot invent many of the machines
used in printing, but his foundry endeavoured to render
the types more beautifully than his rivals Baskerville and
(later) Bodoni. Some considered Didots works the most
beautiful types that had ever been used in France (up to that
period), though others found them delicate but lifeless.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1922 Muestrario Edicin VI,
Fundicin Tipogrfica Richard Gans,
Madrid
The Ugliness
I have to admit that dealing with ugliness was a lot more
interesting than revisiting the beauty contests of the classi-
cist printers. The search for ugliness triggers a certain primal,
voyeuristic curiosity, and from the designers perspective
there is simply a lot more space to explore. Capturing beauty
has always been considered the primary responsibility of
the traditional artist, and even now it is rare to find exam-
ples of skilled and deliberate ugliness in type design, (al-
though examples of inexperience and naivet abound).
The eccentric Italian from the middle of the Industrial
Revolution was a clear choice. This reversed-contrast type-
face was designed to deliberately attract readers attention
by defying their expectations. Strokes that were thick in
classical models were thin, and vice versa a dirty trick
to create freakish letterforms that stood out in the in-
creasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
No other style in the history of typography has provoked such
negative reactions as the Italian. It was first presented in Caslon
& Catherwoods 1821 type specimen, and as early as 1825, in
his Typographia Thomas Hansard called the type a typograph-
ic monstrosity. Nicolete Gray called it a crude expression of
the idea of perversity , while others labeled it as degenerate.
The goal of my project was to show just how closely relat-
ed beauty and ugliness are. Donald Knuth, an American
computer scientist with a special interest in typography
identified over 60 visual parameters that control the ap-
pearance of a typeface. I was interested in designing type-
face variations that shared most of these parameters, yet
included both the ugliest and most beautiful letterforms.
Karloff, the result of this project, connects the high
contrast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the
monstrous Italians. The difference between the attrac-
128
tive and repulsive forms lies in a single design param-
eter, the contrast between the thick and the thin.
I asked Pieter van Rosmalen for help, and both of us worked
on both versions. While at the beginning I looked at the Didot
from Imprimerie Nationale as a reference, Pieter departed from
this model and made the project more personal. We worked
on both models at the same time, trying to be very strict about
mathematically reversing the contrast between two weights.
The advantage of working on both versions together was
that we could adjust both of them to achieve the best forms,
rather than creating one as an afterthought of the other.
Towards the end of the project, I worked with Nikola
Djurek, our frequent collaborator, who helped with in-
terpolation and fine-tuning of the fonts. Having designed
two diametrically opposite versions, we undertook a ge-
netic experiment with the offspring of the beauty and the
beast, interpolation of the two extremes, which produced
a surprisingly neutral low contrast version. Karloff Neutral
required only minimal intervention, because the master
weights from which it was interpolated were well defined.
The history of History
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven
by technology, each wave of change in printing technology
provoking the development of new approaches to design. In
1922 Muestrario Edicin VI,
Fundicin Tipogrfica Richard Gans,
the eighteenth century, for example, innovations in paper-
Madrid
making and inking techniques inspired new typefaces with
much higher contrast between the thick and thin strokes of
the characters. The introduction of pantographic punch- and
matrix-cutting in the late nineteenth century enabled numer-
ous variations of a typeface to be manufactured from a single
drawing, transforming typefaces into flexible systems with
vast ranges of typographic variants. In the mid-twentieth
century the adoption of photocomposition systems meant that
spacing and kerning could be adjusted with greater precision,
 130 Chapter 3: 19171924 131

1922 Muestrario Edicin VI,
Fundicin Tipogrfica Richard Gans,
Madrid
inspiring (among other things) the development of more
fonts simulating handwriting. Most recently, the personal
computer has spurred a wave of new fonts based on previously
unexplored motifs, such as modularity or random chance.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, however, reducing type design to a response mecha-
nism a craft detached from its own history. When the idea
of cultural progress is supplanted by technological progress,
the less obvious motifs of type design such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
The History type system was in development longer than any
other project I ever worked on. Its beginnings can be traced
to the early 1990s when I experimented with decorative
layering systems inspired by 19th century types, trying to
dissect Tuscan typefaces into their structural components.
While most historians and designers regard this period
with horror, and many history books call the typefaces
decadent or regressive, I found Tuscans very charming and
inspirational. I started drawing a layering font that incor-
porated the possibilities of Tuscan types, but because of
technological limitations, I never completed the project.
Years later (2002) the project took a new twist as I worked on a
proposal for the Twin Cities typeface. Instead of proposing one
new typeface for St.Paul and Minneapolis, I presented the idea
of a typeface system inspired by the evolution of typography,
a conceptual typeface that reused existing fonts. I called this
proposal History. A user would select History from the font ingly fresh and usable typeface samples. With History, one can
menu, not knowing what font would be used. History would
be linked with the computers calendar and with a predefined
database of fonts, presenting a different font every day. For
example, one day it would use the forms of Garamond, but
the next day when you opened the same document, the font
would change and present the text in
a new typeface, say Granjon, that was
created later than Garamond. The
idea was that the constant chang-
es would confront the user with the
continuous development of typography.
And finally around 2004 I started working
more intensively on a system of layering
letterforms that could be recombined. I
kept adding new styles, and because every
style had to use the same proportions as
the previous one so that they would work
together, it was getting increasingly more
complicated to draw them. The danger was that
this could be a never-ending project, and I could
keep adding more and more styles, which would take more
and more time to incorporate. In 2008, I finally decided to
limit the number of styles to 21. It was an arbitrary deci-
sion, but I liked the number, as it reflected the 21 centuries
of typographic history encompassed by the project.
Based on a skeleton of Roman inscriptional capitals, Histo-
ry includes 21 layers, 21 independent typefaces which share
widths and other metric information so that they can be
recombined. Thus History has the potential to generate an
infinite number of unique styles through the superimposition
of layers encompassing humanist renaissance, transitional,
baroque, script-like, early grotesque, 19th century vernacular
and digital types. While careless use can generate freakish
results resembling Frankensteins monster, more careful
experimentation can produce not only amusing, but surpris-
replicate typographic history or, on the other hand, extend it.
For example, you can take a hairline skeleton of letters in-
spired by Roman inscriptional capitals from year 80 AD (layer
1), dress it up with a high contrast of thick and thin strokes
as Bodoni used in his work (layer 3), and finally apply 18th

century ultra thin serifs (layer 10) to emulate the style typical
of the work of Didot and Bodoni. Or you can take a low contrast
model of letters with oblique stress (layer 2) and combine it
with bracketed serifs derived from a broad nib pen (layer 8)
to end up with letters reminiscent of Nicolas Jensons Roman
from 1470. Making approximations of historical typefaces
is instructional, but not very interesting, (and frankly, one
should use real Didot or real Jenson typefaces); it is far more
interesting to extend history and mix styles which historically
have not co-existed. Take, for instance, bitmap letterforms
found in early low-resolution computer screens (layer 7), and
combine them with the thin serifs of Bodoni (layer 10) to
get something unexpected. And add the swooshes found in
15th century humanist calligraphy (layer 17) to top it off.
Realising that controlling 21 different layers can be a daunting
task, I proposed to supply not just the 21 font files, but also the
History Remixer application. This web-based software pro-
cesses text input through an interface which allows the user to
work with the layers, activating, deactivating, arranging, setting
colour, and luminosity. The application generates an open PDF
file which one can then fine tune in Illustrator or some other
programme. Using the Remixer is fun, but playing with History
in InDesign, although is much more work, is probably more
enjoyable because unexpectedly fresh letterforms result. One
can happen across new possibilities, and this game of discov-
ery was one of the important reasons why I did this project.
I chose History as a deliberately irreverent, cheeky
name, but by no means intended it to be disrespectful.
It is mostly a direct reference to the fact that I embraced
no single point in the past, but rather a very large part of
history of typography. My sincere intention was to par-
ticipate in the sequence of typographic discoveries and
allow the user to actively engage in this process as well.
I should acknowledge some sources of inspiration behind this
project. Of course the history of typography was the primary
inspiration. In addition, however, there
are some works which were particularly
inspiring to me at the time. The pol-
yhistorical model of Milan Kunderas
Immortality provided the theoretical
foundation of the project in the way it
mixes personalities of the past and pres-
ent, describing an imaginary dialogue
between, say, the German poet Goethe
(1749-1832) and the American novelist
Hemingway (1899-1961), even though
those two could never really have met.
But there are also some precedents in the history of typogra-
phy that allowed me to explore the area of multiform works.
Oswald Coopers experiments from 1936, which involved
applying 15 serifs applied to stems of similar weight to test
their influence in letter design, was of particular interest.
And more recently, Matthew Carters typeface for Walker
Art Center opened my eyes to new possibilities. I should
also mention other useful experiments, such as the early
manifestation of Multiple Master technology documented
in typefaces such as Adobes Penumbra designed in 1994
by Lance Hidy. With the use of Multiple Master, Penumbra
can continuously change from sans serif to fully serifed.
Some reviews and user responses suggest that History is more
of an educational tool than a functional typeface system. Yes,
surely one can use it to explain and explore the constructions
of Roman letterforms, but I still would like to emphasise
the practical aspect of the system. I sincerely hoped, but
couldnt predict, that fonts would be used commercially.
Running a type foundry for a decade, Ive learnt that though
our clients are often extremely creative professionals, they dont
have time to learn too many new things, and many features of
our fonts go unnoticed. It is all very well and good to create
style sets, extended language support and ways to make sure
that a different (slightly higher) hyphen is used automatically
when the text is converted to capitals, but does it all matter
when most people dont even know what OpenType fonts are?
I dont have precise usage statistics, but my guess is that 90% of
our clients use only the basic character set and never realise that
the font, which they licensed for quite a bit of money, can do a
whole lot more than respond to the computer keys they push.
As evidence I can quote occasional conversations with
users of our fonts who complain that small cap fonts are
missing (when in fact they simply need to be activated by
1922 Progreso Antiqua Original,
an OpenType feature), or that when they type English text
Fundicin Tipogrfica Richard Gans,
Madrid
it is still in English even though the font claims to support
Russian (indeed the font doesnt translate words automat-
ically, but only renders the content). So does it make sense
to spend nearly 15 years of (discontinuous and at times not
very intense) work on an even more complex font system
that cannot be used properly in Microsoft Word, and is
rather challenging to use in design applications as well?
Now, more than a year after the original publication of History,
I can say that it was probably worth the effort. The fonts are
indeed being used, and I am continually amazed when I see
their real-life applications. I am not sure if I only see the beauti-
ful samples because people dont bother sending me the horrible
ones, or if its the high barrier of difficulty of using History that
puts the system in the hands of dedicated designers. Whatev-
er the reason is, seeing History in use is deeply satisfying.
One things that Ive learned from this project is that despite
the ubiquitous market research in design and the calculated
decisions of designers, it is still worthwhile to do projects that
I personally believe in. Even the day before Historys release I
had no idea if anyone would ever use the system, but that was
less important, as I found the work gratifying, and I focused
on the creative process rather than its market potential. It
is satisfying to see that this naive approach can work even
in a world driven by commercial pressures. It gives me the
Chapter 3: 19171924 133
courage to dedicate time to personal research which, when
it is rigourous enough, can find its application in the wild.
Font hinting
Hinting, or screen optimising, is the process by which
fonts are adjusted for maximum readability on computer
monitors. I have been designing type since the early 1990s,
and for as long as I can remember, type designers have
been saying that hinting would soon be made obsolete by
new advances in hardware and software. Now, almost 20
years later, hinting seems to be more relevant than ever.
The problem is that typical modern fonts are not designed
primarily for the 7296 dpi resolution of computer screens, but
for the much higher 1,200+ dpi resolution of print media. The
letterforms are designed and stored as outlines, mathematically
perfect lines and curves which look great at high resolutions,
but can be distorted or even illegible when converted into
groups of pixels, the on-or-off dots that make up a computers
display. And although there has been much discussion about
high-definition computer monitors for decades, the fact of the
matter is that my 5 year old mobile phone still takes photos with
finer detail than my brand new computer can show on its screen.
This is the reason that webpage designers have long been
more or less limited to a dozen or so fonts (Verdana, Georgia,
Arial, etc.) that have been fine-tuned by hand so that typical
text sizes (914pt) display well at low resolutions. These fonts
are so common that most computer users think of them as
free, but the reality is that Verdana, for example, is probably
the most expensive, labor-intensive font ever produced. It
includes characters used to write an extremely wide range of
languages, and each of these characters had to be adjusted
to be readable at every point size between 9 and 60 (at 60pt
the resolution is sufficient to display the letterforms accu-
rately). In other words, each of more than 890 characters
was redesigned dozens of times, once at every point size.

Outlines of Fedra Sans Screen at various sizes. Notice
how different the outlines are in order to achieve
the optimal legibility of screen. Every letter is ba-
sically designed for each point size again.
This is exactly what hinting is about: programming instruc-
tions that fine-tune a fonts rasterisation, the process by which
its mathematically ideal outlines are mapped onto a monitors
pixels. Hinting can control the heights and widths of a fonts
uppercase and lowercase letters, the widths of its individual
lines, the amount of white space around letters, the size at
which uppercase letters start to use different stem-widths from
lowercase letters, how the angle of italic characters changes
to best fit the pixel grid, and many other extremely technical
details, all on a pixel-by-pixel basis. If this sounds like a rather
tedious, time-consuming activity, it is, (even for type designers,
who are accustomed to tedious, time-consuming activities).
Last year there was considerable hype about the @font-face
declaration, a function that makes it possible for a webpage to
display any font, freeing designers from dependence on the
Web-safe fonts and opening new design possibilities (not
the least of which is the creation of visual identities which are
consistent across both print and web media). On the other
hand, this also raises new issues, including poor onscreen
display of non-hinted fonts. And because hinting is tedious,
time-consuming and widely believed to be nearly obsolete,
99% of all fonts, even commercial ones, are non-hinted.
Hinting TrueType and PostScript fonts
Even when fonts are hinted optimum onscreen results are still
not guaranteed, as different font technologies approach hinting
differently. In the PostScript system most of the font scaling
is handled not by the fonts, but by the rasteriser software,
so fonts in PostScript format look often good with relatively
simple hinting or no hinting at all. In the TrueType system,
however, the rasteriser is controlled by sophisticated hinting
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 134
instructions contained within the font software; without this 1922 Progreso Antiqua Original,
Fundicin Tipogrfica Richard Gans,
information TrueType fonts do not display well onscreen. Madrid
Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. One
advantage of the PostScript system is that the Intelligence is
concentrated in the rasteriser, so any improvement to the ras-
teriser immediately produces better rendering of all PostScript
fonts. Even 20 year old fonts render nicely on the latest Mac.
In the TrueType system, rasteriser updates require all fonts
to be updated as well for optimal results. Thus fonts hinted
for black and white or greyscale rendering will not work as
well with Windows ClearType rasteriser. On the other hand,
TrueType hinting provides direct, pixel-by-pixel control over
the rasterising process, which PostScript hinting does not.
Macro photography of Apple Mac Book Pro. On LCD
monitors (flat screens) every pixel is made from three
elements which can be controlled separately. Subpixel
rendering takes advantage of the way your eyes perceive
colour, using shades of blue, red and green to simulate
higher screen resolution in horizontal direction.
Mac OS vs. Windows
A lot has been written about how Mac OS renders text com-
pared to Windows. I will not go into details here, but the prima-
ry difference is that Microsofts rasteriser tries to align charac-
ters to whole pixel grid, with the result that Regular weights
look lighter, Bold weights look heavier, and subtle details of
design can be lost at small point sizes. Apples rasteriser tries to
preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, some-
times at the cost of image clarity. Windows rasterising software
produces extremely good results with a few built-in TrueType
fonts, but sub-optimal results with 99% of other typefaces. The
Mac OS Quartz technology ignores font hinting completely and
renders all fonts equally well regardless of their font format.

So lets focus now on Windows this is where hinting
makes a difference and lets focus on TrueType fonts,
which look superior in Windows at the moment.
Black and white hinting, developed in the days when operating
systems could only turn pixels on or off, controls which pixels
will be displayed at a given point size. This kind of hinting is
called grid-fitting because the outlines of the font are signifi-
cantly modified to fit the pixel grid of the screen. It is the most
time-consuming hinting process, and it takes an experienced
hinter at least 80 hours to hint a single font with the basic
256 character set. Fonts with extensive character sets and/or
numerous styles of course take much longer. This process also
usually adds white pixels between characters to improve legi-
bility, which can create a difference in length between printed
and screen versions of a text. Microsofts Verdana and Georgia
are examples of black and white hinted fonts. Newer technol-
ogy has made black and white hinting obsolete and permitted
onscreen results that are much truer to the original letterforms.
Practical Implications
What does all this mean to a type designer? Hinting can
improve the rendering of fonts. But those fonts will be
rendered differently by different rasterisers on different
platforms and often in different applications as well, (com-
pare for example text in the Safari and Explorer browsers
on the same Windows computer). If the designers inten-
tion is consistent cross-platform rendering, the fonts also
need to use consistent design across similar letters.
It is clear that one day font hinting will finally become obsolete,
but it is not clear when that day will come. The most widely
used operating system in the world, Windows XP (still 58.4%
market share, as of this writing), has ClearType turned off by
default, so unhinted fonts typically do not display well at small
sizes. Whether we like it or not, it looks like hinting will be
around for quite some time. But if you like how fonts display
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
on the Mac at small sizes, you can take that as proof that it is
already possible to render text well without any hinting at all.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex-
136
1923 Werbeschrift Neuland,
Gebr Klingpor,
Offenbach am Main
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help
to explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
Chapter 3: 19171924 137
level of discussion as well as formulate the frame for
such discussion. Type design, however, seems to resist
attempts to establish an encompassing theory by its
very nature. Type design is not an intellectual activity,
but relies on a gesture of the person and his ability to
express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by
practice. There might be detailed How to instructions,
but those do not qualify as general or abstract principles
for creating type.Dictionary definitions of font usually
refer to the printing process, and although type is reproduced
by other means as well, the essence of type is in its ability to be
reproduced. Fonts are essentially modest semi-products; they
dont have much meaning until they are used. And although
type foundries and distributors often attach adjectives to fonts
before they are used, in reality new typefaces are like blank
sheets of paper. They can be used to represent anything, and
just as paper manufacturers cannot control what is printed on
their paper, so type designers can hold no responsibility for
what their fonts are used to communicate. This is not to say that
font choices are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire
meaning only through use, and that we judge fonts not only
according to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font
classification, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
138
1923 Werbeschrift Neuland, chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
Gebr Klingpor,
Offenbach am Main explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Graphic Design in the White Cube
Organizing graphic design exhibitions is always problemat-
ic: graphic design does not exist in a vacuum, and the walls
of the exhibition space effectively isolate the work of design
from the real world. Placing a book, a music album, or a
poster in a gallery removes it from the cultural, commercial,
and historical context without which the work cannot be
understood. The entire raison dtre of the work is lost as a
side effect of losing the context of the work, and the result is
frozen appearance stripped of meaning, liveliness and dyna-
mism of use. Presenting design in an exhibition space in this
Chapter 3: 19171924 139
way is akin to looking at a collection of stuffed birds in order
to study how they fly and sing. In spite of this, it is more and
more common to see design as object, not only in books and
magazines, but also in the White cube of the exhibition space.
Graphic designers struggled for a long time for recognition
and professionalization of their field, and exhibits are consid-
ered one way of promoting the trade aspect of design. Every-
one is happy: the designer whose work was selected by the
institution; the original client who received an admired and
acclaimed design, and the gallery which acquires the work
to be presented. Work designed for a completely different
purpose is recycled, and re-presented in a foreign environ-
ment. The same scenario is even more common in design
publishing, and nearly instant books full of vague collections
of work with little or no commentary take up increasingly
more space on designers shelves, crowding out other books
which are more laborious to research, write and publish.
A more recent trend is design which refuses to be seen only
as an object of consumerism but draws parallels with art,
reflecting the autonomy of the designer in his work, as well as
a willingness to initiate projects himself. This generation of
designers is not the first one that doesnt rely solely on clients to
come up with project briefs. Renowned Dutch designer Karel
Martens, who taught some of the designers represented in this
exhibition, has done uncommissioned, artistic work apart from
his design career. Building on the tradition of the experimental
printing of fellow designers such as Hendrik Nicolaas Werk-
man or Willem Sandberg, Martens prints and collages were
done in his spare time as studies and experiments which fueled
his other, more practical design work. Some designers today
however integrate self-initiated work into their daily practice,
no longer distinguishing between projects done in and outside
of their working hours. Self-initiated work in graphic design is
becoming increasingly more important for designers, starting
up projects which probably would otherwise never see the light
of day. The group of people who work in this way is still margin-

al, and it is no surprise that most of them live in countries with
prosperous economies, occasionally receiving cultural funding
to facilitate their unconventional approach to their work.
Graphic design has for a long time been defined as a service
of a designer for a client, rooted in external impulses rather
than internal ones. Design work done without a client hangs
in a limbo between art and design. Graphic design is a fairly
young profession, and as such still in a state of development. It
is expanding to encompass various activities: writing, organiz-
ing, conceptualizing, reflecting. This is no longer design which
is only defined by business cards and logos. Here we come to
a problem of definition: until now I have been using the term
graphic design with the assumption that everyone knows what
it means. Especially in the context of the 22nd International
Biennale of Graphic Design Brno with its 43 years of history,
people have created expectations of what a typical graphic
design exhibition might include. Let us understand graphic
design then, to mean a field in flux which is as flexible as the
work that it embraces. Unlike the work of other professionals,
the work of a designer is not restricted or defined by its content;
in fact designers are trained to accommodate and express
various, often contradicting ideas. It is a ghost discipline as
Stuart Bailey writes: graphic design only exists when other
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1923 Werbeschrift Neuland,
Gebr Klingpor,
Offenbach am Main
subjects exist first. It isnt an a priori discipline, but a ghost;
both a grey area and a meeting point Bailey calls attention
to an area that many designers struggle with: the way that they
refer to their activity in their field transcends the established
notion of its definition. Designers represented in the exhibition
Graphic Design in the White Cube move fluently between the
worlds of art, design, music, theatre and writing. I and everyone
I work with just think of what we do as merely work. I studied
typography and graphic designthats my background and
it informs what I dobut now I do a variety of work, which
may or may not come under those headings, says Bailey in a
recent interview. Others such as French designers M/M Paris
directly challenge the definition of graphic design: graphic
design could embody a lot of activities, and the definition is
not fixed, but continually evolving. Because it is still a new
profession, the best graphic designers are the ones who reinvent
their field and surprise. Members of Amsterdam-based design
studio Experimental Jetset say that limited notion of design is a
misunderstanding: personally, we situate the birth of modern
graphic design somewhere roughly between Marinettis Futur-
ist manifestos, Piet Zwarts leaflets for the Dutch Cable Factory,
and Kurt Schwitters Merz publications (to name some obvious
examples). So in our understanding, graphic design has always
been an area where very different elements are synthesized:
art, politics, poetry, industry, etc. In their view, all the people
invited to exhibit here are then part of this great tradition, and
are graphic designers in the traditional sense of the word.
M/M, Bailey and Experimental Jetset are no strangers to
the gallery world. M/M has held numerous solo exhibitions
in prestigious art galleries and collaborated on major events
(Venice Biennales). Bailey has directed theatre performanc-
es and more recently together with David Reinfurt (Dexter
Sinister) is involved in organizing Manifesta 6, the European
Biennial of Contemporary Art in Cyprus, where they set up a
model of economic production, responsible for all publishing
activities of the Manifesta 6 school. Jetset activities include solo
140 Chapter 3: 19171924 141
1924 Deutsche Anzeigenschrift,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
exhibitions in galleries in London, Utrecht and Arnhem, and
group shows in SFMOMA San Francisco, Kunsthal Rotter-
dam, or Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam amongst others.
In 2005, M/M were invited to Paris contemporary art museum
Palais de Tokyo to exhibit their work next to major artworks
of the late 20th century in an exhibition which featured works
by a variety of artists including Joseph Kosuth, Jeff Koons,
Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Takashi Murakami and
Mike Kelley. The intentions of the exhibition was to explore
how different contexts cause the same work to be read in
different ways, blurring the boundaries between disciplines.
graphic design, because of its ubiquitous nature, makes a
considerable impact on the visual culture that surrounds us,
so it makes a lot of sense to study this influence and critically
discuss the work in the context of other visual arts as well.
When presented in a museum however, the exhibition should
attempt more than just passive presentation in glass cases.
The isolated work lacks any real information about the rea-
sons and processes behind it. What needs to become evident
is the explicit purpose of the work, to see things otherwise
inaccessible, otherwise the visitor is better off going to any
bookstore or strolling down a busy street to get first hand
experience of and physical interaction with graphic design.
There have been some design exhibitions which attempt to
deal with these issues. Rick Poynor recently organized a
major retrospective of British graphic design entitled Com-
municate first held in London, now travelling world wide.
The exhibition sets out to examine graphic designs influence
on contemporary culture, highlighting experimental work
created by designers who arent limited by working to fulfill a
commercial clients brief. The exhibition occupied eight rooms
of the Barbican Art Gallery, and Poynor, whose background
is in journalism and publishing, organized these rooms as
chapters of a book, each section presenting a different aspect
of work, with introductory texts explaining each section of
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 142
1924 Deutsche Anzeigenschrift,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main the exhibition. The points and comparisons of the work were
made through careful visual editing of the presented pieces.
Another example is the exhibition of Dutch graphic design
that I was asked to organize a few years ago for the Brno
Biennale. Given the fact that for practical reasons the work
was to be displayed in a gallery space involving a certain
degree of isolation of graphic design, the presentation at-
tempted to clarify its function more, sketching out the trian-
gle of client-designer-public. Since the work of the designer
was brought to the gallery to be judged by the local public,
the focus was on presenting the missing component, that is,
providing space for the clients. The words of the commis-
sioners in the formulation of the original brief were present-
ed instead of the designers retrospective comments. The
original brief illuminated the purpose of the work, while the
public could evaluate how successfully it communicated.
However, a retrospective attempt to recreate the context for a
work may not be the ultimate solution either and has its own
pitfalls, as Experimental Jetset points out: theres also some-
thing false about it: trying to recreate the outside world
inside a museum/gallery, as if the museum/gallery is not a
valid context in itself. In our opinion, in these cases, we think
that its best to underline the museum context as much as
possible, to be brutally honest that the context in which the
object is shown is totally different from the context the object
was originally designed for.So it is in this context that we set
to organize a graphic design exhibition, with the intention
of the commissioner, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, to pres-
ent to the public certain specific aspects and tendencies of
contemporary graphic design worldwide. Being extremely
self-conscious, we propose a possibility: instead of bringing
work from the outside to the gallery, lets make the work for the
gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibits, lets
make the gallery conditions the context for the work. Nine-
teen designers and collectives were commissioned to design a
poster for the design exhibition in which they participate. The
Chapter 3: 19171924 143
posters will function on two levels: the collection of posters is persuasion, blatantly including them in the design. The cover
to constitute the exhibition, and copies of the posters will be of the album reads: This is a RECORD COVER. This writ-
spread around the city to inform visitors about the exhibition. ing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is
This is obviously a dangerous snake-eating-its-own-tail strategy, to help to SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention
yet the self-referential nature of the brief makes it possible to to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done
illustrate otherwise invisible mechanics of the work process. that maybe youll be persuaded to listen to the music in this
case XTCs Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The
The usual conditions of design are created in the gallery:
idea being that the more of you that you buy this record the
designers were directly commissioned to make the poster in
more money Virgin Record, the manager Ian Reid and XTC
four weeks time, were offered a (minimal) design fee, and
themselves will make. [] The text goes on to call the buyer
were asked to treat the commission just like any other projects
a victim, explaining the tricks of marketing, suggesting that it
they work on. What is perhaps unusual about the exhibi-
is foolish to buy a product based on the design of the cover.
tion is that it makes some invisible components visible. The
original brief of the project is dominantly presented in the Our strategy for the exhibition was to strip the design
exhibition, as are all sketches that the designers made. The process of its deceptive aura, propose a possible format
objective is not to lionize the work, or create easy material for for design exhibitions, and yet present everything that
value judgment, but to uncover the process of work, present- a visitor to a graphic design show might expect.
ing all the sketches that designers made, including those not
leading anywhere. Failures can provide more information 1923 The Linotype Bulletin,
Mergenthaler Linotype Company,
about visual art than just a presentation of its successes. New York
The focus on itself, the self-referential nature of the project is
certainly not new. It has been explored in fine art for a long
time, one famous example being Ren Magrittes seeming
contradiction Ceci nest pas une pipe, which questions the
representation of objects in art. In the 1960s, Sol LeWitt
and other conceptual artists worked on reducing the artis-
tic process to its bare elements. Four Basic Kinds of Lines &
Colour, is a book project investigating basic book printing
techniques. Using standard CMYK colours, LeWitt drew
lines at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degree angles following the standard
angles of reproduction techniques. Starting with four inks,
he was able to mix 16 elementary colours, and using different
densities of the black ink, also 16 grayscale equivalents.
One of the most brilliant self-referential works of design is
XTCs album Go 2 (1978) designed by British art design
group Hipgnosis which exposes the mechanics of marketing
Chapter 4
19251930
Conceptual Type?
A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is dependent
on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the process that
transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a critical
part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed, it is
not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as Three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433, for example, or some such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence
all craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 148 149
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather 1927 Blickfang Schmuck,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder Butter,
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen- Dresden
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 48X48 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
More recently, a type design project that approached the
definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme
ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts
that rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The
fonts ranged from purely formal exercises to completely
abstract shapes independent from Latin construction, pur-
Chapter 3: 19171924 150
1930 Leichte Kabel Kursiv, ported new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
Gebr. Klingspor,
Offenbach am Main diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term concep-
tual: very often it is simply synonymous with Idea or Inten- typeface is actually used. While the concept of the type-
tion. Since every act of creation arguably stems from intent, re-
gardless of the function of the product, is every artwork, object
or typeface therefore conceptual? Mel Bochner, American con-
ceptual artist, disliked the label conceptual, because the word
concept is not always defined entirely clearly, and is therefore
in danger of being confused with the authors intention.
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors,
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is
probably no other discipline where the difference between the
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great.
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug-
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek
government buildings, banks and the American embassy
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated
Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa-
nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra
Chapter 4: 19251930 151
Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence.
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite ob-
vious that the type designer has no actual say in how the
face might be very clever and original, what happens
when the typeface is never used the way it was intended?
Does it make the typeface less inventive? How about a
font which never gets to be used? Can it still be called a
font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated
that destruction could also be conceptual art. According
to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a chance to
be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 when
a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and all
the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases of
completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility, he could
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write
code that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of
creation, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools
we use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves to
reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools. One
Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the
structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways.

By deciding to design the process rather than controlling
the end result, Letterror embraced the possibilities of un-
expected results. It is the machine that makes the type.
Ill conclude with one of my current projects, for which the
background idea is more interesting than the resulting forms.
For centuries, art has been defined as something that gives
rise to an aesthetic experience. Capturing beauty and avoid-
ing ugliness were considered to be the prime responsibilities
of the traditional artist. In this still untitled project I have
tried to identify the most beautiful examples of typography
known to mankind. I settled on a series of serif typefaces
designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th century.
In the second step, I tried to identify the ugliest examples of
type that we know. That was a bit more difficult, but finally
the prize went to eccentric Italian from the middle of the
Industrial Revolution. This reversed-contrast typeface was
designed to deliberately attract readers attention by defy-
ing their expectations. Strokes that were thick in classical
models were thin, and strokes that were thin became thick
a dirty trick to make freakish letters that stand out in the
increasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
This project (later released under the name Karloff) is not
interesting because of the forms, which have been explored
before, but because it creates a tight link between the two
extremes, between the beauty and the ugliness. Time will tell
if this project finds some suitable application, or whether it
remains purely an aesthetic exercise, a conceptual type.
Designing Type Systems
I remember a conversation from back in my student days
where my typophile friends and I debated what the ultimate
typeface of the 20th century was, a typeface that summed
up all of the eras advancements and knowledge into a co-
herent whole, one that would be a reference for years to
Chapter 3: 19171924 152
come. Helvetica was one of the candidates for its sheer ubiq- 1927 Blickfang Schmuck,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder Butter,
uity, proof of its overall acceptance. Another, more subtle Dresden
proposal was Jan van Krimpens Romulus, one of the first
typefaces to have related Sans and Serif versions. And an-
other, my personal pick, was Univers by Adrian Frutiger.
Univers goes beyond the quest to design individual letters,
attempting instead to design space, to create a system of rela-
tionships between different sets of shapes which share distinc-
tive parameters. Prior to Univers, type designers concerned
themselves with the relationships between letters of the same
set, how an 'a' is different from a 'b'. Univers creates a situation
in which there are as of many different shapes, and each has to
be positioned on the axes of weight and width, distributed suffi-
ciently far away from the next, but no further, in order to create
a usable system. How heavy ought the Medium to be in order to
leave space for yet another weight, the Bold, and how will this
translate into a design with condensed proportions? These were
all new questions for type designers, and Frutiger opened up
completely new territory for those who were to come after him.
Thanks to Frutiger it is now common practice to pro-
duce a dozen or more styles when working on a new type
family. In terms of typeface innovation there is much
more room for originality than when you only look at the
individual lettershapes. Thus to create truly useful new
works, type designers need to examine not only how char-
acters relate to each other within a style, but also how
different styles relate to each other within a family.
Gardener vs Architect
Ive designed large typeface families before. Fedra, for example,
now has over 116 individual styles supporting 170 languages,
and has been used in the most complex typographic situa-
tions from dictionaries to newspapers, Bibles and information
graphics. But it is not really an example of a font designed to
be a typographic system from the start. It started in 2001 as

a relatively small family of Sans, and over the next 10 years
it grew to include Serif, Monospaced, Condensed and Dis-
play styles, as well as different language versions. Fedra is an
example of a bottom to top approach, in which a relatively
simple design gets larger and more complicated over time.
Composer Brian Eno calls this the gardeners approach:
nurturing simple things towards greater complexity, carefully
planting seeds, and helping them grow to their full potential.
The opposite organising principle, again in Enos words, is the
architects approach. An architect traditionally starts with a
concept, developing the complete idea first, working from top
to bottom. History (2008) is an example of the architectural
approach, in which each individual style contributes to a greater
purpose, sharing proportions with the rest of the family.
History (2008) as an example of the architectural ap-
proach and Fedra (2001-2010) as an example of the
gardener approach to creating a type family.
Greta Sans is another example of this approach. It has been
carefully planned from the outset, designed as a system
of interrelated styles. From the very beginning, work pro-
ceeded on multiple styles simultaneously; not only when
sketching the extreme and middle styles on paper, but also
when converting the resulting shapes into digital format,
the emphasis was on testing how certain letterforms react to
extremely compressed dimensions as well as very generous
ones. Only after being tested at each end of the proposed
spectrum would the designs be selected and adopted into the
typeface family-to-be. Each glyph would have to anticipate
all its variations and maintain a basic structure that could
function across all designated width and weight variations.
Different design masters were conceived and drawn at the
same time, investigating how the same design characteris-
tics would be translated into extreme weights and widths.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 154
The Problem With the System
The nature of systems is to dictate a certain direction; the
role of designers is to recognise when the original design idea
ceases to work within the system, and then to create exceptions
to the system rather than letting the system have a negative
impact on the design. In large type families of related styles
this impact is usually that while the starting point is usually
characteristic and recognisable, the design becomes blander
and less interesting as it is stretched across its variations. My
intention was to design a highly flexible system while also
ensuring that the resulting shapes were not just compromises,
but maintained the strong personality of the Greta typeface.
Sketches from 1925:
planning the Greta Sans type system.
For example, at the lighter end of the weight axis, the cir-
cular dot over I, (or in diacritics and punctuation) has to
become a rectangle to avoid becoming too small. On the
width axis, shapes would sometimes have to be modified
even more dramatically: the double storey g typical for
Greta becomes a single storey g in Compressed width, where
the lack of space demanded greater simplification. Dollar
and cent signs have full crossbars in the wider versions, but
divided crossbars in the condensed versions. Dozens of
other changes happen when taking the design to extreme
dimensions, in order to maintain the general design char-
acteristics and preserve the natural look of the shapes.
1926 Koralle,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
Some of the exceptions to the linear interpolation of
the Greta Sans type system: dots change from circu-
lar to rectangular; dollar signs lose their crossbars, and
g uses a single-storey form in Compressed widths.
While the Fedra Sans family was created from two design
masters, Light and Bold, (Book, Demi and Medium were
interpolated), Greta Sans 13 design masters were individual-
 156 Chapter 4: 19251930 157

1926 Buchschmuck, ly designed, as were another 13 masters for italics, and all 26 in-between sizes progressively added or removed features,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder Butter,
Dresden included Small Caps. The masters (Hairline, Regular, Black), getting continuously darker and looser when meant for small
were interpolated and expanded to 10 weights. Four widths sizes, or continuously lighter and tighter for large sizes. The
were imagined and implemented, resulting in 80 styles. word continuously is important here. There werent text or
display versions as is common now. Each size was discretely
The process of drawing Greta Sans started in the middle of the
adjusted for to maintain the characteristics of the typeface.
imagined design space (1), and from there the extremes were
explored (2). The idea was to adapt the design to the available Jannons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s includes
proportions, while preserving the main design characteristics. 15 optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points. On the left
When creating the design masters, we made the heavy weight as is a 7pt sample scaled 425% to match the 36pt version. Note
heavy as possible, even when those exact weights would not be the difference in contrast between the thick and thin strokes,
used. It is easy to interpolate and make the Black weight lighter; and overall differences in details between the two versions.
making it heavier is complicated. This allowed us to keep the
Greta Sans was designed as a continuous optical size system.
design space as large as possible (3), and reduce it later when
While the basic text styles (Regular) are spaced and kerned
we made the final selection of styles. We decided not to use the
for small sizes, the surrounding extremes (Hairline, Black)
Compressed Black as a master, and stepped it down one weight.
are designed to be used as Display types, and therefore
We also dropped extra-compressed styles. On the other hand,
tightly spaced and kerned. The resulting interpolation then
we added an extra weight to the Extended styles (Super), when
runs continuously from Display to Text to Display use. A
we saw there was available space at that end of the spectrum.
similar pattern (Extended, Condensed, Extended) can be
seen on the width axis, as the Normal styles are most suited
Continuous Optical Sizes
for small text, and extremes are optimised for large sizes.
In the earliest age of movable type, optical sizes became the
main organising principle of typefaces. For example, Jan- Design Space
nons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s include
While the key characteristics of most typefaces are defined by
numerous optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points, each
the outlines of the letterforms, Greta Sans design also extends
slightly different. The design of the typeface would be rein-
to the gaps between styles. All its characteristics, including the
terpreted at each given point size, often resulting in different
visual contrast between styles, weights and widths have been
weights, different proportions, different letter spacing. These
orchestrated into a unified typeface system. Greta Sans explores
different designs would blend into a harmonious size progres-
the entire space of possibilities and is designed for extraordinary
sion and function as one design. Optical sizes disappeared
design flexibility. It is a toolbox that addresses a broad spectrum
with the transition from hot metal press to photocomposition
of design situations from the simplest to the most complex,
sometime in the 1950s. After about 50 years of neglect op-
offering multiple options for establishing a visual hierarchy.
tical sizes have made a comeback, and many typefaces now
come with versions specifically designed for text and display
applications. Optical sizes, however, represent a range of
variations. In the old days, as in the Jannon example, type-
faces would come in as many as 15 optical versions. All the

Next
Gretas Latin fonts set up some formal parameters, but the most
exciting phases of this project are still to come. While such a
versatile system of similar proportions is rare within the context
of Latin typefaces, it is unheard of in the domain of non-Latin
type. We intend to bring this system to a number of non-Latin
styles planned for 201314. There is no reason why only Latin
type should benefit from these advances in typography.
Type design competitions
Last autumn I was in Buenos Aires, where I sat on the jury
for Letter2, a type design competition. Just like bukva:raz!,
the first AtypI competition in 2001, Letter2 celebrates
the best typefaces produced over the past decade. Out of
561 submitted entries the jury selected 53 that represent
the previous decade based on their design excellence.
No sooner had the results been announced than the wheels
of the font marketing machine rolled into action as some
of the selected designers and foundries began to trumpet
that their typefaces were among the best of the decade.
But best of the decade is a somewhat problematic assertion
because not all designers have an equal appetite for competi-
tions. While some award-hungry designers actively seek out
all kinds of contests and prizes, others simply ignore them. So
the promise of best of the decade is reduced to best of the
submissions. And very often the submissions dont include the
highest quality work. For example, renowned author and type
designer Fred Smeijers hasnt participated in type competitions
for almost 20 years. Gerard Unger, another celebrated Dutch
type designer, enters competitions only rarely. Unger says, I
want younger designers to have a chance. And in fact these
events typically include a disproportionately high number
of young designers looking for recognition of their work.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 158
Matthew Carter is designer whose work has received numer-
ous awards, and FontBureau, the foundry which has released
most of his fonts, sometimes submits them to competitions.
But Carter himself says, I have become less interested in
competing with other type designers and more concerned
with helping the acceptance of type design as something on
a par with other forms of graphic and industrial design.
Frantiek torm, an established Czech type designer
gives a more pragmatic reason for avoiding competi-
tions: I simply have no time for it. But then he adds, I
do however feel that contests are for the young design-
ers. Older designers that otherwise might clearly win
them should find something more worthwhile to do.
And finally, Peter Verheul, a Dutch designer of high profile type- Type design competitions will likely remain problemat-
faces, never sends his work to competitions, one reason being ic as long as the type design community remains so small.
that the judging criteria are inherently vague. there is no expla- Perhaps organisers should accept the fact that such com-
nation why a typeface has been picked to become a winner, says petitions often fail to attract well-established profession-
Verheul. I dont really believe that a fair judgement is possible, als, and focus their events on younger designers. Perhaps
given the different nature and diversity of the material to judge. this emphasis on younger designers could include making
the judging public, so that all can benefit from the jurors
Of course, one might say it is easy for recognised designers feedback. And perhaps we should all learn to take the pub-
not to participate in contests; they have won them all already. licised results of such competitions with a grain of salt.
However while the stated aim of the contest is to recognise type
design professionals, almost a third of the selected projects are
What is Typography?
by non-professional designers entering their student projects.
1926 The Linotype Bulletin XVIII,
Before starting any discussion or argument it is useful to define Mergenthaler Linotype Company,
So what is the value of these competitions? Do they rec- New York
the terminology and to make sure that the words which are
ognise talent and stimulate creation? Or is it just cheap
used are generally understood. Typography is a craft has been
marketing? And is there a viable alternative? Borrowing
practiced since the Gutenbergs invention of the movable type.
inspiration from such prestigious awards as the Turner Prize
According to the latest Encyclopedia Britannica core definition
or the Nobel Prize, one could imagine replacing the call
of typography is that typography is concerned with the deter-
for entries with a committee of experts who would nom-
mination of the appearance of the printed page. Other diction-
inate the best work. But the type design profession is so
aries, such as Collins English Dictionary from 2004 define the
small and insular, with no outside critics or curators, that
typography as the art, craft or process of composing type and
assembling a committee of recognised experts would nec-
printing from it. Understood this way, no typography was made
essarily exclude a large percentage of possible contenders.
before mid-15 century, as it is strictly linked to the invention of

the Printing Type. Understood this way, digitally created letters
that appear on an electronic screen also escapes this definition.
That is of course problem of definitions, which are not as
flexible as the activities which they define. In the Royal
Academy of Arts in The Hague, where I teach part time, most
useful definition of typography comes from the long term
teacher Gerrit Noordzij, saying that typography is writing
with prefabricated letters. Unlike the dictionary definitions,
this one is deliberately avoiding connecting typography to
any specific medium, as they tend to change, yet the disci-
pline continues evolving. Noordzijs definition also implies
a complete distinction from lettering, handwriting or graf-
fiti, which are also concerned with creating letter-shapes,
but dont offer a repeatable system of setting these letters.
Digital technologies stimulated unprecedented possibili-
ties which blur even most open definitions of typography.
If repetition of shapes was the central concept of typog-
raphy, many designers are working in ways that challenge
this concept. OpenType fonts can include random features,
which can simulate unpredictable behavior of handwriting,
or simply present seemingly incoherent library shapes.
For the past year, Ive been working with dancers from Neth-
erlands Dance Theatre in The Hague on creating a tool which
translates text into simple choreographies. User types a
word in a typesetting-like application which plays back this
word as an uninterrupted dance sequence where dancers
body temporarily makes positions recognizable as letters.
Is this typography? Project like this, as many others using exist-
ing digital possibilities seems not much worried about it, but use
typographic principles to create autonomous work which cross
boundaries of various disciplines. It seems that typography
itself matured into a new creative discipline in which majority
of typographers work in a way which is guided by historical
understanding of the word, yet there is room for experimen-
tation which explores the boundaries of the profession.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 160 Chapter 4: 19251930 161
In other disciplines, such debate is in fact a sign of new self-con- 1930 Specimen Book of Continental,
Continental Typefounders Association,
sciousness. Novelist Milan Kundera argues that a contempo- New York
rary novel is no longer defined as a fictional narrative in prose,
but can include various forms of writing: poetry, short-story,
or interview. Kunderas books include parts which are philo-
sophical, political, comical, while still being firmly part of a
novel. The ability to absorb these various forms is Kunderas
definition of novel. Similarly, larger understanding of typog-
raphy, which is no longer defined by technology, but evolves
with it, may open this discipline to new create endeavors.
A View of Latin Typography in
Relationship to the World
It is generally acknowledged that it was Gutenberg who
invented movable type printing in 1436. It is generally for-
gotten that what is missing in that statement is the necessary
qualifier in Europe. Thanks to the present-day dominance
of Latin script we have largely forgotten that there are parallel
histories outside of Europe, but the first recorded movable type
system was more likely created in China around 1040 AD by
Bi Sheng. His early type was made of wood, which was later
abandoned in favour of baked clay, which produced smoother
imprints. Unlike Latin script which uses 26 letters, Chinese
script uses thousands of characters, making type composi-
tion particularly complicated. Nevertheless, movable type
has been in continuous use in China since the 11th century.
Elsewhere too, printing progressed. Choe Yun-ui, a Korean
civil minister, made the transition from wood to metal mov-
able type around 1230 AD. Metal movable type was also
invented independently of the Koreans in China during the
Ming Dynasty. During the Mongol Empire movable type
moved further west. According to legend, Laurens Janszoon
Coster, a respected citizen of Haarlem, could have been the
first European to invent movable type, if the account present-
ed by Hadrianus Junius is true. But the story is not widely

believed, which brings us back to Johannes Gutenberg of
Mainz, who invented movable type a decade later. In Europe.
Even today, typography as a discipline continues to be
plagued by a Euro-centric bias. If any of the major typogra-
phy reference books are to be believed, the development of
typography has generally been limited to Western Europe.
In Type & Typography(2002), the otherwise excellent book
by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, the authors make a note
that the history of writing and the alphabet goes back thou-
sands of years, but they do not elaborate more on this. It goes
without saying that their history of typography is only the
history of Latin-based typography. Other books are even
more blunt when it comes to the scope they cover. Classic
volumes such as Updikes obviously nationalistic Printing
Type, first printed in 1922, or Harry Carters also already
somewhat dated A View of Early Typography (1969) can be
overlooked. But even recent books such Designing Type (2005)
by Karen Cheng or A Typographic Workbook (2005) by
Kate Clair & Cynthia Busic-Snyder dont bother to mention
that there is more to typography than Latin typography.
Most of the existing typographic classification systems also
apply exclusively to Latin type. In catalogues of the tradi-
tional type foundries such as French Imprimerie Nationale,
the house of Garamont, Didot and Romain du Roi, typefaces
other than Latin are referred as Orientales. Most contem-
porary digital type foundries such as Monotype call these
fonts Non-Latin. These terms certainly have rather colo-
nial overtones, suggesting the idea of the other, describing
foreign scripts in negative terms as non-European. In other
disciplines, language and terminology have adjusted to the
wider environment of the global village, reflecting the pro-
gress that the society has made in the last couple of decades,
and we no longer find a boxed set of paints with the name
flesh given to a light beige color. Only typography contin-
ues to display a shameless bias towards western civilization.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
Some common type terminology is also inappropriate for
typefaces which didnt evolve in Western Europe. The term
Roman is customarily used to describe serif typefaces of the
early Italian Renaissance period. More recently, the term has
also come to denote the upright style of typefaces, as opposed
to the word Italic, which refers to cursive typefaces inspired
by the handwriting of Italian humanists. Thus Linotype offers
fonts called Sabon Greek Roman and Sabon Greek Italic, (de-
signed by Jan Tchichold), based on 16th century models. But
by using terminology which is typically associated with Latin
type and evokes the history of Italian typography, Linotype
makes a careless statement. Greek Roman and Greek Italic
are contradictions in terms, mixing two very different histo-
ries. Such slanted versions of Greek or Cyrillic types should
properly be described in more technical terms such as inclined,
oblique, or cursive. Roman and Italic suggest that the Greek
version has been Latinised, borrowing too much not only of
the terminology but also of the formal characteristics of Latin
type, ignoring the rich Greek traditions of typography.
The news is not all bad, however. Recent changes in technology
such as the introduction of the Unicode system and Open-
Type font format have inspired type designers to consider the
previously overlooked domain of non-Latin typography. It is
estimated that in the last decade, more Greek fonts were created
than in the entire preceding century. Books such as Language,
Culture, Type (2002) have been published, promoting cultur-
al pluralism, admitting that English and the Latin alphabet
account for only one segment of global communications today.
(According to 2006 Encarta statistics, the number of native
English speakers is less than the number of native Hindi and
Arabic speakers, and roughly one-third the number of native
Chinese speakers.) Such books are very important because
they also present models for alphabets less explored than the
Latin one, and offer a comprehensive history of their use.
In his concise book, The Solid Form of Language (2004),
Robert Bringhurst proposes a new classification system
162
of worlds various written languages and scripts. This
approach promotes a consciously inclusive approach
to typography, and considers the whole history of hu-
manity and its relationship to script and meaning.
The new possibilities are exciting for designers working
with non-Latin type. There is a modest interest in Arabic,
Cyrillic, Greek, or Indic scripts, and even type design com-
petitions have responded to the new situation by creating
special categories. The new development is also good news
even for designers working exclusively with Latin typog-
raphy: while we might think that most of the possibilities
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the
of Latin type have been explored, traditions of typography
from Greece, the Middle East, India and elsewhere can help
us to rediscover how we understand Latin type today.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextricably
connected to the development of printing technology.) Writing
Chapter 4: 19251930 163
about type and typography in the mainstream
media is somewhat of a rarity even in the
Netherlands, a country which is renowned
for its highly-developed typographic culture,
not to mention other countries where type
design is still waiting for any sort of recog-
nition. Yet searching through the past years
issues of The New York Times reveals a
surprising half dozen articles on typography,
and even weekly satirical paper The Onion,
carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
publics interest in type design. (Of course,
this article, which reports on the winner of
a fictional annual font award, appeared next
to other news like Sheepish Secret Service 1930 Specimen Book of Continental,
Continental Typefounders Association,
Agent Cant Explain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into New York
Oval Office, which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the
general publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.

It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
1930 Fette Memphis,
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
D. Stempel AG,
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
Frankfurt am Main
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Dutch type design
The Netherlands is a small country with some 15 million
inhabitants. It is flat, and has no geographical particularities.
It is situated on the western border of Germany, the north of
France and Belgium, and the east of England across the North
Sea. As a comparatively small country, the Dutch people
have always felt the influence of surrounding countries. If
they attempted to be a part of international styles, they risked
dissolving the national characteristics of the small nation.
On the other hand, if they tried to stay untouched by foreign
influence and keep to themselves, they could easily fall into
provincialism. However, they have succeeded in creating
one of the most remarkable and outstanding cultures.
Chapter 4: 19251930 165
The homeland of Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg,
Gerrit Rietveld and Piet Zwart now produces designs
of the highest abstractiondesigns of letters. Holland
today has more type designers per capita than any other
country in the world, a remarkable fact considering that
there is now not one surviving Dutch type foundry, says
Gerard Unger, one of the most important typographers
in Holland. Unger, a very active typeface designer and
lecturer, stands somewhere between the classic typeface
designers and the experimental ones. Among Ungers
work are the typeface for the Amsterdam Metro, Demos,
Praxis, ITC Flora designed for Hell company, Ameri-
go and Oranda for Bitstream, and his latest drawings
include the newspaper faces Swift and Gulliver.
According to Unger, this has to do with the low-lying
land and cool skies of the Netherlands. Hollander
is one of my designs to reflect the inescapable
Dutch horizon. The horizontal parts of
the curves are stretched, the resultant
gentle arches combining with the
large serifs to assist the letters in
joining visually to make words
and lines, describes Unger the
typeface that follows the best
traditions of Dutch typography.
Is it possible that the physical
character of the landscape
forms characteristics of graphic
design? For the answer to this
question we go back to the
beginning of the century. While
most of Europe accepted Art
Nouveau as the last interna-
tional-spread art movement that
influenced architecture, craft,
and fine arts, the Dutch rejected
 166 Chapter 4: 19251930 167

1927 Elementare Schmuckformen,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
Art Nouveau as frivolous. Dutch artists considered themselves
pragmatic and realistic. Thus, they rather turned themselves to-
wards conventional realism that later evolved into abstraction.
Forty years ago, the Dutch society was still solidly bourgeois,
puritanical and strongly influenced by religion. It is the change
after the second world war from a politically neutral country
to an active member of transatlantic and European alliances
that had far-reaching cultural effects. It totally changed the
Dutch perception of their own nationality, and revised the
traditional Dutch values. From a very religious country the
Netherlands developed into one of the most liberal societies
in the world. Life in the Netherlands became much more
open and hedonistic oriented. The prosperity of the nation
in the 60s also helped to create a mood of great expectation;
instead of looking abroad for models, the Dutch understood
the advantages of being themselves. No, this was not a sudden
turn in the history of the nation; the Dutch stayed as they
have always been, open towards international developments.
It is very unlikely that the countryside (even though it is
so remarkable in its flatness) is the only determinant of art
development in the Netherlands, although it is undoubtedly
a source of inspiration for Dutch artists. Holland has always
been an unusually tolerant place. It is the place with many
political parties, many different views and opinions. Individ-
uality here is a very important element. It seems that with
the world-wide availability of graphic software, the nation-
al characteristics of graphic design and typography would
disappear. How is it possible that there is such a phenomenon
as Dutch design in todays international style? And, what are
the characteristics of Dutch design? Reading the art history
books, I can say that realism, sobriety, outspokenness, clari-
ty, moral integrity, and social responsibility were frequently
marked as typical Dutch virtues. But these characteristics
do not in themselves define style. And even if they did, the
same qualities are related to Modernism (International style),
another movement that didnt influence Holland very much.
The Dutch found their own interpretation of Modernism.
Gerard Unger in his essay Dutch landscape with letters wrote:
the national character is only one of the components needed
for a recognizable style of type design. The chief elements of
style are the product not merely of the country, region or city
in which the designer happens to live, they are also molded
by his own personal qualities and the age in which he works.
Maybe a foreign observer can better describe what is hard to
see for the Dutch themselves. Erik Spiekermann, a German
typographer, puts it like this: All the Dutch type designs I
know, even the historical ones, have a vertical oval as one of
their basic shapes. They are narrow compared with French
designs like the types of Excoffon, which are actually broader
at the top than they are at the bottom. Clarity and openness
and high contrast are also clearly identifiable characteris-
tics in Dutch types. The clarity and openness are part of the
construction and contrast in, say, the alternation of rounded
and angular forms. The structure is always clearly visible in
the work of Dutch designers. The Dutch are more concerned
with the structure, the basic shape. You can follow the syntax
of the design processthe design can be understood im-
mediately. At the same time they are also sophisticated.
There is too much of it. Contemporary Dutch design can
be stylish and eclectic, inventive and trains-historical, sys-
tematic and non-functional, provocative and convention-
al, conceptual and random, pragmatic and nonsensical,
witty and stiff, anarchic and traditional and it still keeps
its characteristics; it is still so Dutch. It fluctuates between
rigid logic and total senselessness. In other words, there
is no style of Dutch design. Or, in the words of designer
Max Kisman, the style of Dutch design is style of styles.
There is pluriformity which is unique to Holland.
Kisman pioneered the use of computers in 1977, when he was
the first designer to create stamps for the postal/telecommu-
nications services PTT on an Amiga computer. Kisman is also

known for his belief that legibility is a code that depends on
the impressions, rhythm, and expression of symbols which
may or may not be letters. Kisman has become increasingly
skeptical of designing new type, and since 1992 hasnt de-
signed any new fonts. Because my angle is shifted I am less
interested in type. There is so much of that stuff and I wonder
what I could add which hasnt been done before. Too much I
see now is somehow related to what I did years ago. Of course,
I recognize some very good designs but to me the revolution
is over and repetition began a while ago. There is no meaning
in type design, all is decoration. Everyone can do what some-
one else is doing. Type design becomes an average taste to
express a general life style. Type is available anywhere at any
time. Concepts of type are available anywhere at any time.
Like the jersey you wear or the shoe you choose. Nothing
more, nothing less. All this fuzz about type becomes a bit
irrelevant, I think sometimes. Of course, its a big industry, a
lot is involved, many typographical magazines appear, lots of
students are waiting to bring in something new. This massive
run on type is an escape from an essential question. Wheth-
er graphic design will survive or not. And if so, how? More
important at this moment is to redefine graphic design.
While in 1989 Gerard Unger could say that Dutchmen are a
folk for text types, not headlines, today he admits that young
designers have proved otherwise. One of the most prolific
contemporary type designers is the duo Letterror, formed by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum. At the ages of 24/25,
they designed their revolutionary Randomfonts. Since then,
they have produced many best-selling typefaces. In the short
time of 4 years they created 17 typeface families published by
FontShop International, excluding their font contributions for
Brodys FUSE project. Beowolf, their first randomfont, is the
typeface that for inspiration goes somewhere to pre-Gutenberg
time. Instead of the traditional system of writingrepeating of
graphical forms that become visually so unobtrusive that they
are virtually invisible, Letterror developed a special technol-
168
1930 Messinglinien,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
ogy that allows the random changing of letters. Randomfont
technology generates each letter separately and differently. No
two letters are the same. For instance, if you type two As in
row and print them, they look different depending on the level
of randomness you choose. This new invention is not limited
only to changing letterforms. We could change typographic
awareness of computer users around the world by creating a
font virus that would slowly transform every Helvetica into
something much more desirablethe Post-modern typog-
raphers revenge, or we could create letters that would wear
out through frequent use, combined with a feature that uses
up certain often used letters. Van Blokland and van Rossum
devoted their research to humanizing type design. A font
that does not work overtime and a font that adds typos go
to the extreme in their attempts to add the human quality
to computer typography. They believe that the computer can
bring back subtleties that were lost during type evolution due
economic considerations. Recognition does not come from
simple repetition of the same form, but it is something more
intelligent, something that happens in our minds... Random-
ness and change can add new dimensions to print work
The experiments of the Letterror duo certainly have a great
potential. We can add some data to a digital typeface, and it
can act very intelligently. It may adjust its shape according
Chapter 4: 19251930 169
the form of medium we are using it in, change its contour
according to its size and relation with color background.
The Netherlands has 13 design schools. Erik van Blokland, Just
van Rossum, Peter Verheul, Martin Majoor, Peter Matthias
Noordzij, (Luc)as de Groot, Evert Bloemsma, Fred Smeijers, are
all their recent graduates, and already internationally recog-
nized ones. Most of them emerged from The Art Academy in
Arnhem and the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague
(Gerrit Noordzij and Petr van Blokland teach in The Hague).
None of the above mentioned typographers gave me the
opportunity to summarize what the Dutch style is. My hope
is that even in a new united Europe, where things are going to
get all mixed up, the Dutch personal creativity will prevail.
Experimental typography.
Whatever that means.
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly
as the word experiment. In the field of graphic design and
typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify
anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization,
or confounding expectations. As a verb, To experiment is
often synonymous with the design process itself, which may
not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result
of the design process. The term experiment can also have the
connotation of an implicit disclaimer; it suggests not taking
responsibility for the result. When students are asked what
they intend by creating certain forms, they often say, Its just
an experiment, when they dont have a better response.
In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a
set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothe-
sis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach
to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others
can build. It requires all measurements to be made ob-
jectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a

phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the
phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famous scientific experiment would be
Galileo Galileis dropping of two objects of different
weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both
would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about
gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be
a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the
transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems
to be valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is
applicable, or in a situation where the outcome of the experi-
ment can be reliably measured. What happens however when
the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not based on pure
reason? In the recent book The Typographic Experiment: Rad-
ical Innovation in Contemporary Type Design, the author Teal
Triggs asked thirty-seven internationally-recognized design-
ers to define their understandings of the term experiment.
As expected, the published definitions couldnt have been
more disparate. They are marked by personal belief systems
and biased by the experiences of the designers. While Hamish
Muir of 8vo writes: Every type job is experiment, Melle
Hammer insists that: experimental typography does not
exist, nor ever has. So how is it possible that there are such
diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers various interpretations, two notions of
experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulat-
ed by the American designer David Carson: experimental is
something I havent tried before something that hasnt been alphabet is by its very nature dependent on
seen and heard. Carson and several other designers suggest that
the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.
There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when
information travels faster than ever before and when we have
achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes
significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 170
While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that 1927 Lichte Wiking,
Schriftgieerei J.D. Trennert & Sohn,
to do it in a way that no one has done it before was sufficient Altona/Elbe
for the definition of the new typography of his day and his
work was an appropriate example of such an approach today
things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of
work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty
today can seem like historical ignorance on a designers part.
Interestingly, Carsons statement also suggests that the essence
of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns,
rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly op-
posed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment
is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design,
where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency
to go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In
science a single person can make valuable experiments, but a
design experiment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can
only exist against the background of other conventional
solutions. In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment
if one were the only designer on earth, because there would
be no standard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism
requires going against prevailing styles, which is perceived
as conventional. If more designers joined forces and worked
in a similar fashion, the scale would change, and the former
convention would become anti-conventional. The fate of such
experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the main-
stream; a circular, cyclical race, where
it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Does type design and typography allow
an experimental approach at all? The
and defined by conventions. Type design that is
not bound by convention is like a private language:
both lack the ability to communicate. Yet it is precise-
ly the constraints of the alphabet which inspire many
designers. A recent example is the work of
Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French

postgraduate student of type-design who investigates the limits
of legibility while physically reducing the basic forms of the
alphabet. Minuscule is his project of size-specific typography.
While the letters for regular reading sizes are very close to
conventional book typefaces, each step down in size results
in simplification of the letter-shapes. In the extremely small
sizes (2pt) Miniscule becomes an abstract reduction of the
alphabet, free of all the details and optical corrections which
are usual for fonts designed for text reading. Huot-Marchands
project builds upon the work of French ophthalmologist Louis
Emile Javal, who published similar research at the beginning
of the 20th century. The practical contribution of both projects
is limited, since the reading process is still guided by the
physical limitations of the human eye, however, Huot-March-
and and Javal both investigate the constraints of
legibility within which typography functions.
The second dominant notion of experi-
ment in The Typographic Experiment
was formulated by Michael Worthing-
ton, a British designer and educator based
in the USA: True experimentation
means to take risks. If taken literally,
such a statement is of little value:
immediately we would ask what is
at stake and what typographers
are really risking. Worthing-
ton, however, is referring to
the risk involved with not
knowing the exact outcome
of the experiment in which
the designers are engaged.
A similar definition is offered
by the E.A.T. (Experiment And
Typography) exhibition present-
ing 35 type designers and typog-
raphers from the Czech Republic and
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
Slovakia, which coincidentally will arrive in the Netherlands
shortly. Alan Zruba and Johanna Balukov, the curators of
E.A.T. put their focus on development and process when de-
scribing the concept of the exhibition: the show focuses on pro-
jects which document the development of designers ideas. At-
tention is paid to the process of creating innovative solutions in
the field of type design and typography, often engaging exper-
imental processes as a means to approach unknown territory.
An experiment in this sense has no preconceived idea of
the outcome; it only sets out to determine a cause-and-ef-
fect relationship. As such, experimentation is a method of
working which is contrary to production-oriented design,
where the aim of the process is not to create something new,
but to achieve an already known, pre-formulated result.
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an
experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into
account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the
silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they
lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies
according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the
highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter
(q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text
creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without
anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type
Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo
Palma, describe ortho-type as an exercise in perception, a stim-
ulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-di-
mensional planes on a flat surface. Ortho-type is an online
application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three
dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available
variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation,
and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also
generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
172
Although this kind of experimental process has no com-
mercial application, its results may feed other experiments
and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilat-
ed, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson
may have started his formal experiments out of curiosi-
ty, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted
by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no
completed project can be seriously considered experimental.
It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When
completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it
was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its
final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according
to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to
bring together various working methods which are recog-
nized separately but rarely combined. For example, language
is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly inter-
ested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing
them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
however, venture into the visible representation of language,
because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to
spoken language. Typographers on the other hand are con-
cerned with the appearance of type in print and other repro-
duction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge
of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet
often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
Chapter 4: 19251930 173
1928 Wiking,
Schriftgieerei J.D. Trennert & Sohn,
Altona/Elbe
These contrasting interests are brought together in the
work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues
his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
His typeface Sinttik reduces the letters of the French alphabet
to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from
another) and compresses it to 16 characters. Di Sciullo stresses
the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book
being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of
the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French
words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the
simplest representation of their pronunciation po. Words set
in Sinttik can be understood only when read aloud return-
ing the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It
is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in
Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of
pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange
would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or
to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional
aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This
project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers,
the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold.
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he
designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of
Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on

record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways,).
The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and
is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is
great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullos type-
faces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited,
yet like the other presented examples of experiments in
typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas
of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
Although most of the examples shown here are marked by
the recent shift of interest of European graphic design from
forms to ideas, and the best examples combine both, there is
no definitive explanation of what constitutes an experiment
in typography. As the profession develops and more people
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of
experimentation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
History of a new font
(notes on designing Fedra Serif)
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven by
technology. Each wave of technological change in printing
provoked the development of new approaches enabled by
the new possibilities. In the eighteenth century, for example,
new typefaces exploited innovations in papermaking and
improved inking techniques to greatly increase the contrast
between letters thick and thin strokes. The introduction of
pantographic punch- and matrix-cutting in the late nine-
teenth century enabled numerous variations of a typeface to
be manufactured from a single drawing. This understanding
of the mechanical scaling of forms changed the idea of the
alphabet; it was now a flexible system, resulting in a vast range
of typographic variants compressed, expanded, extruded,
ad infinitum. In the mid-twentieth century the adoption of
photocomposition systems meant that spacing and kerning
could be adjusted with greater precision; among the many
novelties that photo technology enabled, more fonts simu-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 174
lating connected handwriting were developed. And most 1928 Jahrbuch,
D. Stempel AG,
recently the personal computer spurred a wave of new fonts Frankfurt am Main
based on previously unexplored motives, such as modularity
or randomness. With each of these technological changes,
typeface libraries were updated to reflect the changes.
Type designers are very fond of the problems imposed
by the technology. They work in a discipline where re-
strictions and conventions define the frame of work. A
problem is the type designers muse, and in the last dec-
ades we were blessed by enough problems to solve.
While working on the typeface to be called Charter, Matthew
Carter was confronted with a peculiar technical problem.
Early computers were not able to process font files over a
certain kilobyte limit, so Carter quickly offered a solution: a
typeface that would consist mainly of straight lines, thereby
keeping the file size small by limiting the number of points
needed to construct the letters. Proudly he claimed to the
technicians, I think I solved your problem What problem?
the technicians asked; an even quicker fixing of the comput-
ers limitations would render Carters solution useless.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, reducing type design to a response mechanism a
craft detached from its own history. When the idea of cul-
tural progress is supplanted by technological progress, the
more implicit motives of type design, such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of the type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
Carter, alongside many of the great punch-cutters, designers,
and printers, has participated in the sequence of discoveries,
summed up - for the sake of comprehensibility - as History.
They contributed to the History of the profession by respond-
ing to current situations. Their aim was not to reinvent the
existing, but to reveal an unknown aspect of the art itself.

Typefaces designed to fulfill the needs of their times contrib-
ute their small part to the knowledge accumulated across the
centuries; not necessarily by inventing anything revolution-
ary, but by extending and adapting collective knowledge to
contemporary conditions. The spirit of continuity is crucial:
each new creation is an answer to what has come before and
each new typeface contains accumulated knowledge.
So: contemporary type design is necessarily histori-
cal. Typefaces are results of the processes, they are re-
sponses to the conditions in which they were created,
and they immediately take a part in the history.
On the other hand, revivals, or typefaces teleporting their
inspirations from concluded periods of time, are unrelated
to contemporary demands. They discontinue the series of
inventions, becoming a game of pastiche, merely repeating
what has already been created. Revival typefaces are, then,
ahistorical, as they place themselves outside their natural
history. They create their short-lived parallel histories and
fail to participate in the big story.
History has been gravely abused,
and an excuse for many misde-
meanors, but it always outlasts
those who tried to abuse
it. Historys only enemy is
the end of the pro-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 176
gress. Repeating what has already been created closes the
circle of discoveries. The value of understanding history
as an infinite source of accumulated knowledge is man-
ifest in the intangible processes as much as the tangible
results. The history is driven by intellectual pursuits. Most
historical discoveries are the isolated discoveries of intro-
vert individuals rather then mainstream technologies.
The Austrian writer Herman Broch, author of a number
of formally inventive and intellectually ambitious novels,
used to repeat this mantra: the sole raison dtre of a novel
is to discover what only the novel can discover. My con-
clusion is equally optimistic: the purpose of type design
is to explore its own possibilities by its own means.
Beauty and Ugliness in Type design
In 2010 I was invited to a design conference in Copenhagen
to speak on the subject of conceptual type. The organisers
were interested in examples of typefaces whose principal
design feature was not related to aesthetic considerations or
legibility, but rather some underlying non-typographical idea.
In my address I argued that there is no such thing as con-
ceptual type, since type design is a discipline defined by its
ability to execute an outcome; the process that transforms the
pure idea into a functional font is a critical
part of the discipline. Having rejected
the topic of the conference, I nevertheless
went on to speculate on what a true exam-
ple of a conceptual typeface might be like. 1928 Jahrbuch,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
At the time I was also interested in the idea
of irreconcilable differences and how two ex-
tremes could be combined into a coherent whole.
As an example, I looked for the most beautiful
typeface in the history of typography as well as
the ugliest one and for a way to meld them.

The Beauty
While any choice representing beauty is bound to be very
personal and subjective, many agree that the high-con-
trast typefaces created by Giambattista Bodoni and the
Didot clan are some of the most beautiful in existence.
Bodoni was one of the most widely-admired printers of his
time and considered amongst the finest in the history of the
craft. Thomas Curson Hansard wrote in 1825 that Bodonis
types had that beautiful and perfect appearance, which we
find it difficult and highly expensive to equal. In his Manu-
ale Tipografico of 1818, Bodoni laid down the four principles
of type design from which all beauty would seem to pro-
ceed, namely: regularity, clarity, good taste, and charm.
His close competitors in France were the Didots. Not only
did Franois-Ambroise Didot invent many of the machines
used in printing, but his foundry endeavoured to render
the types more beautifully than his rivals Baskerville and
(later) Bodoni. Some considered Didots works the most
beautiful types that had ever been used in France (up to that
period), though others found them delicate but lifeless.
178
1928 Schmale Halbfette Kabel,
Gebr. Klingspor,
Frankfurt am Main
The Ugliness
I have to admit that dealing with ugliness was a lot more
interesting than revisiting the beauty contests of the classi-
cist printers. The search for ugliness triggers a certain primal,
voyeuristic curiosity, and from the designers perspective
there is simply a lot more space to explore. Capturing beauty
has always been considered the primary responsibility of
the traditional artist, and even now it is rare to find exam-
ples of skilled and deliberate ugliness in type design, (al-
though examples of inexperience and naivet abound).
The eccentric Italian from the middle of the Industrial
Revolution was a clear choice. This reversed-contrast type-
face was designed to deliberately attract readers attention
by defying their expectations. Strokes that were thick in
classical models were thin, and vice versa a dirty trick
to create freakish letterforms that stood out in the in-
creasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
No other style in the history of typography has provoked such
negative reactions as the Italian. It was first presented in Caslon
& Catherwoods 1821 type specimen, and as early as 1825, in
his Typographia Thomas Hansard called the type a typograph-
ic monstrosity. Nicolete Gray called it a crude expression of
the idea of perversity , while others labeled it as degenerate.
The goal of my project was to show just how closely relat-
ed beauty and ugliness are. Donald Knuth, an American
computer scientist with a special interest in typography
identified over 60 visual parameters that control the ap-
pearance of a typeface. I was interested in designing type-
face variations that shared most of these parameters, yet
included both the ugliest and most beautiful letterforms.
Karloff, the result of this project, connects the high
contrast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the
monstrous Italians. The difference between the attrac-
tive and repulsive forms lies in a single design param-
eter, the contrast between the thick and the thin.
I asked Pieter van Rosmalen for help, and both of us worked
on both versions. While at the beginning I looked at the Didot
from Imprimerie Nationale as a reference, Pieter departed from
this model and made the project more personal. We worked
on both models at the same time, trying to be very strict about
mathematically reversing the contrast between two weights.
The advantage of working on both versions together was
that we could adjust both of them to achieve the best forms,
rather than creating one as an afterthought of the other.
Towards the end of the project, I worked with Nikola
Djurek, our frequent collaborator, who helped with in-
terpolation and fine-tuning of the fonts. Having designed
two diametrically opposite versions, we undertook a ge-
netic experiment with the offspring of the beauty and the
beast, interpolation of the two extremes, which produced
a surprisingly neutral low contrast version. Karloff Neutral
required only minimal intervention, because the master
weights from which it was interpolated were well defined.
Chapter 4: 19251930 179
The history of History
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven
by technology, each wave of change in printing technology
provoking the development of new approaches to design. In
the eighteenth century, for example, innovations in paper-
making and inking techniques inspired new typefaces with
much higher contrast between the thick and thin strokes of
the characters. The introduction of pantographic punch- and
matrix-cutting in the late nineteenth century enabled numer-
ous variations of a typeface to be manufactured from a single
drawing, transforming typefaces into flexible systems with
vast ranges of typographic variants. In the mid-twentieth
century the adoption of photocomposition systems meant that
spacing and kerning could be adjusted with greater precision,
inspiring (among other things) the development of more
fonts simulating handwriting. Most recently, the personal
computer has spurred a wave of new fonts based on previously
unexplored motifs, such as modularity or random chance.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, however, reducing type design to a response mecha-
nism a craft detached from its own history. When the idea
of cultural progress is supplanted by technological progress,
the less obvious motifs of type design such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
The History type system was in development longer than any
other project I ever worked on. Its beginnings can be traced
to the early 1990s when I experimented with decorative
layering systems inspired by 19th century types, trying to
dissect Tuscan typefaces into their structural components.
While most historians and designers regard this period
with horror, and many history books call the typefaces

decadent or regressive, I found Tuscans very charming and
inspirational. I started drawing a layering font that incor-
porated the possibilities of Tuscan types, but because of
technological limitations, I never completed the project.
Years later (2002) the project took a new twist as I worked on
a proposal for the Twin Cities typeface. Instead of proposing
one new typeface for St.Paul and Minneapolis, I presented
the idea of a typeface system inspired by the evolution of
typography, a conceptual typeface that reused existing fonts.
I called this proposal History. A user would select History
from the font menu, not knowing what font would be used.
History would be linked with the computers calendar and
with a predefined database of fonts, presenting a different
font every day. For example, one day it would use the forms
of Garamond, but the next day when you opened the same
document, the font would change and present the text in a
new typeface, say Granjon, that was created later than Gara-
mond. The idea was that the constant changes would confront
the user with the continuous development of typography.
And finally around 2004 I started working more intensively
on a system of layering letterforms that could be recombined.
I kept adding new styles, and because every style had to use
the same proportions as the previous one so that they would
work together, it was getting increasingly more complicated to
draw them. The danger was that this could be a never-ending
project, and I could keep adding more and more styles, which
would take more and more time to incorporate. In 2008, I
finally decided to limit the number of styles to 21. It was an
arbitrary decision, but I liked the number, as it reflected the 21
centuries of typographic history encompassed by the project.
Based on a skeleton of Roman inscriptional capitals, History in-
cludes 21 layers, 21 independent typefaces which share widths
and other metric information so that they can be recombined.
Thus History has the potential to generate an infinite number
of unique styles through the superimposition of layers encom-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 180 Chapter 4: 19251930 181
passing humanist renaissance, transitional, baroque, script-like, 1925 Antiqua Senator,
Aktiengesellschaft fr Schriftgieerei
early grotesque, 19th century vernacular and digital types. und Maschinenbau,
Offenbach am Main
While careless use can generate freakish results resembling
Frankensteins monster, more careful experimentation can
produce not only amusing, but surprisingly fresh and usable
typeface samples. With History, one can replicate typographic
history or, on the other hand, extend it. For example, you can
take a hairline skeleton of letters inspired by Roman inscrip-
tional capitals from year 80 AD (layer 1), dress it up with a
high contrast of thick and thin strokes as Bodoni used in his
work (layer 3), and finally apply 18th century ultra thin serifs
(layer 10) to emulate the style typical of the work of Didot and
Bodoni. Or you can take a low contrast model of letters with
oblique stress (layer 2) and combine it with bracketed serifs
derived from a broad nib pen (layer 8) to end up with letters
reminiscent of Nicolas Jensons Roman from 1470. Making
approximations of historical typefaces is instructional, but not
very interesting, (and frankly, one should use real Didot or real
Jenson typefaces); it is far more interesting to extend history
and mix styles which historically have not co-existed. Take, for
instance, bitmap letterforms found in early low-resolution com-
puter screens (layer 7), and combine them with the thin serifs
of Bodoni (layer 10) to get something unexpected. And
add the swooshes found in 15th century hu-
manist calligraphy (layer 17) to top it off.
Realising that controlling 21
different layers can be a
daunting task, I proposed
to supply not just the 21
font files, but also the
History Remixer appli-
cation. This web-based
software processes
text input through an
interface which allows
the user to work with

the layers, activating, deactivating, arranging, setting colour,
and luminosity. The application generates an open PDF file
which one can then fine tune in Illustrator or some other
programme. Using the Remixer is fun, but playing with History
in InDesign, although is much more work, is probably more
enjoyable because unexpectedly fresh letterforms result. One
can happen across new possibilities, and this game of discov-
ery was one of the important reasons why I did this project.
I chose History as a deliberately irreverent, cheeky
name, but by no means intended it to be disrespectful.
It is mostly a direct reference to the fact that I embraced
no single point in the past, but rather a very large part of
history of typography. My sincere intention was to par-
ticipate in the sequence of typographic discoveries and
allow the user to actively engage in this process as well.
I should acknowledge some sources of inspiration behind
this project. Of course the history of typography was the
primary inspiration. In addition, however, there are some
works which were particularly inspiring to me at the time.
The polyhistorical model of Milan Kunderas Immortality
provided the theoretical foundation of the project in the way
it mixes personalities of the past and present, describing an
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1925 Nouveauts,
Haassche Schriftgieerei,
Mnchenstein
imaginary dialogue between, say, the German poet Goethe
(1749-1832) and the American novelist Hemingway (1899-
1961), even though those two could never really have met.
But there are also some precedents in the history of typogra-
phy that allowed me to explore the area of multiform works.
Oswald Coopers experiments from 1936, which involved
applying 15 serifs applied to stems of similar weight to test
their influence in letter design, was of particular interest.
And more recently, Matthew Carters typeface for Walker
Art Center opened my eyes to new possibilities. I should
also mention other useful experiments, such as the early
manifestation of Multiple Master technology documented
in typefaces such as Adobes Penumbra designed in 1994
by Lance Hidy. With the use of Multiple Master, Penumbra
can continuously change from sans serif to fully serifed.
Some reviews and user responses suggest that History is more
of an educational tool than a functional typeface system. Yes,
surely one can use it to explain and explore the constructions
of Roman letterforms, but I still would like to emphasise
the practical aspect of the system. I sincerely hoped, but
couldnt predict, that fonts would be used commercially.
Running a type foundry for a decade, Ive learnt that though
our clients are often extremely creative professionals, they dont
have time to learn too many new things, and many features of
our fonts go unnoticed. It is all very well and good to create
style sets, extended language support and ways to make sure
that a different (slightly higher) hyphen is used automatically
when the text is converted to capitals, but does it all matter
when most people dont even know what OpenType fonts are?
I dont have precise usage statistics, but my guess is that 90% of
our clients use only the basic character set and never realise that
the font, which they licensed for quite a bit of money, can do a
whole lot more than respond to the computer keys they push.
182 Chapter 4: 19251930 183
As evidence I can quote occasional conversations with and for as long as I can remember, type designers have
users of our fonts who complain that small cap fonts are been saying that hinting would soon be made obsolete by
missing (when in fact they simply need to be activated by new advances in hardware and software. Now, almost 20
an OpenType feature), or that when they type English text years later, hinting seems to be more relevant than ever.
it is still in English even though the font claims to support
The problem is that typical modern fonts are not designed
Russian (indeed the font doesnt translate words automat-
primarily for the 7296 dpi resolution of computer screens, but
ically, but only renders the content). So does it make sense
for the much higher 1,200+ dpi resolution of print media. The
to spend nearly 15 years of (discontinuous and at times not
letterforms are designed and stored as outlines, mathematically
very intense) work on an even more complex font system
perfect lines and curves which look great at high resolutions,
that cannot be used properly in Microsoft Word, and is
but can be distorted or even illegible when converted into
rather challenging to use in design applications as well?
groups of pixels, the on-or-off dots that make up a computers
Now, more than a year after the original publication of History, display. And although there has been much discussion about
I can say that it was probably worth the effort. The fonts are
indeed being used, and I am continually amazed when I see
their real-life applications. I am not sure if I only see the beauti-
ful samples because people dont bother sending me the horrible
ones, or if its the high barrier of difficulty of using History that
puts the system in the hands of dedicated designers. Whatev-
er the reason is, seeing History in use is deeply satisfying.
One things that Ive learned from this project is that despite
the ubiquitous market research in design and the calculated
decisions of designers, it is still worthwhile to do projects that
I personally believe in. Even the day before Historys release I
had no idea if anyone would ever use the system, but that was
less important, as I found the work gratifying, and I focused
on the creative process rather than its market potential. It
is satisfying to see that this naive approach can work even
in a world driven by commercial pressures. It gives me the
courage to dedicate time to personal research which, when
it is rigourous enough, can find its application in the wild.
Font hinting
Hinting, or screen optimising, is the process by which 1925 Antiqua Senator,
Aktiengesellschaft fr Schriftgieerei und
fonts are adjusted for maximum readability on computer Maschinenbau,
Offenbach am Main
monitors. I have been designing type since the early 1990s,

high-definition computer monitors for decades, the fact of the
matter is that my 5 year old mobile phone still takes photos with
finer detail than my brand new computer can show on its screen.
This is the reason that webpage designers have long been
more or less limited to a dozen or so fonts (Verdana, Georgia,
Arial, etc.) that have been fine-tuned by hand so that typical
text sizes (914pt) display well at low resolutions. These fonts
are so common that most computer users think of them as
free, but the reality is that Verdana, for example, is probably
the most expensive, labor-intensive font ever produced. It
includes characters used to write an extremely wide range of
languages, and each of these characters had to be adjusted
to be readable at every point size between 9 and 60 (at 60pt
the resolution is sufficient to display the letterforms accu-
rately). In other words, each of more than 890 characters
was redesigned dozens of times, once at every point size.
Outlines of Fedra Sans Screen at various sizes. Notice
how different the outlines are in order to achieve
the optimal legibility of screen. Every letter is ba-
sically designed for each point size again.
This is exactly what hinting is about: programming instruc-
tions that fine-tune a fonts rasterisation, the process by which
its mathematically ideal outlines are mapped onto a monitors
pixels. Hinting can control the heights and widths of a fonts
uppercase and lowercase letters, the widths of its individual
lines, the amount of white space around letters, the size at
which uppercase letters start to use different stem-widths from
lowercase letters, how the angle of italic characters changes
to best fit the pixel grid, and many other extremely technical
details, all on a pixel-by-pixel basis. If this sounds like a rather
tedious, time-consuming activity, it is, (even for type designers,
who are accustomed to tedious, time-consuming activities).
Last year there was considerable hype about the @font-face dec-
laration, a function that makes it possible for a webpage to dis-
play any font, freeing designers from dependence on the Web-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
safe fonts and opening new
design possibilities (not the
least of which is the creation
of visual identities which are
consistent across both print
and web media). On the
other hand, this also raises
new issues, including poor
onscreen display of non-hint-
ed fonts. And because
hinting is tedious, time-con-
suming and widely believed
to be nearly obsolete, 99%
of all fonts, even commer-
cial ones, are non-hinted.
Hinting TrueType
and PostScript fonts
Even when fonts are hinted optimum onscreen results are still
not guaranteed, as different font technologies approach hinting
differently. In the PostScript system most of the font scaling
is handled not by the fonts, but by the rasteriser software,
so fonts in PostScript format look often good with relatively
simple hinting or no hinting at all. In the TrueType system,
however, the rasteriser is controlled by sophisticated hinting
instructions contained within the font software; without this
information TrueType fonts do not display well onscreen.
Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. One
advantage of the PostScript system is that the Intelligence is
concentrated in the rasteriser, so any improvement to the ras-
teriser immediately produces better rendering of all PostScript
fonts. Even 20 year old fonts render nicely on the latest Mac.
In the TrueType system, rasteriser updates require all fonts
to be updated as well for optimal results. Thus fonts hinted
for black and white or greyscale rendering will not work as
184 Chapter 4: 19251930 185
well with Windows ClearType rasteriser. On the other hand, time-consuming hinting process, and it takes an experienced
TrueType hinting provides direct, pixel-by-pixel control over hinter at least 80 hours to hint a single font with the basic
the rasterising process, which PostScript hinting does not. 256 character set. Fonts with extensive character sets and/or
numerous styles of course take much longer. This process also
Macro photography of Apple Mac Book Pro. On LCD
usually adds white pixels between characters to improve legi-
monitors (flat screens) every pixel is made from three
bility, which can create a difference in length between printed
elements which can be controlled separately. Subpixel
and screen versions of a text. Microsofts Verdana and Georgia
rendering takes advantage of the way your eyes perceive
are examples of black and white hinted fonts. Newer technol-
colour, using shades of blue, red and green to simulate
ogy has made black and white hinting obsolete and permitted
higher screen resolution in horizontal direction.
onscreen results that are much truer to the original letterforms.
Mac OS vs. Windows Practical Implications
A lot has been written about how Mac OS renders text com-
What does all this mean to a type designer? Hinting can
pared to Windows. I will not go into details here, but the prima-
improve the rendering of fonts. But those fonts will be
ry difference is that Microsofts rasteriser tries to align charac-
rendered differently by different rasterisers on different
ters to whole pixel grid, with the result that Regular weights
platforms and often in different applications as well, (com-
look lighter, Bold weights look heavier, and subtle details of
1925 Antiqua Senator, pare for example text in the Safari and Explorer browsers
Aktiengesellschaft fr Schriftgieerei und design can be lost at small point sizes. Apples rasteriser tries to
on the same Windows computer). If the designers inten-
Maschinenbau,
Offenbach am Main preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, some-
tion is consistent cross-platform rendering, the fonts also
times at the cost of image clarity. Windows rasterising software
need to use consistent design across similar letters.
produces extremely good results with a few built-in TrueType
fonts, but sub-optimal results with 99% of other typefaces. The It is clear that one day font hinting will finally become obsolete,
Mac OS Quartz technology ignores font hinting completely and but it is not clear when that day will come. The most widely
renders all fonts equally well regardless of their font format. used operating system in the world, Windows XP (still 58.4%
market share, as of this writing), has ClearType turned off by
So lets focus now on Windows this is where hinting
default, so unhinted fonts typically do not display well at small
makes a difference and lets focus on TrueType fonts,
sizes. Whether we like it or not, it looks like hinting will be
which look superior in Windows at the moment.
around for quite some time. But if you like how fonts display
on the Mac at small sizes, you can take that as proof that it is
Hinting Black and White rendering
already possible to render text well without any hinting at all.
(Grid-Fitting), 1-bit
In search of a comprehensive
Black and white hinting, developed in the days when operating
systems could only turn pixels on or off, controls which pixels type design theory
will be displayed at a given point size. This kind of hinting is
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
called grid-fitting because the outlines of the font are signifi-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
cantly modified to fit the pixel grid of the screen. It is the most
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking

for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex- process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
186
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
Chapter 4: 19251930 187
1926 Ege-Schmuck Erster Teil,
Genzsh & Heyse,
Hamburg
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Graphic Design in the White Cube
Organizing graphic design exhibitions is always problemat-
ic: graphic design does not exist in a vacuum, and the walls
of the exhibition space effectively isolate the work of design
from the real world. Placing a book, a music album, or a
poster in a gallery removes it from the cultural, commercial,
and historical context without which the work cannot be
understood. The entire raison dtre of the work is lost as a
side effect of losing the context of the work, and the result is
frozen appearance stripped of meaning, liveliness and dyna-
mism of use. Presenting design in an exhibition space in this
way is akin to looking at a collection of stuffed birds in order
to study how they fly and sing. In spite of this, it is more and
more common to see design as object, not only in books and
magazines, but also in the White cube of the exhibition space.
Graphic designers struggled for a long time for recognition
and professionalization of their field, and exhibits are consid-

ered one way of promoting the trade aspect of design. Every-
one is happy: the designer whose work was selected by the
institution; the original client who received an admired and
acclaimed design, and the gallery which acquires the work
to be presented. Work designed for a completely different
purpose is recycled, and re-presented in a foreign environ-
ment. The same scenario is even more common in design
publishing, and nearly instant books full of vague collections
of work with little or no commentary take up increasingly
more space on designers shelves, crowding out other books
which are more laborious to research, write and publish.
A more recent trend is design which refuses to be seen only
as an object of consumerism but draws parallels with art,
reflecting the autonomy of the designer in his work, as well as
a willingness to initiate projects himself. This generation of
designers is not the first one that doesnt rely solely on clients to
come up with project briefs. Renowned Dutch designer Karel
Martens, who taught some of the designers represented in this
exhibition, has done uncommissioned, artistic work apart from
his design career. Building on the tradition of the experimental
printing of fellow designers such as Hendrik Nicolaas Werk-
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
man or Willem Sandberg, Martens prints and collages were
done in his spare time as studies and experiments which fueled
his other, more practical design work. Some designers today
however integrate self-initiated work into their daily practice,
no longer distinguishing between projects done in and outside
of their working hours. Self-initiated work in graphic design is
becoming increasingly more important for designers, starting
up projects which probably would otherwise never see the light
of day. The group of people who work in this way is still margin-
al, and it is no surprise that most of them live in countries with
prosperous economies, occasionally receiving cultural funding
to facilitate their unconventional approach to their work.
Graphic design has for a long time been defined as a service
of a designer for a client, rooted in external impulses rather
than internal ones. Design work done without a client hangs
in a limbo between art and design. Graphic design is a fairly
young profession, and as such still in a state of development. It
is expanding to encompass various activities: writing, organiz-
ing, conceptualizing, reflecting. This is no longer design which
is only defined by business cards and logos. Here we come to 1926 Koralle,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
a problem of definition: until now I have been using the term Leipzig
188
graphic design with the assumption that everyone knows what
it means. Especially in the context of the 22nd International
Biennale of Graphic Design Brno with its 43 years of history,
people have created expectations of what a typical graphic
design exhibition might include. Let us understand graphic
design then, to mean a field in flux which is as flexible as the
work that it embraces. Unlike the work of other professionals,
the work of a designer is not restricted or defined by its content;
in fact designers are trained to accommodate and express
various, often contradicting ideas. It is a ghost discipline as
Stuart Bailey writes: graphic design only exists when other
subjects exist first. It isnt an a priori discipline, but a ghost;
both a grey area and a meeting point Bailey calls attention
to an area that many designers struggle with: the way that they
refer to their activity in their field transcends the established
notion of its definition. Designers represented in the exhibition
Graphic Design in the White Cube move fluently between the
worlds of art, design, music, theatre and writing. I and everyone
I work with just think of what we do as merely work. I studied
typography and graphic designthats my background and
it informs what I dobut now I do a variety of work, which
may or may not come under those headings, says Bailey in a
recent interview. Others such as French designers M/M Paris
directly challenge the definition of graphic design: graphic
design could embody a lot of activities, and the definition is
not fixed, but continually evolving. Because it is still a new
profession, the best graphic designers are the ones who reinvent
their field and surprise. Members of Amsterdam-based design
studio Experimental Jetset say that limited notion of design is a
misunderstanding: personally, we situate the birth of modern
graphic design somewhere roughly between Marinettis Futur-
ist manifestos, Piet Zwarts leaflets for the Dutch Cable Factory,
and Kurt Schwitters Merz publications (to name some obvious
examples). So in our understanding, graphic design has always
Chapter 4: 19251930 189
1926 Koralle,
J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
been an area where very different elements are synthesized:
art, politics, poetry, industry, etc. In their view, all the people
invited to exhibit here are then part of this great tradition, and
are graphic designers in the traditional sense of the word.
M/M, Bailey and Experimental Jetset are no strangers to
the gallery world. M/M has held numerous solo exhibitions
in prestigious art galleries and collaborated on major events
(Venice Biennales). Bailey has directed theatre performanc-
es and more recently together with David Reinfurt (Dexter
Sinister) is involved in organizing Manifesta 6, the European
Biennial of Contemporary Art in Cyprus, where they set up a
model of economic production, responsible for all publishing
activities of the Manifesta 6 school. Jetset activities include solo
exhibitions in galleries in London, Utrecht and Arnhem, and
group shows in SFMOMA San Francisco, Kunsthal Rotter-
dam, or Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam amongst others.
In 2005, M/M were invited to Paris contemporary art museum
Palais de Tokyo to exhibit their work next to major artworks
of the late 20th century in an exhibition which featured works
by a variety of artists including Joseph Kosuth, Jeff Koons,
Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Takashi Murakami and
Mike Kelley. The intentions of the exhibition was to explore
how different contexts cause the same work to be read in
different ways, blurring the boundaries between disciplines.
graphic design, because of its ubiquitous nature, makes a
considerable impact on the visual culture that surrounds us,
so it makes a lot of sense to study this influence and critically
discuss the work in the context of other visual arts as well.
When presented in a museum however, the exhibition should
attempt more than just passive presentation in glass cases.
The isolated work lacks any real information about the rea-
sons and processes behind it. What needs to become evident

is the explicit purpose of the work, to see things otherwise
inaccessible, otherwise the visitor is better off going to any
bookstore or strolling down a busy street to get first hand
experience of and physical interaction with graphic design.
There have been some design exhibitions which attempt to
deal with these issues. Rick Poynor recently organized a
major retrospective of British graphic design entitled Com-
municate first held in London, now travelling world wide.
The exhibition sets out to examine graphic designs influence
on contemporary culture, highlighting experimental work
created by designers who arent limited by working to fulfill a
commercial clients brief. The exhibition occupied eight rooms
of the Barbican Art Gallery, and Poynor, whose background
is in journalism and publishing, organized these rooms as
chapters of a book, each section presenting a different aspect
of work, with introductory texts explaining each section of
the exhibition. The points and comparisons of the work were
made through careful visual editing of the presented pieces.
Another example is the exhibition of Dutch graphic design
that I was asked to organize a few years ago for the Brno
Biennale. Given the fact that for practical reasons the work
was to be displayed in a gallery space involving a certain
degree of isolation of graphic design, the presentation at-
tempted to clarify its function more, sketching out the trian-
gle of client-designer-public. Since the work of the designer
was brought to the gallery to be judged by the local public,
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
the focus was on presenting the missing component, that is,
providing space for the clients. The words of the commission-
ers in the formulation of the original brief were presented
instead of the designers retrospective comments. The original
brief illuminated the purpose of the work, while the public
could evaluate how successfully it communicated.
However, a retrospective attempt to recreate the
context for a work may not be the ultimate solution either
and has its own pitfalls, as Experimental Jetset points out:
theres also something false about it: trying to recreate the
outside world inside a museum/gallery, as if the museum/
gallery is not a valid context in itself. In our opinion, in these
cases, we think that its best to underline the museum context
as much as possible, to be brutally honest that the context in
which the object is shown is totally different from the context
the object was originally designed for.So it is in this context
that we set to organize a graphic design exhibition, with the
intention of the commissioner, the Moravian Gallery in Brno,
to present to the public certain specific aspects and tendencies
of contemporary graphic design worldwide. Being extremely
self-conscious, we propose a possibility: instead of bringing
work from the outside to the gallery, lets make the work for the
gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibits, lets
make the gallery conditions the context for the work. Nineteen
designers and collectives were commissioned to design a poster
for the design exhibition in which they participate. The posters
will function on two levels: the collection of posters is to con-
stitute the exhibition, and copies of the posters will be spread
around the city to inform visitors about the exhibition. This
is obviously a dangerous snake-eating-its-own-tail strategy,
yet the self-referential nature of the brief makes it possible to
illustrate otherwise invisible mechanics of the work process.
The usual conditions of design are created in the gallery:
designers were directly commissioned to make the poster
in four weeks time, were offered a (minimal) design fee,
and were asked to treat the commission just like any other
190 Chapter 4: 19251930 191
projects they work on. What is perhaps unusual about the is foolish to buy a product based on the design of the cover.
exhibition is that it makes some invisible components visible.
Our strategy for the exhibition was to strip the design
The original brief of the project is dominantly presented in
process of its deceptive aura, propose a possible format
the exhibition, as are all sketches that the designers made. The
for design exhibitions, and yet present everything that
objective is not to lionize the work, or create easy material for
a visitor to a graphic design show might expect.
value judgment, but to uncover the process of work, present-
ing all the sketches that designers made, including those not
leading anywhere. Failures can provide more information
about visual art than just a presentation of its successes.
The focus on itself, the self-referential nature of the project is
1926 Koralle,
certainly not new. It has been explored in fine art for a long J.G. Schelter & Giesecke,
Leipzig
time, one famous example being Ren Magrittes seeming
contradiction Ceci nest pas une pipe, which questions the
representation of objects in art. In the 1960s, Sol LeWitt
and other conceptual artists worked on reducing the artis-
tic process to its bare elements. Four Basic Kinds of Lines &
Colour, is a book project investigating basic book printing
techniques. Using standard CMYK colours, LeWitt drew
lines at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degree angles following the standard
angles of reproduction techniques. Starting with four inks,
he was able to mix 16 elementary colours, and using different
densities of the black ink, also 16 grayscale equivalents.
One of the most brilliant self-referential works of design is
XTCs album Go 2 (1978) designed by British art design
group Hipgnosis which exposes the mechanics of marketing
persuasion, blatantly including them in the design. The cover
of the album reads: This is a RECORD COVER. This writ-
ing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is
to help to SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention
to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done
that maybe youll be persuaded to listen to the music in this
case XTCs Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The
idea being that the more of you that you buy this record the
more money Virgin Record, the manager Ian Reid and XTC
themselves will make. [] The text goes on to call the buyer
a victim, explaining the tricks of marketing, suggesting that it
Chapter 5
19311938
Conceptual Type?
A typeface cant really be conceptual, because it is dependent
on its execution. Typeface design is a craft, so the process that
transforms the pure idea into a functional font is a critical
part of the discipline. Before the typeface is executed, it is
not a typeface, it is simply an idea. A few years back I was
part of the jury at an art school in Antwerp, where a student
proposed a conceptual font. Instead of defining the shapes,
he came with a set of written instructions, so the capital E
was defined as Three evenly spaced horizontal lines crossing
one vertical line. It was fun and very clever, but technically
it was merely a description (however witty) of the alpha-
bet, not a font, which is based on the repetition of shapes.
Sol LeWitts famous quote Banal ideas cannot be rescued
by beautiful execution does not apply to type design. There
are plenty of examples of nicely designed and successfully
exploited typefaces based on banal models. Nowhere else is
revivalism as popular as in type design, and recycled ver-
sions of proven models seem to form the core of most type
libraries. For example, how many versions of Garamond
or clones of Swiss neutral sans serif do we really need?
Lets have a look what the term conceptual means in other
disciplines. We can skip music, architecture, illustration,
ceramics or dance, which similarly to typography are also
dependent on performance or execution. Obviously, there are
some exceptions John Cages 433, for example, or some posters, and an accompanying essay. Each issue had a theme
projects of Rem Kolhaas or Peter Eisenman but in essence
all craft-based disciplines rely on the transformation of abstract
ideas into material form. Should the idea remain in its seman-
tic form, one has to rethink the whole frame of the discipline.
Would you hire a conceptual plumber to fix your sink?
Where the term conceptual really prospers is in the domain
of modern art. This term came into use in the late 1960s to
describe a philosophy of art that rejected the traditional art
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 196 197
object as a precious commodity. Instead, the typical work of
conceptual art is generally semantic rather than illustrative, a
self-referential, non-material meta-object, art of the mind rather
1934 Appell,
than the senses. The work of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschen- Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder,
berg, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt or the group Art & Language Dresden
challenged viewers expectations concerning the limits of
what can be considered art. It even tried to be an anti-art.
Type design, by contrast, was originally dependent on the
expertise of the maker: the final typeface was only as good
as the skill of the punch-cutter. The first examples of type
design separate from the craft of manufacturing come from the
Enlightenment period. Romain du Roi, an exclusive typeface
commissioned by the French King Louis XIV, departed from
the traditions of calligraphy and worked with analytical and
mathematical principles of drawing type. This then, if you like,
could be considered the first conceptual typeface. The commit-
tee of the Academy of Sciences proposed a grid of 48X48 units,
inventing the notion of vector outlines by defining characters
in terms of geometry rather than physical mass. The committee
also invented the notion of font metrics and suggested the idea
of bitmap fonts. Some 50 years separated the conception of the
typeface and the execution of a complete set of punches for it.
More recently, a type design project that approached the
definition of conceptual art was FUSE, launched by Neville
Brody and Jon Wozencroft in the early 1990s. FUSE con-
sisted of a set of four original typefaces with corresponding
such as religion, exuberance, (dis)information, virtual real-
ity, etc., but the designers had complete freedom as to how
they interpreted that theme. In the first issue, Wozencroft
described FUSE as a new sensibility in visual expression,
one grounded in ideas, not just image. Carrying forward the
ideals of the avant-garde, Brody and Wozencroft wrote with
an impassioned rhetoric as if they saw themselves as fighting
the repressive typographic establishment by making fonts
that rejected functionality as the reason to design type. The
 198
fonts ranged from purely formal exercises to completely
abstract shapes independent from Latin construction, pur-
ported new forms of writing. FUSE typefaces were curiously
1934 Appell,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder, diverse, making it hard to discern any criteria for selection.
Dresden
And this is precisely the problem with the use of term concep-
tual: very often it is simply synonymous with Idea or Inten- typeface is actually used. While the concept of the type-
tion. Since every act of creation arguably stems from intent, re-
gardless of the function of the product, is every artwork, object
or typeface therefore conceptual? Mel Bochner, American con-
ceptual artist, disliked the label conceptual, because the word
concept is not always defined entirely clearly, and is therefore
in danger of being confused with the authors intention.
I believe that the topic of this conference is to look at the
underlying ideas of typography, the intentions of authors,
rather than to claim that type itself is conceptual. That makes
the discussion less problematic, but still not easy, since there is
probably no other discipline where the difference between the
intention of the author and intention of the user can be so great.
For example, the original intention behind Fedra Sans was
for it to be the corporate type of the insurance company that
commissioned it, and it was designed precisely according to the
stipulations of the companys brief. The original client, however,
was acquired by a bigger fish, and development of the corporate
font came to an abrupt halt. That was a disappointment at first,
but a blessing in disguise in the longer term, as I could expand
the family and offer it to the public myself. In the years that
Fedra Sans has been available for licensing it has been used
in all kinds of applications from building facades to children
books, to Bible typesetting, to the identity of a terrorist organ-
isation, but as far as I know, not a single insurance company.
Leaflet by Epanastatikos Agonas, or Revolutionary Strug-
gle, a Greek group known for its bombing attacks on Greek
government buildings, banks and the American embassy
in Athens. Both the European Union, and U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have formally designated
Chapter 5: 19311938 199
Revolutionary Struggle as a terrorist organization. Epa-
nastatikos Agonas has been quite consistent in using Fedra
Sans for its flyers. And no, they didnt buy the licence.
Children books, Bibles, terrorists it becomes quite ob-
vious that the type designer has no actual say in how the
face might be very clever and original, what happens
when the typeface is never used the way it was intended?
Does it make the typeface less inventive? How about a
font which never gets to be used? Can it still be called a
font, or is usage at the core of the definition of a font?
So what would be a truly conceptual typeface? In 1953, Robert
Rauschenbergs Erased de Kooning Drawing demonstrated
that destruction could also be conceptual art. According
to Rauschenbergs example, I narrowly missed a chance to
be the co-creator of a similarly creative opus in 2001 when
a thief broke into our studio and stole my computer and all
the backup disks for Fedra Sans, then in the final phases of
completion. Had the thief claimed responsibility, he could
have become the designer of a rare example of conceptual
type by destroying months of work in mere minutes.
In 1953, Rauschenberg erased a drawing by de Koon-
ing, which he obtained from his colleague for the ex-
press purpose of erasing it as an artistic statement.
The result is titled Erased de Kooning Drawing.
On the other hand, some principles of conceptual art transfer
well to type design. Sol LeWitts statement the idea becomes
the machine that makes the art can be neatly illustrated by
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, collectively known
also as Letterror. Instead of designing fonts, they write code
that makes fonts. Letterror examined the process of crea-
tion, suggesting that the engineers who make the tools we
use have a greater impact on aesthetic trends than most
designers do. It makes sense then for designers themselves to
reclaim this field by designing their own creative tools. One

Letterror project is Bitfonts, computer code which takes the
structure of a bitmap font and interprets it in multiple ways.
By deciding to design the process rather than controlling
the end result, Letterror embraced the possibilities of un-
expected results. It is the machine that makes the type.
Ill conclude with one of my current projects, for which the
background idea is more interesting than the resulting forms.
For centuries, art has been defined as something that gives
rise to an aesthetic experience. Capturing beauty and avoid-
ing ugliness were considered to be the prime responsibilities
of the traditional artist. In this still untitled project I have
tried to identify the most beautiful examples of typography
known to mankind. I settled on a series of serif typefaces
designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th century.
In the second step, I tried to identify the ugliest examples of
type that we know. That was a bit more difficult, but finally
the prize went to eccentric Italian from the middle of the
Industrial Revolution. This reversed-contrast typeface was
designed to deliberately attract readers attention by defying
their expectations. Strokes that were
Chapter 5: 19311938 201
thick in classical models were thin, and strokes that were thin
became thick a dirty trick to make freakish letters that stand
out in the increasingly saturated world of commercial messages. 1938 Memphis Schriften,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
This project (later released under the name Karloff) is not
interesting because of the forms, which have been explored
before, but because it creates a tight link between the two
extremes, between the beauty and the ugliness. Time will tell
if this project finds some suitable application, or whether it
remains purely an aesthetic exercise, a conceptual type.
Designing Type Systems
I remember a conversation from back in my student days
where my typophile friends and I debated what the ultimate
typeface of the 20th century was, a typeface that summed
up all of the eras advancements and knowledge into a coher-
ent whole, one that would be a reference for years to come.
Helvetica was one of the candidates for its sheer ubiquity,
proof of its overall acceptance. Another, more subtle proposal
was Jan van Krimpens Romulus, one of the first typefaces to
have related Sans and Serif versions. And another, my per-
sonal pick, was Univers by Adrian Frutiger.
Univers goes beyond the
quest to design individ-
ual letters, attempting
instead to design

space, to create a system of relationships between different sets
of shapes which share distinctive parameters. Prior to Univers,
type designers concerned themselves with the relationships
between letters of the same set, how an 'a' is different from a
'b'. Univers creates a situation in which there are as of many
different shapes, and each has to be positioned on the axes
of weight and width, distributed sufficiently far away from
the next, but no further, in order to create a usable system.
How heavy ought the Medium to be in order to leave space
for yet another weight, the Bold, and how will this translate
into a design with condensed proportions? These were all new
questions for type designers, and Frutiger opened up com-
1938 Memphis Schriften, pletely new territory for those who were to come after him.
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
Thanks to Frutiger it is now common practice to pro-
duce a dozen or more styles when working on a new type
family. In terms of typeface innovation there is much
more room for originality than when you only look at the
individual lettershapes. Thus to create truly useful new
works, type designers need to examine not only how char-
acters relate to each other within a style, but also how
different styles relate to each other within a family.
Gardener vs Architect
Ive designed large typeface families before. Fedra, for example,
now has over 116 individual styles supporting 170 languages,
and has been used in the most complex typographic situa-
tions from dictionaries to newspapers, Bibles and information
graphics. But it is not really an example of a font designed to
be a typographic system from the start. It started in 2001 as
a relatively small family of Sans, and over the next 10 years
it grew to include Serif, Monospaced, Condensed and Dis-
play styles, as well as different language versions. Fedra is an
example of a bottom to top approach, in which a relatively
simple design gets larger and more complicated over time.
Composer Brian Eno calls this the gardeners approach:
nurturing simple things towards greater complexity, carefully
Chapter 5: 19311938 203
planting seeds, and helping them grow to their full potential.
The opposite organising principle, again in Enos words, is the
architects approach. An architect traditionally starts with a
concept, developing the complete idea first, working from top
to bottom. History (2008) is an example of the architectural
approach, in which each individual style contributes to a greater
purpose, sharing proportions with the rest of the family.
History (2008) as an example of the architectural ap-
proach and Fedra (2001-2010) as an example of the
gardener approach to creating a type family.
Greta Sans is another example of this approach. It has been
carefully planned from the outset, designed as a system
of interrelated styles. From the very beginning, work pro-
ceeded on multiple styles simultaneously; not only when
sketching the extreme and middle styles on paper, but also
when converting the resulting shapes into digital format,
the emphasis was on testing how certain letterforms react to
extremely compressed dimensions as well as very generous
ones. Only after being tested at each end of the proposed
spectrum would the designs be selected and adopted into the
typeface family-to-be. Each glyph would have to anticipate
all its variations and maintain a basic structure that could
function across all designated width and weight variations.
Different design masters were conceived and drawn at the
same time, investigating how the same design characteris-
tics would be translated into extreme weights and widths.
The Problem With the System
The nature of systems is to dictate a certain direction; the
role of designers is to recognise when the original design idea
ceases to work within the system, and then to create exceptions
to the system rather than letting the system have a negative
impact on the design. In large type families of related styles
this impact is usually that while the starting point is usually

characteristic and recognisable, the design becomes blander
and less interesting as it is stretched across its variations. My
intention was to design a highly flexible system while also
ensuring that the resulting shapes were not just compromises,
but maintained the strong personality of the Greta typeface.
Sketches from 1931:
planning the Greta Sans type system.
For example, at the lighter end of the weight axis, the cir-
cular dot over I, (or in diacritics and punctuation) has to
become a rectangle to avoid becoming too small. On the
width axis, shapes would sometimes have to be modified
even more dramatically: the double storey g typical for
Greta becomes a single storey g in Compressed width, where
the lack of space demanded greater simplification. Dollar
and cent signs have full crossbars in the wider versions, but
divided crossbars in the condensed versions. Dozens of
other changes happen when taking the design to extreme
dimensions, in order to maintain the general design char-
acteristics and preserve the natural look of the shapes.
Some of the exceptions to the linear interpolation of
the Greta Sans type system: dots change from circu-
lar to rectangular; dollar signs lose their crossbars, and
g uses a single-storey form in Compressed widths.
While the Fedra Sans family was created from two design
masters, Light and Bold, (Book, Demi and Medium were
interpolated), Greta Sans 13 design masters were individual-
ly designed, as were another 13 masters for italics, and all 26
included Small Caps. The masters (Hairline, Regular, Black),
were interpolated and expanded to 10 weights. Four widths
were imagined and implemented, resulting in 80 styles.
The process of drawing Greta Sans started in the middle of the
imagined design space (1), and from there the extremes were
explored (2). The idea was to adapt the design to the available
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 204
proportions, while preserving the main design characteristics. 1934 Appell,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder,
When creating the design masters, we made the heavy weight as Dresden
heavy as possible, even when those exact weights would not be
used. It is easy to interpolate and make the Black weight lighter;
making it heavier is complicated. This allowed us to keep the
design space as large as possible (3), and reduce it later when
we made the final selection of styles. We decided not to use the
Compressed Black as a master, and stepped it down one weight.
We also dropped extra-compressed styles. On the other hand,
we added an extra weight to the Extended styles (Super), when
we saw there was available space at that end of the spectrum.
Continuous Optical Sizes
In the earliest age of movable type, optical sizes became the
main organising principle of typefaces. For example, Jan-
nons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s include
numerous optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points, each
slightly different. The design of the typeface would be rein-
terpreted at each given point size, often resulting in different
weights, different proportions, different letter spacing. These
different designs would blend into a harmonious size progres-
sion and function as one design. Optical sizes disappeared
with the transition from hot metal press to photocomposition
sometime in the 1950s. After about 50 years of neglect op-
tical sizes have made a comeback, and many typefaces now
come with versions specifically designed for text and display
applications. Optical sizes, however, represent a range of
variations. In the old days, as in the Jannon example, type-
faces would come in as many as 15 optical versions. All the
in-between sizes progressively added or removed features,
getting continuously darker and looser when meant for small
sizes, or continuously lighter and tighter for large sizes. The
word continuously is important here. There werent text or
display versions as is common now. Each size was discretely
adjusted for to maintain the characteristics of the typeface.

Jannons caractres de lUniversit from the 1530s includes
15 optical versions ranging from 6 to 36 points. On the left
is a 7pt sample scaled 425% to match the 36pt version. Note
the difference in contrast between the thick and thin strokes,
and overall differences in details between the two versions.
Greta Sans was designed as a continuous optical size system.
While the basic text styles (Regular) are spaced and kerned
for small sizes, the surrounding extremes (Hairline, Black)
are designed to be used as Display types, and therefore
tightly spaced and kerned. The resulting interpolation then
runs continuously from Display to Text to Display use. A
similar pattern (Extended, Condensed, Extended) can be
seen on the width axis, as the Normal styles are most suited
for small text, and extremes are optimised for large sizes.
Design Space
While the key characteristics of most typefaces are defined by
the outlines of the letterforms, Greta Sans design also extends
to the gaps between styles. All its characteristics, including the
visual contrast between styles, weights and widths have been
orchestrated into a unified typeface system. Greta Sans explores
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
the entire space of possibilities and is designed for extraordinary
design flexibility. It is a toolbox that addresses a broad spectrum
of design situations from the simplest to the most complex,
offering multiple options for establishing a visual hierarchy.
Next
Gretas Latin fonts set up some formal parameters, but the most
exciting phases of this project are still to come. While such a
versatile system of similar proportions is rare within the context
of Latin typefaces, it is unheard of in the domain of non-Latin
type. We intend to bring this system to a number of non-Latin
styles planned for 201314. There is no reason why only Latin
type should benefit from these advances in typography.
Type design competitions
Last autumn I was in Buenos Aires, where I sat on the jury
for Letter2, a type design competition. Just like bukva:raz!,
the first AtypI competition in 2001, Letter2 celebrates
the best typefaces produced over the past decade. Out of
561 submitted entries the jury selected 53 that represent
the previous decade based on their design excellence.
No sooner had the results been announced than the wheels
of the font marketing machine rolled into action as some
of the selected designers and foundries began to trumpet
that their typefaces were among the best of the decade.
But best of the decade is a somewhat problematic assertion
because not all designers have an equal appetite for competi-
tions. While some award-hungry designers actively seek out
all kinds of contests and prizes, others simply ignore them. So
the promise of best of the decade is reduced to best of the
submissions. And very often the submissions dont include the
highest quality work. For example, renowned author and type
designer Fred Smeijers hasnt participated in type competitions
for almost 20 years. Gerard Unger, another celebrated Dutch
206 207
type designer, enters competitions only rarely. Unger says, I 1938 Memphis Schriften,
D. Stempel AG,
want younger designers to have a chance. And in fact these Frankfurt am Main
events typically include a disproportionately high number
of young designers looking for recognition of their work.
Matthew Carter is designer whose work has received numer-
ous awards, and FontBureau, the foundry which has released
most of his fonts, sometimes submits them to competitions.
But Carter himself says, I have become less interested in
competing with other type designers and more concerned
with helping the acceptance of type design as something on
a par with other forms of graphic and industrial design.
Frantiek torm, an established Czech type designer
gives a more pragmatic reason for avoiding competi- inate the best work. But the type design profession is so
tions: I simply have no time for it. But then he adds, I small and insular, with no outside critics or curators, that
do however feel that contests are for the young design- assembling a committee of recognised experts would nec-
ers. Older designers that otherwise might clearly win essarily exclude a large percentage of possible contenders.
them should find something more worthwhile to do.
Type design competitions will likely remain problemat-
And finally, Peter Verheul, a Dutch designer of high profile type- ic as long as the type design community remains so small.
faces, never sends his work to competitions, one reason being Perhaps organisers should accept the fact that such com-
that the judging criteria are inherently vague. there is no expla- petitions often fail to attract well-established profession-
nation why a typeface has been picked to become a winner, says als, and focus their events on younger designers. Perhaps
Verheul. I dont really believe that a fair judgement is possible, this emphasis on younger designers could include making
given the different nature and diversity of the material to judge. the judging public, so that all can benefit from the jurors
feedback. And perhaps we should all learn to take the pub-
Of course, one might say it is easy for recognised designers
licised results of such competitions with a grain of salt.
not to participate in contests; they have won them all already.
However while the stated aim of the contest is to recognise type
What is Typography?
design professionals, almost a third of the selected projects are
by non-professional designers entering their student projects. Before starting any discussion or argument it is useful to define
the terminology and to make sure that the words which are
So what is the value of these competitions? Do they rec-
used are generally understood. Typography is a craft has been
ognise talent and stimulate creation? Or is it just cheap
practiced since the Gutenbergs invention of the movable type.
marketing? And is there a viable alternative? Borrowing
According to the latest Encyclopedia Britannica core definition
inspiration from such prestigious awards as the Turner Prize
of typography is that typography is concerned with the deter-
or the Nobel Prize, one could imagine replacing the call
mination of the appearance of the printed page. Other diction-
for entries with a committee of experts who would nom-

aries, such as Collins English Dictionary from 2004 define the
typography as the art, craft or process of composing type and
printing from it. Understood this way, no typography was made
before mid-15 century, as it is strictly linked to the invention of
the Printing Type. Understood this way, digitally created letters
that appear on an electronic screen also escapes this definition.
That is of course problem of definitions, which are not as
flexible as the activities which they define. In the Royal
Academy of Arts in The Hague, where I teach part time, most
useful definition of typography comes from the long term
teacher Gerrit Noordzij, saying that typography is writing
with prefabricated letters. Unlike the dictionary definitions,
this one is deliberately avoiding connecting typography to
any specific medium, as they tend to change, yet the disci-
pline continues evolving. Noordzijs definition also implies
a complete distinction from lettering, handwriting or graf-
1931 Elegant Grotesk,
fiti, which are also concerned with creating letter-shapes,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
but dont offer a repeatable system of setting these letters.
Digital technologies stimulated unprecedented possibili-
ties which blur even most open definitions of typography.
If repetition of shapes was the central concept of typog-
raphy, many designers are working in ways that challenge
this concept. OpenType fonts can include random features,
which can simulate unpredictable behavior of handwriting,
or simply present seemingly incoherent library shapes.
For the past year, Ive been working with dancers from Neth-
erlands Dance Theatre in The Hague on creating a tool which
translates text into simple choreographies. User types a
word in a typesetting-like application which plays back this
word as an uninterrupted dance sequence where dancers
body temporarily makes positions recognizable as letters.
Is this typography? Project like this, as many others using exist-
ing digital possibilities seems not much worried about it, but use
typographic principles to create autonomous work which cross
boundaries of various disciplines. It seems that typography
Chapter 5: 19311938 209
itself matured into a new creative discipline in which majority
of typographers work in a way which is guided by historical
understanding of the word, yet there is room for experimen-
tation which explores the boundaries of the profession.
In other disciplines, such debate is in fact a sign of new self-con-
sciousness. Novelist Milan Kundera argues that a contempo-
rary novel is no longer defined as a fictional narrative in prose,
but can include various forms of writing: poetry, short-story,
or interview. Kunderas books include parts which are philo-
sophical, political, comical, while still being firmly part of a
novel. The ability to absorb these various forms is Kunderas
definition of novel. Similarly, larger understanding of typog-
raphy, which is no longer defined by technology, but evolves
with it, may open this discipline to new create endeavors.
A View of Latin Typography
in Relationship to the World
It is generally acknowledged that it was Gutenberg who
invented movable type printing in 1436. It is generally for-
gotten that what is missing in that statement is the necessary
qualifier in Europe. Thanks to the present-day dominance
of Latin script we have largely forgotten that there are parallel
histories outside of Europe, but the first recorded movable type
system was more likely created in China around 1040 AD by
Bi Sheng. His early type was made of wood, which was later
abandoned in favour of baked clay, which produced smoother
imprints. Unlike Latin script which uses 26 letters, Chinese
script uses thousands of characters, making type composi-
tion particularly complicated. Nevertheless, movable type
has been in continuous use in China since the 11th century.
Elsewhere too, printing progressed. Choe Yun-ui, a Korean
civil minister, made the transition from wood to metal mov-
able type around 1230 AD. Metal movable type was also
invented independently of the Koreans in China during the
Ming Dynasty. During the Mongol Empire movable type
 210
1936 Viking, moved further west. According to legend, Laurens Janszoon
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder Butter,
Dresden Coster, a respected citizen of Haarlem, could have been the
first European to invent movable type, if the account present-
ed by Hadrianus Junius is true. But the story is not widely
believed, which brings us back to Johannes Gutenberg of
Mainz, who invented movable type a decade later. In Europe.
Even today, typography as a discipline continues to be
plagued by a Euro-centric bias. If any of the major typogra-
phy reference books are to be believed, the development of
typography has generally been limited to Western Europe.
In Type & Typography(2002), the otherwise excellent book
by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, the authors make a note
that the history of writing and the alphabet goes back thou-
sands of years, but they do not elaborate more on this. It goes
without saying that their history of typography is only the
history of Latin-based typography. Other books are even
more blunt when it comes to the scope they cover. Classic
volumes such as Updikes obviously nationalistic Printing
Type, first printed in 1922, or Harry Carters also already
somewhat dated A View of Early Typography (1969) can be
overlooked. But even recent books such Designing Type (2005)
by Karen Cheng or A Typographic Workbook (2005) by
Kate Clair & Cynthia Busic-Snyder dont bother to mention
that there is more to typography than Latin typography.
Most of the existing typographic classification systems also
apply exclusively to Latin type. In catalogues of the tradi-
tional type foundries such as French Imprimerie Nationale,
the house of Garamont, Didot and Romain du Roi, typefaces
other than Latin are referred as Orientales. Most contem-
porary digital type foundries such as Monotype call these
fonts Non-Latin. These terms certainly have rather colo-
nial overtones, suggesting the idea of the other, describing
foreign scripts in negative terms as non-European. In other
disciplines, language and terminology have adjusted to the
wider environment of the global village, reflecting the pro-
gress that the society has made in the last couple of decades,
Chapter 5: 19311938 211
and we no longer find a boxed set of paints with the name
flesh given to a light beige color. Only typography contin-
ues to display a shameless bias towards western civilization.
Some common type terminology is also inappropriate for
typefaces which didnt evolve in Western Europe. The term
Roman is customarily used to describe serif typefaces of the
early Italian Renaissance period. More recently, the term has
also come to denote the upright style of typefaces, as opposed
to the word Italic, which refers to cursive typefaces inspired
by the handwriting of Italian humanists. Thus Linotype offers
fonts called Sabon Greek Roman and Sabon Greek Italic, (de-
signed by Jan Tchichold), based on 16th century models. But
by using terminology which is typically associated with Latin
type and evokes the history of Italian typography, Linotype
makes a careless statement. Greek Roman and Greek Italic
are contradictions in terms, mixing two very different histo-
ries. Such slanted versions of Greek or Cyrillic types should
properly be described in more technical terms such as inclined,
oblique, or cursive. Roman and Italic suggest that the Greek
version has been Latinised, borrowing too much not only of
the terminology but also of the formal characteristics of Latin
type, ignoring the rich Greek traditions of typography.
The news is not all bad, however. Recent changes in technology
such as the introduction of the Unicode system and Open-
Type font format have inspired type designers to consider the
previously overlooked domain of non-Latin typography. It is
estimated that in the last decade, more Greek fonts were created
than in the entire preceding century. Books such as Language,
Culture, Type (2002) have been published, promoting cultur-
al pluralism, admitting that English and the Latin alphabet
account for only one segment of global communications today.
(According to 2006 Encarta statistics, the number of native
English speakers is less than the number of native Hindi and
Arabic speakers, and roughly one-third the number of native
Chinese speakers.) Such books are very important because
they also present models for alphabets less explored than the

Latin one, and offer a comprehensive history of their use.
In his concise book, The Solid Form of Language (2004),
Robert Bringhurst proposes a new classification system
of worlds various written languages and scripts. This
approach promotes a consciously inclusive approach
to typography, and considers the whole history of hu-
manity and its relationship to script and meaning.
The new possibilities are exciting for designers working
with non-Latin type. There is a modest interest in Arabic,
Cyrillic, Greek, or Indic scripts, and even type design com-
petitions have responded to the new situation by creating
special categories. The new development is also good news
even for designers working exclusively with Latin typog-
raphy: while we might think that most of the possibilities
of Latin type have been explored, traditions of typography
from Greece, the Middle East, India and elsewhere can help
us to rediscover how we understand Latin type today.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex-
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval
Office, which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the
general publics true level of concern
in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss
about fonts for the out-
sider? Legibility studies
have caused utter confusion even
within the ranks of type designers.
Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations
of type are vague at best, and as far
as functionality is concerned, every
designer insists that his fonts work
the best. All of which only leads to a
larger question: how can we define
criteria for good fonts? The French
type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely
on is simple: a good typeface fits
212 Chapter 5: 19311938 213
1936 LAcier Gris et Noir the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer points to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
(Cassandre),
Fouderies Deberny & Peignot, to the problem: how can a type designer design a typeface fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
Paris
when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean that we
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an endless
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform better
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values is
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one, considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion. explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed

discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Dutch type design
The Netherlands is a small country with some 15 million
inhabitants. It is flat, and has no geographical particularities.
It is situated on the western border of Germany, the north of
France and Belgium, and the east of England across the North
Sea. As a comparatively small country, the Dutch people
have always felt the influence of surrounding countries. If
they attempted to be a part of international styles, they risked
dissolving the national characteristics of the small nation.
On the other hand, if they tried to stay untouched by foreign
influence and keep to themselves, they could easily fall into
provincialism. However, they have succeeded in creating
one of the most remarkable and outstanding cultures.
The homeland of Piet Mondriaan, Theo van Doesburg,
Gerrit Rietveld and Piet Zwart now produces designs of the
highest abstractiondesigns of letters. Holland today has
more type designers per capita than any other country in the
world, a remarkable fact considering that there is now not
one surviving Dutch type foundry, says Gerard Unger, one
of the most important typographers in Holland. Unger, a
very active typeface designer and lecturer, stands somewhere
between the classic typeface designers and the experimental
ones. Among Ungers work are the typeface for the Amster-
dam Metro, Demos, Praxis, ITC Flora designed for Hell
company, Amerigo and Oranda for Bitstream, and his latest
drawings include the newspaper faces Swift and Gulliver.
According to Unger, this has to do with the low-lying land
and cool skies of the Netherlands. Hollander is one of my
designs to reflect the inescapable Dutch horizon. The hori-
zontal parts of the curves are stretched, the resultant gentle
arches combining with the large serifs to assist the letters in
Chapter 5: 19311938 215
1931 Capitol,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder,
Dresden
joining visually to make words and lines, describes Unger the
typeface that follows the best traditions of Dutch typography.
Is it possible that the physical character of the landscape
forms characteristics of graphic design? For the answer to
this question we go back to the beginning of the century.
While most of Europe accepted Art Nouveau as the last
international-spread art movement that influenced archi-
tecture, craft, and fine arts, the Dutch rejected Art Nouveau
as frivolous. Dutch artists considered themselves pragmatic
and realistic. Thus, they rather turned themselves towards
conventional realism that later evolved into abstraction.
Forty years ago, the Dutch society was still solidly bourgeois,
puritanical and strongly influenced by religion. It is the change
after the second world war from a politically neutral country
to an active member of transatlantic and European alliances
that had far-reaching cultural effects. It totally changed the
Dutch perception of their own nationality, and revised the
traditional Dutch values. From a very religious country the
Netherlands developed into one of the most liberal societies
in the world. Life in the Netherlands became much more
open and hedonistic oriented. The prosperity of the nation
in the 60s also helped to create a mood of great expectation;
 216
1936 Untergrnde, instead of looking abroad for models, the Dutch understood
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main the advantages of being themselves. No, this was not a sudden
turn in the history of the nation; the Dutch stayed as they
have always been, open towards international developments.
It is very unlikely that the countryside (even though it is
so remarkable in its flatness) is the only determinant of art
development in the Netherlands, although it is undoubtedly
a source of inspiration for Dutch artists. Holland has always
been an unusually tolerant place. It is the place with many
political parties, many different views and opinions. Individ-
uality here is a very important element. It seems that with
the world-wide availability of graphic software, the nation-
al characteristics of graphic design and typography would
disappear. How is it possible that there is such a phenomenon
as Dutch design in todays international style? And, what are
the characteristics of Dutch design? Reading the art history
books, I can say that realism, sobriety, outspokenness, clari-
ty, moral integrity, and social responsibility were frequently
marked as typical Dutch virtues. But these characteristics
do not in themselves define style. And even if they did, the
same qualities are related to Modernism (International style),
another movement that didnt influence Holland very much.
The Dutch found their own interpretation of Modernism.
Gerard Unger in his essay Dutch landscape with letters wrote:
the national character is only one of the components needed
for a recognizable style of type design. The chief elements of
style are the product not merely of the country, region or city
in which the designer happens to live, they are also molded
by his own personal qualities and the age in which he works.
Maybe a foreign observer can better describe what is hard to
see for the Dutch themselves. Erik Spiekermann, a German
typographer, puts it like this: All the Dutch type designs I
know, even the historical ones, have a vertical oval as one of
their basic shapes. They are narrow compared with French
designs like the types of Excoffon, which are actually broader
at the top than they are at the bottom. Clarity and openness
Chapter 5: 19311938 217
and high contrast are also clearly identifiable characteris-
tics in Dutch types. The clarity and openness are part of the
construction and contrast in, say, the alternation of rounded
and angular forms. The structure is always clearly visible in
the work of Dutch designers. The Dutch are more concerned
with the structure, the basic shape. You can follow the syntax
of the design processthe design can be understood im-
mediately. At the same time they are also sophisticated.
There is too much of it. Contemporary Dutch design can
be stylish and eclectic, inventive and trains-historical, sys-
tematic and non-functional, provocative and convention-
al, conceptual and random, pragmatic and nonsensical,
witty and stiff, anarchic and traditional and it still keeps
its characteristics; it is still so Dutch. It fluctuates between
rigid logic and total senselessness. In other words, there
is no style of Dutch design. Or, in the words of designer
Max Kisman, the style of Dutch design is style of styles.
There is pluriformity which is unique to Holland.
Kisman pioneered the use of computers in 1977, when he was
the first designer to create stamps for the postal/telecommu-
nications services PTT on an Amiga computer. Kisman is also
known for his belief that legibility is a code that depends on
the impressions, rhythm, and expression of symbols which
may or may not be letters. Kisman has become increasingly
skeptical of designing new type, and since 1992 hasnt de-
signed any new fonts. Because my angle is shifted I am less
interested in type. There is so much of that stuff and I wonder
what I could add which hasnt been done before. Too much I
see now is somehow related to what I did years ago. Of course,
I recognize some very good designs but to me the revolution
is over and repetition began a while ago. There is no meaning
in type design, all is decoration. Everyone can do what some-
one else is doing. Type design becomes an average taste to
express a general life style. Type is available anywhere at any
time. Concepts of type are available anywhere at any time.
Like the jersey you wear or the shoe you choose. Nothing
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 218 219

more, nothing less. All this fuzz about type becomes a bit to computer typography. They believe that the computer can 1935 Untergrnde,
The Monotype Corporation,
irrelevant, I think sometimes. Of course, its a big industry, a bring back subtleties that were lost during type evolution due London

lot is involved, many typographical magazines appear, lots of economic considerations. Recognition does not come from
students are waiting to bring in something new. This massive simple repetition of the same form, but it is something more
run on type is an escape from an essential question. Wheth- intelligent, something that happens in our minds... Random-
er graphic design will survive or not. And if so, how? More ness and change can add new dimensions to print work
important at this moment is to redefine graphic design.
The experiments of the Letterror duo certainly have a great
While in 1989 Gerard Unger could say that Dutchmen are a potential. We can add some data to a digital typeface, and it
folk for text types, not headlines, today he admits that young can act very intelligently. It may adjust its shape according
designers have proved otherwise. One of the most prolific the form of medium we are using it in, change its contour
contemporary type designers is the duo Letterror, formed by according to its size and relation with color background.
Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum. At the ages of 24/25,
The Netherlands has 13 design schools. Erik van Blokland, Just
they designed their revolutionary Randomfonts. Since then,
van Rossum, Peter Verheul, Martin Majoor, Peter Matthias
they have produced many best-selling typefaces. In the short
Noordzij, (Luc)as de Groot, Evert Bloemsma, Fred Smeijers, are
time of 4 years they created 17 typeface families published by
all their recent graduates, and already internationally recog-
FontShop International, excluding their font contributions for
nized ones. Most of them emerged from The Art Academy in
Brodys FUSE project. Beowolf, their first randomfont, is the
Arnhem and the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague
typeface that for inspiration goes somewhere to pre-Gutenberg
(Gerrit Noordzij and Petr van Blokland teach in The Hague).
time. Instead of the traditional system of writingrepeating of
None of the above mentioned typographers gave me the
graphical forms that become visually so unobtrusive that they
opportunity to summarize what the Dutch style is. My hope
are virtually invisible, Letterror developed a special technol-
is that even in a new united Europe, where things are going to
ogy that allows the random changing of letters. Randomfont
get all mixed up, the Dutch personal creativity will prevail.
technology generates each letter separately and differently. No
two letters are the same. For instance, if you type two As in
row and print them, they look different depending on the level Experimental typography.
of randomness you choose. This new invention is not limited Whatever that means.
only to changing letterforms. We could change typographic
Very few terms have been used so habitually and carelessly
awareness of computer users around the world by creating a
as the word experiment. In the field of graphic design and
font virus that would slowly transform every Helvetica into
typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify
something much more desirablethe Post-modern typog-
anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorization,
raphers revenge, or we could create letters that would wear
or confounding expectations. As a verb, To experiment is
out through frequent use, combined with a feature that uses
often synonymous with the design process itself, which may
up certain often used letters. Van Blokland and van Rossum
not exactly be helpful, considering that all design is a result
devoted their research to humanizing type design. A font
of the design process. The term experiment can also have the
that does not work overtime and a font that adds typos go
connotation of an implicit disclaimer; it suggests not taking
to the extreme in their attempts to add the human quality
responsibility for the result. When students are asked what

they intend by creating certain forms, they often say, Its just
an experiment, when they dont have a better response.
In a scientific context, an experiment is a test of an idea; a
set of actions performed to prove or disprove a hypothe-
sis. Experimentation in this sense is an empirical approach
to knowledge that lays a foundation upon which others
can build. It requires all measurements to be made ob-
jectively under controlled conditions, which allows the
procedure to be repeated by others, thus proving that a
phenomenon occurs after a certain action, and that the
phenomenon does not occur in the absence of the action.
An example of a famous scientific experiment would be
Galileo Galileis dropping of two objects of different
weights from the Pisa tower to demonstrate that both
would land at the same time, proving his hypothesis about
gravity. In this sense, a typographic experiment might be
a procedure to determine whether humidity affects the
transfer of ink onto a sheet of paper, and if it does, how.
A scientific approach to experimentation, however, seems to be
valid only in a situation where empirical knowledge is applica-
ble, or in a situation where the outcome of the experiment can
be reliably measured. What happens however when
the outcome is ambiguous, non-objective, not
based on pure reason? In the recent book The
Typographic Experiment: Radical
Innovation in Contemporary Type
Design, the author Teal Triggs
asked thirty-seven interna-
tionally-recognized designers
to define their understand-
ings of the term experiment.
As expected, the published
definitions couldnt have
been more disparate. They are
marked by personal belief
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
systems and biased by the experiences of the designers. While
Hamish Muir of 8vo writes: Every type job is experiment,
Melle Hammer insists that: experimental typography does
not exist, nor ever has. So how is it possible that there are such
diverse understandings of a term that is so commonly used?
Among the designers various interpretations, two notions of
experimentation were dominant. The first one was formulat-
ed by the American designer David Carson: experimental is
something I havent tried before something that hasnt been
seen and heard. Carson and several other designers suggest that
the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result.
There are many precedents for this opinion, but in an era when
information travels faster than ever before and when we have
achieved unprecedented archival of information, it becomes
significantly more difficult to claim a complete novelty of forms.
While over ninety years ago Kurt Schwitters proclaimed that
to do it in a way that no one has done it before was sufficient
for the definition of the new typography of his day and his
work was an appropriate example of such an approach today
things are different. Designers are more aware of the body of
work and the discourse accompanying it. Proclaiming novelty
today can seem like historical ignorance on a designers part.
Interestingly, Carsons statement also suggests that the essence
of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns,
rather than being guided by conventions. This is directly op-
posed to the scientific usage of the word, where an experiment
is designed to add to the accumulation of knowledge; in design,
where results are measured subjectively, there is a tendency to
go against the generally accepted base of knowledge. In science
a single person can make valuable experiments, but a design ex-
periment that is rooted in anti-conventionalism can only exist
against the background of other conventional solutions.
In this sense, it would be impossible to experiment if one were
the only designer on earth, because there would be no stand-
ard for the experiment. Anti-conventionalism requires going
against prevailing styles, which is perceived as conventional. If
220
more designers joined forces and worked in a similar fashion, Top 1936 LAcier Gris et Noir
(Cassandre),
the scale would change, and the former convention would Fouderies Deberny & Peignot,
Paris
become anti-conventional. The fate of such experimentation
Bottom 1938 Olbas,
is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom.
Does type design and typography allow an experimental
approach at all? The alphabet is by its very nature dependent
on and defined by conventions. Type design that is not bound
by convention is like a private language: both lack the ability to
communicate. Yet it is precisely the constraints of the alphabet
which inspire many designers. A recent example is the work
of Thomas Huot-Marchand, a French postgraduate student
of type-design who investigates the limits of legibility while
physically reducing the basic forms of the alphabet. Minuscule
is his project of size-specific typography. While the letters
for regular reading sizes are very close to conventional book
typefaces, each step down in size results in simplification of
the letter-shapes. In the extremely small sizes (2pt) Miniscule
becomes an abstract reduction of the alphabet, free of all the de-
tails and optical corrections which are usual for fonts designed
for text reading. Huot-Marchands project builds upon the work
of French ophthalmologist Louis Emile Javal, who published
similar research at the beginning of the 20th century. The prac-
tical contribution of both projects is limited, since the reading
process is still guided by the physical limitations of the human
eye, however, Huot-Marchand and Javal both investigate the
constraints of legibility within which typography functions.
The second dominant notion of experiment in The Typographic
Experiment was formulated by Michael Worthington, a British
designer and educator based in the USA: True experimenta-
tion means to take risks. If taken literally, such a statement is
of little value: immediately we would ask what is at stake and
what typographers are really risking. Worthington, however,
is referring to the risk involved with not knowing the exact
outcome of the experiment in which the designers are engaged.
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 222 223

A similar definition is offered by the E.A.T. (Experiment And variables: length, breadth, depth, thickness, colour and rotation, 1931 Capitol,
Schriftguss AG vorm. Brder,
Typography) exhibition presenting 35 type designers and and generate multiple variations of the model. The user can also Dresden

typographers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which generate those variations as a traditional 2D PostScript font.
coincidentally will arrive in the Netherlands shortly. Alan
Although this kind of experimental process has no com-
Zruba and Johanna Balukov, the curators of E.A.T. put
mercial application, its results may feed other experiments
their focus on development and process when describing the
and be adapted to commercial activities. Once assimilat-
concept of the exhibition: the show focuses on projects which
ed, the product is no longer experimental. David Carson
document the development of designers ideas. Attention is
may have started his formal experiments out of curiosi-
paid to the process of creating innovative solutions in the field
ty, but now similar formal solutions have been adapted
of type design and typography, often engaging experimen-
by commercial giants such as Nike, Pepsi, or Sony.
tal processes as a means to approach unknown territory.
Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no
An experiment in this sense has no preconceived idea of
completed project can be seriously considered experimental.
the outcome; it only sets out to determine a cause-and-ef-
It is experimental only in the process of its creation. When
fect relationship. As such, experimentation is a method of
completed it only becomes part of the body of work which it
working which is contrary to production-oriented design,
was meant to challenge. As soon as the experiment achieves its
where the aim of the process is not to create something new,
final form it can be named, categorized and analyzed according
but to achieve an already known, pre-formulated result.
to any conventional system of classification and referencing.
Belgian designer Brecht Cuppens has created Sprawl, an
An experimental technique which is frequently used is to
experimental typeface based on cartography, which takes into
bring together various working methods which are recog-
account the density of population in Belgium. In Sprawl, the
nized separately but rarely combined. For example, language
silhouette of each letter is identical, so that when typed they
is studied systematically by linguists, who are chiefly inter-
lock into each other. The filling of the letters however varies
ested in spoken languages and in the problems of analyzing
according to the frequency of use of the letter in the Dutch
them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguists rarely,
language. The most frequently used letter (e) represents the
however, venture into the visible representation of language,
highest density of population. The most infrequently used letter
because they consider it artificial and thus secondary to
(q) corresponds to the lowest density. Setting a sample text
spoken language. Typographers on the other hand are con-
creates a Cuppens representation of the Belgian landscape.
cerned with the appearance of type in print and other repro-
Another example of experiment as a process of creation without duction technologies; they often have substantial knowledge
anticipation of the fixed result is an online project . Ortho-type of composition, color theories, proportions, paper, etc., yet
Trio of authors, Enrico Bravi, Mikkel Crone Koser, and Paolo often lack knowledge of the language which they represent.
Palma, describe ortho-type as an exercise in perception, a stim-
These contrasting interests are brought together in the
ulus for the mind and the eye to pick out and process three-di-
work of Pierre di Sciullo, a French designer who pursues
mensional planes on a flat surface. Ortho-type is an online
his typographic research in a wide variety of media.
application of a typeface designed to be recognizable in three
dimensions. In each view, the viewer can set any of the available

His typeface Sinttik reduces the letters of the French alphabet
to the core phonemes (sounds which distinguish one word from
another) and compresses it to 16 characters. Di Sciullo stresses
the economic aspect of such a system, with an average book
being reduced by about 30% percent when multiple spellings of
the same sound are made redundant. For example, the French
words for skin (peaux) and pot (pot) are both reduced to the
simplest representation of their pronunciation po. Words set
in Sinttik can be understood only when read aloud return-
ing the reader to the medieval experience of oral reading.
Quantange is another font specific to the French language. It
is basically a phonetic alphabet which visually suggests the
pronunciation, rhythm and pace of reading. Every letter in
Quantange has as many different shapes as there are ways of
pronouncing it: the letter c for example has two forms because it
can be pronounced as s or k. Di Sciullo suggests that Quantange
would be particularly useful to foreign students of French or
to actors and presenters who need to articulate the inflectional
aspect of language not indicated by traditional scripts. This
project builds on experiments of early avant-garde designers,
the work of the Bauhaus, Kurt Schwitters, and Jan Tschichold.
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 224
1931 Modern Typographic Material,
American Type Founders Company,
Boston
Di Sciullo took inspiration from the reading process, when he
designed a typeface for setting the horizontal palindromes of
Georges Perec (Perec has written the longest palindrome on
record, a poem of 1388 words which can be read both ways,).
The typeface is a combination of lower and upper case and
is designed to be read from both sides, left and right. (This is
great news to every Bob, Hannah or Eve.) Di Sciullos type-
faces are very playful and their practical aspects are limited,
yet like the other presented examples of experiments in
typography, his works points to previously unexplored areas
of interest which enlarge our understanding of the field.
Although most of the examples shown here are marked by
the recent shift of interest of European graphic design from
forms to ideas, and the best examples combine both, there is
no definitive explanation of what constitutes an experiment
in typography. As the profession develops and more people
practice this subtle art, we continually redefine the purpose of
experimentation and become aware of its moving boundaries.
History of a new font
(notes on designing Fedra Serif)
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven by
technology. Each wave of technological change in printing
provoked the development of new approaches enabled by
the new possibilities. In the eighteenth century, for example,
new typefaces exploited innovations in papermaking and
improved inking techniques to greatly increase the contrast
between letters thick and thin strokes. The introduction of
pantographic punch- and matrix-cutting in the late nine-
teenth century enabled numerous variations of a typeface to
be manufactured from a single drawing. This understanding
of the mechanical scaling of forms changed the idea of the
alphabet; it was now a flexible system, resulting in a vast range
of typographic variants compressed, expanded, extruded,
ad infinitum. In the mid-twentieth century the adoption of
photocomposition systems meant that spacing and kerning
could be adjusted with greater precision; among the many
novelties that photo technology enabled, more fonts simu-
lating connected handwriting were developed. And most
recently the personal computer spurred a wave of new fonts
based on previously unexplored motives, such as modularity
or randomness. With each of these technological changes,
typeface libraries were updated to reflect the changes.
Type designers are very fond of the problems imposed
by the technology. They work in a discipline where re-
strictions and conventions define the frame of work. A
problem is the type designers muse, and in the last dec-
ades we were blessed by enough problems to solve.
While working on the typeface to be called Charter, Matthew
Carter was confronted with a peculiar technical problem.
Early computers were not able to process font files over a
certain kilobyte limit, so Carter quickly offered a solution: a
typeface that would consist mainly of straight lines, thereby
keeping the file size small by limiting the number of points
Chapter 5: 19311938 225
needed to construct the letters. Proudly he claimed to the
technicians, I think I solved your problem What problem?
the technicians asked; an even quicker fixing of the comput-
ers limitations would render Carters solution useless.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, reducing type design to a response mechanism a
craft detached from its own history. When the idea of cul-
tural progress is supplanted by technological progress, the
more implicit motives of type design, such as continuity or
self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular technological
problem is only a short detour in historys path. Solving all the
technical problems would mean the end of the type history, but
this history can itself be the prime inspiration for new designs.
Carter, alongside many of the great punch-cutters, designers,
and printers, has participated in the sequence of discoveries,
summed up - for the sake of comprehensibility - as History.
They contributed to the History of the profession by respond-
ing to current situations. Their aim was not to reinvent the
existing, but to reveal an unknown aspect of the art itself.
Typefaces designed to fulfill the needs of their times contrib-
ute their small part to the knowledge accumulated across the
centuries; not necessarily by inventing anything revolution-
ary, but by extending and adapting collective knowledge to
contemporary conditions. The spirit of continuity is crucial:
each new creation is an answer to what has come before and
each new typeface contains accumulated knowledge.
So: contemporary type design is necessarily histori-
cal. Typefaces are results of the processes, they are re-
sponses to the conditions in which they were created,
and they immediately take a part in the history.
On the other hand, revivals, or typefaces teleporting their
inspirations from concluded periods of time, are unre-
lated to contemporary demands. They discontinue the
series of inventions, becoming a game of pastiche, merely
repeating what has already been created. Revival typefac-

es are, then, ahistorical, as they place themselves outside
their natural history. They create their short-lived par-
allel histories and fail to participate in the big story.
History has been gravely abused, and an excuse for many
misdemeanors, but it always outlasts those who tried to abuse it.
Historys only enemy is the end of the progress. Repeating what
has already been created closes the circle of discoveries. The
value of understanding history as an infinite source of accumu-
lated knowledge is manifest in the intangible processes as much
as the tangible results. The history is driven by intellectual
pursuits. Most historical discoveries are the isolated discoveries
of introvert individuals rather then mainstream technologies.
The Austrian writer Herman Broch, author of a number
of formally inventive and intellectually ambitious novels,
used to repeat this mantra: the sole raison dtre of a novel
is to discover what only the novel can discover. My con-
clusion is equally optimistic: the purpose of type design
is to explore its own possibilities by its own means.
Beauty and Ugliness in Type design
In 2010 I was invited to a design conference in Copenhagen to
speak on the subject of conceptual type. The organisers were
interested in examples of typefaces whose principal design fea-
ture was not related to aesthetic considerations or legibility, but
rather some underlying non-typographical idea. In my address
I argued that there is no such thing as conceptual type, since
type design is a discipline defined by its ability to execute an
outcome; the process that transforms the pure idea into a func-
tional font is a critical part of the discipline. Having rejected
the topic of the conference, I nevertheless went on to speculate
on what a true example of a conceptual typeface might be like.
At the time I was also interested in the idea of irreconcila-
ble differences and how two extremes could be combined
into a coherent whole. As an example, I looked for the
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
most beautiful typeface in the history of typography as
well as the ugliest one and for a way to meld them.
The Beauty
While any choice representing beauty is bound to be very
personal and subjective, many agree that the high-con-
trast typefaces created by Giambattista Bodoni and the
Didot clan are some of the most beautiful in existence.
Bodoni was one of the most widely-admired printers of his
time and considered amongst the finest in the history of the
craft. Thomas Curson Hansard wrote in 1825 that Bodonis
types had that beautiful and perfect appearance, which we
find it difficult and highly expensive to equal. In his Manu-
ale Tipografico of 1818, Bodoni laid down the four principles
of type design from which all beauty would seem to pro-
ceed, namely: regularity, clarity, good taste, and charm.
His close competitors in France were the Didots. Not only
did Franois-Ambroise Didot invent many of the machines
used in printing, but his foundry endeavoured to render
the types more beautifully than his rivals Baskerville and
(later) Bodoni. Some considered Didots works the most
beautiful types that had ever been used in France (up to that
period), though others found them delicate but lifeless.
The Ugliness
I have to admit that dealing with ugliness was a lot more
interesting than revisiting the beauty contests of the classi-
cist printers. The search for ugliness triggers a certain primal,
voyeuristic curiosity, and from the designers perspective
there is simply a lot more space to explore. Capturing beauty
has always been considered the primary responsibility of
the traditional artist, and even now it is rare to find exam-
ples of skilled and deliberate ugliness in type design, (al-
though examples of inexperience and naivet abound).
226 Chapter 5: 19311938 227
1936 LAcier Gris et Noir (Cassandre),
Fouderies Deberny & Peignot,
Paris
The eccentric Italian from the middle of the Industrial
Revolution was a clear choice. This reversed-contrast type-
face was designed to deliberately attract readers attention
by defying their expectations. Strokes that were thick in
classical models were thin, and vice versa a dirty trick
to create freakish letterforms that stood out in the in-
creasingly saturated world of commercial messages.
No other style in the history of typography has provoked such
negative reactions as the Italian. It was first presented in Caslon
& Catherwoods 1821 type specimen, and as early as 1825, in
his Typographia Thomas Hansard called the type a typograph-
ic monstrosity. Nicolete Gray called it a crude expression of
the idea of perversity , while others labeled it as degenerate.
The goal of my project was to show just how closely relat-
ed beauty and ugliness are. Donald Knuth, an American
computer scientist with a special interest in typography
identified over 60 visual parameters that control the ap-
pearance of a typeface. I was interested in designing type-
face variations that shared most of these parameters, yet
included both the ugliest and most beautiful letterforms.
Karloff, the result of this project, connects the high
contrast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the
monstrous Italians. The difference between the attrac-
tive and repulsive forms lies in a single design param-
eter, the contrast between the thick and the thin.
I asked Pieter van Rosmalen for help, and both of us worked
on both versions. While at the beginning I looked at the Didot
from Imprimerie Nationale as a reference, Pieter departed from
this model and made the project more personal. We worked
on both models at the same time, trying to be very strict about
mathematically reversing the contrast between two weights.
The advantage of working on both versions together was
that we could adjust both of them to achieve the best forms,
rather than creating one as an afterthought of the other.

Towards the end of the project, I worked with Nikola
Djurek, our frequent collaborator, who helped with in-
terpolation and fine-tuning of the fonts. Having designed
two diametrically opposite versions, we undertook a ge-
netic experiment with the offspring of the beauty and the
beast, interpolation of the two extremes, which produced
a surprisingly neutral low contrast version. Karloff Neutral
required only minimal intervention, because the master
weights from which it was interpolated were well defined.
The history of History
Type design, like many disciplines, has often been driven
by technology, each wave of change in printing technology
provoking the development of new approaches to design. In
the eighteenth century, for example, innovations in paper-
making and inking techniques inspired new typefaces with
much higher contrast between the thick and thin strokes of
the characters. The introduction of pantographic punch- and
matrix-cutting in the late nineteenth century enabled numer-
ous variations of a typeface to be manufactured from a single
drawing, transforming typefaces into flexible systems with
vast ranges of typographic variants. In the mid-twentieth
century the adoption of photocomposition systems meant that
spacing and kerning could be adjusted with greater precision,
inspiring (among other things) the development of more
fonts simulating handwriting. Most recently, the personal
computer has spurred a wave of new fonts based on previously
unexplored motifs, such as modularity or random chance.
Seeing type design solely as a problem-solving exercise is
limiting, however, reducing type design to a response mecha-
nism a craft detached from its own history. When the idea
of cultural progress is supplanted by technological progress,
the less obvious motifs of type design such as continuity
or self-awareness are neglected. Solving a particular tech-
nological problem is only a short detour in historys path.
Solving all the technical problems would mean the end of
Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles
1936 LAcier Gris et Noir (Cassandre),
Fouderies Deberny & Peignot,
Paris
type history, but this history can itself be
the prime inspiration for new designs.
The History type system was in develop-
ment longer than any other project I ever
worked on. Its beginnings can be traced to
the early 1990s when I experimented with
decorative layering systems inspired by
19th century types, trying to dissect Tuscan
typefaces into their structural components.
While most historians and designers
regard this period with horror, and many
history books call the typefaces decadent
or regressive, I found Tuscans very charm-
ing and inspirational. I started drawing a layering font that
incorporated the possibilities of Tuscan types, but because
of technological limitations, I never completed the project.
Years later (2002) the project took a new twist as I worked on
a proposal for the Twin Cities typeface. Instead of proposing
one new typeface for St.Paul and Minneapolis, I presented
the idea of a typeface system inspired by the evolution of
typography, a conceptual typeface that reused existing fonts.
I called this proposal History. A user would select History
from the font menu, not knowing what font would be used.
History would be linked with the computers calendar and
with a predefined database of fonts, presenting a different
font every day. For example, one day it would use the forms
of Garamond, but the next day when you opened the same
document, the font would change and present the text in a
new typeface, say Granjon, that was created later than Gara-
mond. The idea was that the constant changes would confront
the user with the continuous development of typography.
And finally around 2004 I started working more intensively
on a system of layering letterforms that could be recombined.
I kept adding new styles, and because every style had to use
the same proportions as the previous one so that they would
228
work together, it was getting increasingly more complicated to
draw them. The danger was that this could be a never-ending
project, and I could keep adding more and more styles, which
would take more and more time to incorporate. In 2008, I
finally decided to limit the number of styles to 21. It was an
arbitrary decision, but I liked the number, as it reflected the 21
centuries of typographic history encompassed by the project.
Based on a skeleton of Roman inscriptional capitals, History in-
cludes 21 layers, 21 independent typefaces which share widths
and other metric information so that they can be recombined.
Thus History has the potential to generate an infinite number
of unique styles through the superimposition of layers encom-
passing humanist renaissance, transitional, baroque, script-like,
early grotesque, 19th century vernacular and digital types.
While careless use can generate freakish results resembling
Frankensteins monster, more careful experimentation can
produce not only amusing, but surprisingly fresh and usable
typeface samples. With History, one can replicate typographic
history or, on the other hand, extend it. For example, you can
take a hairline skeleton of letters inspired by Roman inscrip-
tional capitals from year 80 AD (layer 1), dress it up with a
high contrast of thick and thin strokes as Bodoni used in his
work (layer 3), and finally apply 18th century ultra thin serifs
(layer 10) to emulate the style typical of the work of Didot and
Bodoni. Or you can take a low contrast model of letters with
oblique stress (layer 2) and combine it with bracketed serifs
derived from a broad nib pen (layer 8) to end up with letters
reminiscent of Nicolas Jensons Roman from 1470. Making
approximations of historical typefaces is instructional, but not
very interesting, (and frankly, one should use real Didot or real
Jenson typefaces); it is far more interesting to extend history
and mix styles which historically have not co-ex-
isted. Take, for instance, bitmap letterforms
found in early low-resolution computer
screens (layer 7), and combine them
with the thin serifs of Bodoni (layer 10)
Chapter 5: 19311938 229
to get something unexpected. And add the swooshes found
in 15th century humanist calligraphy (layer 17) to top it off.
Realising that controlling 21 different layers can be a daunting
task, I proposed to supply not just the 21 font files, but also the
History Remixer application. This web-based software pro-
cesses text input through an interface which allows the user to
work with the layers, activating, deactivating, arranging, setting
colour, and luminosity. The application generates an open PDF
file which one can then fine tune in Illustrator or some other
programme. Using the Remixer is fun, but playing with History
in InDesign, although is much more work, is probably more
enjoyable because unexpectedly fresh letterforms result. One
can happen across new possibilities, and this game of discov-
ery was one of the important reasons why I did this project.
I chose History as a deliberately irreverent, cheeky
name, but by no means intended it to be disrespectful.
It is mostly a direct reference to the fact that I embraced
no single point in the past, but rather a very large part of
history of typography. My sincere intention was to par-
ticipate in the sequence of typographic discoveries and
allow the user to actively engage in this process as well.
I should acknowledge some sources of inspiration behind
this project. Of course the history of typography was the
primary inspiration. In addition, however, there are some
works which were particularly inspiring to me at the time.
The polyhistorical model of
Milan Kunderas Immortal-
ity provided the theoretical
foundation of the project in the
way it mixes personalities of the

past and present, describing an imaginary dialogue be-
tween, say, the German poet Goethe (1749-1832) and
the American novelist Hemingway (1899-1961), even
though those two could never really have met.
But there are also some precedents in the history of typogra-
phy that allowed me to explore the area of multiform works.
Oswald Coopers experiments from 1936, which involved
applying 15 serifs applied to stems of similar weight to test
their influence in letter design, was of particular interest.
And more recently, Matthew Carters typeface for Walker
Art Center opened my eyes to new possibilities. I should
also mention other useful experiments, such as the early
manifestation of Multiple Master technology documented
in typefaces such as Adobes Penumbra designed in 1994
by Lance Hidy. With the use of Multiple Master, Penumbra
can continuously change from sans serif to fully serifed.
Some reviews and user responses suggest that History is more
of an educational tool than a functional typeface system. Yes,
surely one can use it to explain and explore the constructions
of Roman letterforms, but I still would like to emphasise
the practical aspect of the system. I sincerely hoped, but
couldnt predict, that fonts would be used commercially.
Running a type foundry for a decade, Ive learnt that though
our clients are often extremely creative professionals, they dont
have time to learn too many new things, and many features of
our fonts go unnoticed. It is all very well and good to create
style sets, extended language support and ways to make sure
that a different (slightly higher) hyphen is used automatically
when the text is converted to capitals, but does it all matter
when most people dont even know what OpenType fonts are?
I dont have precise usage statistics, but my guess is that 90% of
our clients use only the basic character set and never realise that
the font, which they licensed for quite a bit of money, can do a
whole lot more than respond to the computer keys they push.
As evidence I can quote occasional conver-
sations with users of our fonts who complain
that small cap fonts are missing (when in
fact they simply need to be activated by
an OpenType feature), or that when they
type English text it is still in English even
though the font claims to support Russian
(indeed the font doesnt translate words
automatically, but only renders the content).
So does it make sense to spend nearly 15
years of (discontinuous and at times not
very intense) work on an even more complex
font system that cannot be used properly in Microsoft Word,
and is rather challenging to use in design applications as well?
Now, more than a year after the original publication of History,
I can say that it was probably worth the effort. The fonts are
indeed being used, and I am continually amazed when I see
their real-life applications. I am not sure if I only see the beauti-
ful samples because people dont bother sending me the horrible
ones, or if its the high barrier of difficulty of using History that
puts the system in the hands of dedicated designers. Whatev-
er the reason is, seeing History in use is deeply satisfying.
One things that Ive learned from this project is that despite
the ubiquitous market research in design and the calculated
decisions of designers, it is still worthwhile to do projects that
I personally believe in. Even the day before Historys release I
had no idea if anyone would ever use the system, but that was
less important, as I found the work gratifying, and I focused
on the creative process rather than its market potential. It
is satisfying to see that this naive approach can work even
in a world driven by commercial pressures. It gives me the
courage to dedicate time to personal research which, when
it is rigourous enough, can find its application in the wild.
new advances in hardware and software. Now, almost 20
1936 LAcier Gris et Noir (Cassandre),
Fouderies Deberny & Peignot,
Paris
but can be distorted or even illegible when converted into
Arial, etc.) that have been fine-tuned by hand so that typical
free, but the reality is that Verdana, for example, is probably
Font hinting
Hinting, or screen optimising, is the process by which
fonts are adjusted for maximum readability on computer
monitors. I have been designing type since the early 1990s,
and for as long as I can remember, type designers have
been saying that hinting would soon be made obsolete by
years later, hinting seems to be more relevant than ever.
The problem is that typical modern fonts are not designed
primarily for the 7296 dpi resolution of computer screens, but
for the much higher 1,200+ dpi resolution of print media. The
letterforms are designed and stored as outlines, mathematically
perfect lines and curves which look great at high resolutions,
groups of pixels, the on-or-off dots that make up a computers
display. And although there has been much discussion about
high-definition computer monitors for decades, the fact of the
matter is that my 5 year old mobile phone still takes photos with
finer detail than my brand new computer can show on its screen.
This is the reason that webpage designers have long been
more or less limited to a dozen or so fonts (Verdana, Georgia,
text sizes (914pt) display well at low resolutions. These fonts
are so common that most computer users think of them as
the most expensive, labor-intensive font ever produced. It
includes characters used to write an extremely wide range of
languages, and each of these characters had to be adjusted
to be readable at every point size between 9 and 60 (at 60pt
the resolution is sufficient to display the letterforms accu-
rately). In other words, each of more than 890 characters
was redesigned dozens of times, once at every point size.
Outlines of Fedra Sans Screen at various sizes. Notice
how different the outlines are in order to achieve
Chapter 5: 19311938 231
the optimal legibility of screen. Every letter is ba-
sically designed for each point size again.
This is exactly what hinting is about: programming instruc-
tions that fine-tune a fonts rasterisation, the process by which
its mathematically ideal outlines are mapped onto a monitors
pixels. Hinting can control the heights and widths of a fonts
uppercase and lowercase letters, the widths of its individual
lines, the amount of white space around letters, the size at
which uppercase letters start to use different stem-widths from
lowercase letters, how the angle of italic characters changes
to best fit the pixel grid, and many other extremely technical
details, all on a pixel-by-pixel basis. If this sounds like a rather
tedious, time-consuming activity, it is, (even for type designers,
who are accustomed to tedious, time-consuming activities).
Last year there was considerable hype about the @font-face
declaration, a function that makes it possible for a webpage to
display any font, freeing designers from dependence on the
Web-safe fonts and opening new design possibilities (not
the least of which is the creation of visual identities which are
consistent across both print and web media). On the other
hand, this also raises new issues, including poor onscreen
display of non-hinted fonts. And because hinting is tedious,
time-consuming and widely believed to be nearly obsolete,
99% of all fonts, even commercial ones, are non-hinted.
Hinting TrueType and PostScript fonts
Even when fonts are hinted optimum onscreen results are still
not guaranteed, as different font technologies approach hinting
differently. In the PostScript system most of the font scaling
is handled not by the fonts, but by the rasteriser software,
so fonts in PostScript format look often good with relatively
simple hinting or no hinting at all. In the TrueType system,
however, the rasteriser is controlled by sophisticated hinting
instructions contained within the font software; without this
information TrueType fonts do not display well onscreen.

1936 LAcier Gris et Noir
(Cassandre),
Fouderies Deberny & Peignot,
Paris
Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. One
advantage of the PostScript system is that the Intelligence is
concentrated in the rasteriser, so any improvement to the ras-
teriser immediately produces better rendering of all PostScript
fonts. Even 20 year old fonts render nicely on the latest Mac.
In the TrueType system, rasteriser updates require all fonts
to be updated as well for optimal results. Thus fonts hinted
for black and white or greyscale rendering will not work as
well with Windows ClearType rasteriser. On the other hand,
TrueType hinting provides direct, pixel-by-pixel control over
the rasterising process, which PostScript hinting does not.
Macro photography of Apple Mac Book Pro. On LCD
monitors (flat screens) every pixel is made from three
elements which can be controlled separately. Subpixel
rendering takes advantage of the way your eyes perceive
colour, using shades of blue, red and green to simulate
higher screen resolution in horizontal direction.
Mac OS vs. Windows
A lot has been written about how Mac OS renders text com-
pared to Windows. I will not go into details here, but the
primary difference is that Microsofts rasteriser tries to align
characters to whole pixel grid, with the result that Regular
232
weights look lighter, Bold weights look heavier,
and subtle details of design can be lost at small point
sizes. Apples rasteriser tries to preserve the design
of the typeface as much as possible, sometimes at the
cost of image clarity. Windows rasterising software
produces extremely good results with a few built-in
TrueType fonts, but sub-optimal results with 99%
of other typefaces. The Mac OS Quartz technolo-
gy ignores font hinting completely and renders all
fonts equally well regardless of their font format.
So lets focus now on Windows this
is where hinting makes a difference
and lets focus on TrueType fonts, which
look superior in Windows at the moment.
Black and white hinting, developed in the days when operating
systems could only turn pixels on or off, controls which pixels
will be displayed at a given point size. This kind of hinting is
called grid-fitting because the outlines of the font are signifi-
cantly modified to fit the pixel grid of the screen. It is the most
time-consuming hinting process, and it takes an experienced
hinter at least 80 hours to hint a single font with the basic
256 character set. Fonts with extensive character sets and/or
numerous styles of course take much longer. This process also
usually adds white pixels between characters to improve legi-
bility, which can create a difference in length between printed
and screen versions of a text. Microsofts Verdana and Georgia
are examples of black and white hinted fonts. Newer technol-
ogy has made black and white hinting obsolete and permitted
onscreen results that are much truer to the original letterforms.
Practical Implications
What does all this mean to a type designer? Hinting can
improve the rendering of fonts. But those fonts will be
rendered differently by different rasterisers on different
platforms and often in different applications as well, (com-
pare for example text in the Safari and Explorer browsers
on the same Windows computer). If the designers inten-
tion is consistent cross-platform rendering, the fonts also
need to use consistent design across similar letters.
It is clear that one day font hinting will finally become obsolete,
but it is not clear when that day will come. The most widely
used operating system in the world, Windows XP (still 58.4%
market share, as of this writing), has ClearType turned off by
default, so unhinted fonts typically do not display well at small
sizes. Whether we like it or not, it looks like hinting will be
around for quite some time. But if you like how fonts display
on the Mac at small sizes, you can take that as proof that it is
already possible to render text well without any hinting at all.
In search of a comprehensive
type design theory
Have you ever heard a conversation between two type design-
ers? Even the most patient, well-intentioned outsider might find
himself smiling embarrassedly, excusing himself and looking
for an exit, dumbfounded. Type designers, like computer pro-
grammers, clinical biochemists, entomologists and agricultural
scientists are marked by an unintelligible jargon and slavish
devotion to their pursuits; what sets them apart, however, is the
seeming unimportance of their discussions. We type design-
ers might be convinced that our profession is vital to society,
but we wouldnt risk going on strike to test how indispensable
we really are. Like printer cartridges or pen refills, fonts are
undoubtedly very practical and serve their function, but the
public seems to take them for granted and largely ignores them.
Writing about fonts is equally difficult as talking about them.
Articles on type design rarely appear outside the realm of the
trade magazines, probably because of their highly technical
nature. (The development of type has always been inextrica-
bly connected to the development of printing technology.)
Writing about type and typography in the mainstream media
Chapter 5: 19311938 233
is somewhat of a rarity even in the Netherlands, a country
which is renowned for its highly-developed typographic cul-
ture, not to mention other countries where type design is still
waiting for any sort of recognition. Yet searching through the
past years issues of The New York Times reveals a surprising
half dozen articles on typography, and even weekly satirical
paper The Onion, carried an article on type, Helvetica Bold
Oblique Sweeps Fontys, thus confirming the publics inter-
est in type design. (Of course, this article, which reports on
the winner of a fictional annual font award, appeared next to
other news like Sheepish Secret Service Agent Cant Ex-
plain How Vacuum Cleaner Salesman Got Into Oval Office,
which perhaps gives us a better perspective of the general
publics true level of concern in matters related to type.)
What is there to discuss about fonts for the outsider? Legibility
studies have caused utter confusion even within the ranks of
type designers. Aesthetic or interpretive evaluations of type
are vague at best, and as far as functionality is concerned,
every designer insists that his fonts work the best. All of which
only leads to a larger question: how can we define criteria for
good fonts? The French type designer Jean-Franois Porchez
responds: the only criterion I rely on is simple: a good type-
face fits the need of the subject. This rather ambiguous answer
points to the problem: how can a type designer design a
typeface when he is not in control of the subject? Does it mean
that we need to have an endless library of typefaces to fit an
endless number of subjects? Can a particular typeface perform
better than another particular typeface? The lack of clear values
is dangerous, and together with the predominantly technical
nature of the discussion, hinders typography in receiving the
proper attention that is regularly given to other art forms.
It may seem that some kind of theory would help to facilitate
discussion; after all, every self-respecting discipline has one,
even obscure treatises such as Ludology Theory or Theory of
Honest Signaling present comprehensive systems of accepted
knowledge which are distinct from actual practice and help to
 234 Chapter 5: 19311938 235

1936 LAcier Gris et Noir (Cassandre),
Fouderies Deberny & Peignot,
Paris
explain some domain of inquiry. A theory can elevate the level
of discussion as well as formulate the frame for such discussion.
Type design, however, seems to resist attempts to establish an
encompassing theory by its very nature. Type design is not an
intellectual activity, but relies on a gesture of the person and his
ability to express it formally. Even if a theory existed, it would
not be very useful, since type design is governed by practice.
There might be detailed How to instructions, but those do
not qualify as general or abstract principles for creating type.
Dictionary definitions of font usually refer to the printing
process, and although type is reproduced by other means as
well, the essence of type is in its ability to be reproduced. Fonts
are essentially modest semi-products; they dont have much
meaning until they are used. And although type foundries and
distributors often attach adjectives to fonts before they are
used, in reality new typefaces are like blank sheets of paper.
They can be used to represent anything, and just as paper
manufacturers cannot control what is printed on their paper, so
type designers can hold no responsibility for what their fonts
are used to communicate. This is not to say that font choices
are purely arbitrary, but rather that fonts acquire meaning
only through use, and that we judge fonts not only according
to how they fit into the existing nomenclature of font classi-
fication, but by how they refer to our previous experiences.
So far, I have deliberately been focusing on the appearance of
type, thus running the risk of separating the design processes
involved in type development from the technical processes in-
volved in production. But hopefully we have learned something
from the valuable lesson of the British Arts & Crafts movement,
which centered precisely on the impossibility of detaching
design from craft. Design is an inseparable element of the
quality of type, however the function of typefaces must also be
considered and respected. Through mastering proportions, bal-
ance and optical corections, the type designer can achieve his
aim, be it improved legibility, historical accuracy or originality
of expression. In the end, most of the existing discussion of type
chronicles the problem-solving aspect of typography. This also
explains how many successful typefaces were created: they were
creative solutions to existing design or technological problems.
But frankly, the fonts presented in our type collection solve
no problems. There were no problems to begin with. One
could go so far as to suggest that the primary motivation for
making these fonts was the same as for making any art: the
urge to create, to express oneself. While discussing typography
amongst the general public is a relative rarity today, there seems
to be a moderately increasing interest in typography among
the general public. (I recently spoke with a writer, a confessed
typophile who studies the anatomy of typefaces late into the
night.) This interest in type can perhaps be attributed to a new
level of self-consciousness, our attempt to understand even the
smallest building blocks of our existence. Just as the purpose
of DNA analysis is to identify the location and function of
every human gene, so the study of typefaces can be seen as an
attempt to understand the formal appearance of the smallest
unit of the written word. And just as skeptics of human genome
research argue that studying DNA will not shed any light on
the true nature of human behavior, so studying type may not
reveal anything about real communication. Still, an informed
discussion of this often marginalized field may help to focus the
attention of the professionals and inspire the general public.
Graphic Design in the White Cube
Organizing graphic design exhibitions is always problemat-
ic: graphic design does not exist in a vacuum, and the walls
of the exhibition space effectively isolate the work of design
from the real world. Placing a book, a music album, or a
poster in a gallery removes it from the cultural, commercial,
and historical context without which the work cannot be
understood. The entire raison dtre of the work is lost as a
side effect of losing the context of the work, and the result is
frozen appearance stripped of meaning, liveliness and dyna-
mism of use. Presenting design in an exhibition space in this

way is akin to looking at a collection of stuffed birds in order
to study how they fly and sing. In spite of this, it is more and
more common to see design as object, not only in books and
magazines, but also in the White cube of the exhibition space.
Graphic designers struggled for a long time for recognition
and professionalization of their field, and exhibits are consid-
ered one way of promoting the trade aspect of design. Every-
one is happy: the designer whose work was selected by the
institution; the original client who received an admired and
acclaimed design, and the gallery which acquires the work
to be presented. Work designed for a completely different
purpose is recycled, and re-presented in a foreign environ-
ment. The same scenario is even more common in design
publishing, and nearly instant books full of vague collections
of work with little or no commentary take up increasingly
more space on designers shelves, crowding out other books
which are more laborious to research, write and publish.
A more recent trend is design which refuses to be seen only as
an object of consumerism but draws parallels with art, reflect-
ing the autonomy of the designer in his work, as well as a will-
ingness to initiate projects himself. This generation of designers
is not the first one that doesnt rely solely on clients to come up
with project briefs. Renowned Dutch designer Karel Martens,
who taught some of the designers represented in this exhibition,
has done uncommissioned, artistic work apart from his design
career. Building on the tradition of the experimental printing of
fellow designers such as Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman or Willem
Sandberg, Martens prints and collages were done in his spare
time as studies and experiments which fueled his other, more
practical design work. Some designers today however integrate
self-initiated work into their daily practice, no longer distin-
guishing between projects done in and outside of their working
hours. Self-initiated work in graphic design is becoming increas-
ingly more important for designers, starting up projects which
probably would otherwise never see the light of day. The group
of people who work in this way is still marginal, and it is no sur-
prise that most of them live in countries with prosperous
economies, occasionally receiving cultural funding to
facilitate their unconventional approach to their work.
Graphic design has for a long time been defined as a
service of a designer for a client, rooted in external
impulses rather than internal ones. Design work done
without a client hangs in a limbo between art and design.
Graphic design is a fairly young profession, and as such still in
a state of development. It is expanding to encompass various
activities: writing, organizing, conceptualizing, reflecting. This
is no longer design which is only defined by business cards and
logos. Here we come to a problem of definition: until now I
have been using the term graphic design with the assumption
that everyone knows what it means. Especially in the context
of the 22nd International Biennale of Graphic Design Brno
with its 43 years of history, people have created expectations of
what a typical graphic design exhibition might include. Let us
understand graphic design then, to mean a field in flux which is
as flexible as the work that it embraces. Unlike the work of other
professionals, the work of a designer is not restricted or defined
by its content; in fact designers are trained to accommodate and
express various, often contradicting ideas. It is a ghost discipline
as Stuart Bailey writes: graphic design only exists when other
subjects exist first. It isnt an a priori discipline, but a ghost;
both a grey area and a meeting point Bailey calls attention
to an area that many designers struggle with: the way that they
refer to their activity in their field transcends the established
notion of its definition. Designers represented in the exhibition
Graphic Design in the White Cube move fluently between the
worlds of art, design, music, theatre and writing. I and everyone
I work with just think of what we do as merely work. I studied
typography and graphic designthats my background and
it informs what I dobut now I do a variety of work, which
may or may not come under those headings, says Bailey in a
recent interview. Others such as French designers M/M Paris
directly challenge the definition of graphic design: graphic
1938 Memphis Schriften,
D. Stempel AG,
Frankfurt am Main
design could embody a lot of activities, and the definition is
not fixed, but continually evolving. Because it is still a new
profession, the best graphic designers are the ones who reinvent
their field and surprise. Members of Amsterdam-based design
studio Experimental Jetset say that limited notion of design is a
misunderstanding: personally, we situate the birth of modern
graphic design somewhere roughly between Marinettis Futur-
ist manifestos, Piet Zwarts leaflets for the Dutch Cable Factory,
and Kurt Schwitters Merz publications (to name some obvious
examples). So in our understanding, graphic design has always
been an area where very different elements are synthesized:
art, politics, poetry, industry, etc. In their view, all the people
invited to exhibit here are then part of this great tradition, and
are graphic designers in the traditional sense of the word.
M/M, Bailey and Experimental Jetset are no strangers to
the gallery world. M/M has held numerous solo exhibitions
in prestigious art galleries and collaborated on major events
(Venice Biennales). Bailey has directed theatre performanc-
es and more recently together with David Reinfurt (Dexter
Sinister) is involved in organizing Manifesta 6, the European
Biennial of Contemporary Art in Cyprus, where they set up a
Chapter 5: 19311938 237
model of economic production, responsible for all publishing
activities of the Manifesta 6 school. Jetset activities include solo
exhibitions in galleries in London, Utrecht and Arnhem, and
group shows in SFMOMA San Francisco, Kunsthal Rotter-
dam, or Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam amongst others.
In 2005, M/M were invited to Paris contemporary art museum
Palais de Tokyo to exhibit their work next to major artworks
of the late 20th century in an exhibition which featured works
by a variety of artists including Joseph Kosuth, Jeff Koons,
Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Takashi Murakami and
Mike Kelley. The intentions of the exhibition was to explore
how different contexts cause the same work to be read in
different ways, blurring the boundaries between disciplines.
graphic design, because of its ubiquitous nature, makes a
considerable impact on the visual culture that surrounds us,
so it makes a lot of sense to study this influence and critically
discuss the work in the context of other visual arts as well.
When presented in a museum however, the exhibition should
attempt more than just passive presentation in glass cases.
The isolated work lacks any real information about the rea-
sons and processes behind it. What needs to become evident
is the explicit purpose of the work, to see things otherwise
inaccessible, otherwise the visitor is better off going to any
bookstore or strolling down a busy street to get first hand
experience of and physical interaction with graphic design.
There have been some design exhibitions which attempt to
deal with these issues. Rick Poynor recently organized a
major retrospective of British graphic design entitled Com-
municate first held in London, now travelling world wide.
The exhibition sets out to examine graphic designs influence
on contemporary culture, highlighting experimental work
created by designers who arent limited by working to fulfill a
commercial clients brief. The exhibition occupied eight rooms
of the Barbican Art Gallery, and Poynor, whose background
is in journalism and publishing, organized these rooms as
 Type: A visual history of typeface & graphic styles 238

chapters of a book, each section presenting a different aspect
of work, with introductory texts explaining each section of
the exhibition. The points and comparisons of the work were
made through careful visual editing of the presented pieces.
Another example is the exhibition of Dutch graphic design
that I was asked to organize a few years ago for the Brno
Biennale. Given the fact that for practical reasons the work
was to be displayed in a gallery space involving a certain
degree of isolation of graphic design, the presentation at-
tempted to clarify its function more, sketching out the trian-
gle of client-designer-public. Since the work of the designer
was brought to the gallery to be judged by the local public,
the focus was on presenting the missing component, that is,
providing space for the clients. The words of the commis-
sioners in the formulation of the original brief were present-
ed instead of the designers retrospective comments. The
original brief illuminated the purpose of the work, while the
public could evaluate how successfully it communicated.
However, a retrospective attempt to recreate the context for a
work may not be the ultimate solution either and has its own
pitfalls, as Experimental Jetset points out: theres also some-
thing false about it: trying to recreate the outside world
inside a museum/gallery, as if the museum/gallery is not a
valid context in itself. In our opinion, in these cases, we think
that its best to underline the museum context as much as
possible, to be brutally honest that the context in which the
object is shown is totally different from the context the object
teen designers and collectives were commissioned to design a
poster for the design exhibition in which they participate. The
posters will function on two levels: the collection of posters is
to constitute the exhibition, and copies of the posters will be
spread around the city to inform visitors about the exhibition.
This is obviously a dangerous snake-eating-its-own-tail strategy,
yet the self-referential nature of the brief makes it possible to
illustrate otherwise invisible mechanics of the work process.
The usual conditions of design are created in the gallery:
designers were directly commissioned to make the poster in
four weeks time, were offered a (minimal) design fee, and
were asked to treat the commission just like any other projects
they work on. What is perhaps unusual about the exhibi-
tion is that it makes some invisible components visible. The
original brief of the project is dominantly presented in the
exhibition, as are all sketches that the designers made. The
objective is not to lionize the work, or create easy material for
value judgment, but to uncover the process of work, present-
ing all the sketches that designers made, including those not
leading anywhere. Failures can provide more information
about visual art than just a presentation of its successes.
The focus on itself, the self-referential nature of the project is
certainly not new. It has been explored in fine art for a long
time, one famous example being Ren Magrittes seeming
contradiction Ceci nest pas une pipe, which questions the
representation of objects in art. In the 1960s, Sol LeWitt
and other conceptual artists worked on reducing the artis-
XTCs album Go 2 (1978) designed by British art design
group Hipgnosis which exposes the mechanics of marketing
persuasion, blatantly including them in the design. The cover
of the album reads: This is a RECORD COVER. This writ-
ing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is
to help to SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention
to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done
that maybe youll be persuaded to listen to the music in this
case XTCs Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The
idea being that the more of you that you buy this record the
more money Virgin Record, the manager Ian Reid and XTC
themselves will make. [] The text goes on to call the buyer
a victim, explaining the tricks of marketing, suggesting that it
is foolish to buy a product based on the design of the cover.
Our strategy for the exhibition was to strip the design
process of its deceptive aura, propose a possible format
for design exhibitions, and yet present everything that
a visitor to a graphic design show might expect.
1938 Splendor,
Schriftguss K.G. vorm. Brder Butter,
Dresden

was originally designed for.So it is in this context that we set
to organize a graphic design exhibition, with the intention
of the commissioner, the Moravian Gallery in Brno, to pres-
ent to the public certain specific aspects and tendencies of
contemporary graphic design worldwide. Being extremely
self-conscious, we propose a possibility: instead of bringing
work from the outside to the gallery, lets make the work for the
gallery. Instead of recreating the context for the exhibits, lets
make the gallery conditions the context for the work. Nine-
tic process to its bare elements. Four Basic Kinds of Lines &
Colour, is a book project investigating basic book printing
techniques. Using standard CMYK colours, LeWitt drew
lines at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degree angles following the standard
angles of reproduction techniques. Starting with four inks,
he was able to mix 16 elementary colours, and using different
densities of the black ink, also 16 grayscale equivalents.
One of the most brilliant self-referential works of design is
Index
Symbols
(Luc)as de Groot 28, 74, 122, 169, 218
A Experimental Jetset 50, 51, 95, 97, 140, 142, 189,
Academy of Sciences XI, XII, XIV, 6, 59, 104, 148,
196
Alan Zruba 31, 79, 124, 172, 222
Amerigo 24, 72, 120, 165, 214
Antwerp XI, XII, XIV, 6, 58, 104, 148, 196
Arial 42, 88, 133, 184, 231
Art Academy in Arnhem 28, 74, 122, 169, 218
Arts & Crafts movement 22, 48, 70, 92, 118, 137,
164, 187, 213, 235
AtypI 14, 65, 113, 158, 206
B 206, 218
Barbican Art Gallery 51, 97, 141, 190, 237
Bitfonts XIII, XVII, 8, 10, 61, 106, 151, 200
Bitstream 24, 72, 120, 165, 214
Brecht Cuppens 32, 79, 124, 172, 222
Brian Eno 11, 62, 108, 154, 203
Brno Biennale 51, 97, 142, 190, 238
C Galileo Galilei 30, 76, 123, 170, 220
calligraphy XI, XII, XIV, 6, 40, 59, 86, 104, 132, 148,
180, 196, 229
Cynthia Busic-Snyder 20, 67, 116, 162, 211
D Georgia 42, 45, 88, 91, 133, 136, 184, 185, 231, 232
David Carson 30, 32, 76, 79, 123, 125, 170, 173,
220, 222
David Reinfurt 50, 95, 140, 189, 237
Didot 20, 36, 38, 40, 68, 83, 84, 86, 116, 128, 129,
132, 162, 178, 179, 180, 211, 226, 227, 229
Donald Knuth 38, 84, 128, 179, 227
Dutch Cable Factory 50, 95, 140, 189, 237
E Greta Sans 11, 13, 14, 62, 63, 65, 108, 110, 111, 154,
Encarta statistics 20, 68, 116, 162, 211
Encyclopedia Britannica 16, 66, 114, 159, 207
Enrico Bravi 32, 79, 124, 172, 222
Epanastatikos Agonas XIII, XVII, 7, 59, 60, 105,
106, 151, 199
Erik Spiekermann 26, 73, 120, 167, 217
Erik van Blokland XIII, XVII, 8, 10, 26, 28, 60, 74,
106, 121, 122, 151, 168, 169, 199, 218
European Biennial of Contemporary Art 51, 95,
140, 189, 237
190, 237, 238
F I
Fedra XIII, XV, XVII, 7, 8, 11, 13, 33, 42, 59, 60, 62,
63, 81, 88, 105, 106, 108, 110, 126, 134, 151, 152,
154, 174, 184, 199, 203, 204, 225, 231
Fedra Sans XIII, XV, XVII, 7, 8, 13, 42, 59, 60, 63,
88, 105, 106, 110, 134, 151, 154, 184, 199, 204, 231
FontBureau 16, 65, 113, 158, 207
Frantiek torm 16, 65, 113, 158, 207
Fred Smeijers 16, 28, 65, 74, 113, 122, 158, 169,
French Imprimerie Nationale 20, 68, 116, 162, 211
Frutiger 10, 61, 107, 152, 200, 203
FUSE XII, XIII, XIV, XV, 6, 7, 28, 59, 74, 104, 105,
121, 148, 151, 168, 196, 199, 218
Futurist manifestos 50, 95, 140, 189, 237
G
Garamond XI, XII, XIV, 6, 39, 58, 86, 104, 122, 131,
148, 180, 196, 228
Garamont 20, 68, 116, 162, 211
Georges Perec 33, 81, 126, 173, 224
Gerard Unger 16, 24, 25, 26, 65, 72, 73, 113, 120,
121, 158, 165, 167, 168, 206, 214, 217, 218
Gerrit Noordzij 18, 28, 66, 74, 114, 122, 160, 169,
209, 218
Gerrit Rietveld 24, 72, 119, 165, 214
Giambattista Bodoni XVI, XVII, 10, 36, 61, 83, 106,
128, 152, 178, 200, 226
Greta 11, 13, 14, 62, 63, 65, 108, 110, 111, 154, 157,
158, 203, 204, 206
157, 203, 204, 206
H Martin Majoor 28, 74, 122, 169, 218
Hamish Muir 30, 76, 123, 170, 220
Harry Carter 20, 67, 116, 162, 211
Helvetica 10, 21, 28, 47, 61, 69, 74, 91, 107, 117,
122, 136, 152, 163, 168, 186, 200, 212, 218, 233
Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman 49, 93, 139, 188, 236
Herman Broch 36, 83, 127, 176, 226
Hipgnosis 52, 98, 143, 191, 239
Huot-Marchand 31, 78, 124, 170, 172, 221
Ian Reid 52, 98, 143, 191, 239
Industrial Revolution 10, 36, 61, 83, 106, 128, 152,
178, 200, 227
ITC Flora 24, 72, 120, 165, 214
J
Jannon 13, 14, 63, 111, 157, 204, 206
Jan Tchichold 20, 68, 116, 162, 211
Jan van Krimpen 10, 61, 107, 152, 200
Jeff Koons 51, 97, 141, 189, 237
Johanna Balukov 31, 79, 124, 172, 222
Jon Wozencroft XII, XIV, XV, 6, 59, 104, 148, 196
Joseph Kosuth XI, XII, XIV, 6, 51, 59, 97, 104, 141,
148, 189, 196, 237
Just van Rossum XIII, XVII, 8, 10, 26, 28, 60, 74,
106, 121, 122, 151, 168, 169, 199, 218
K
Karen Cheng 20, 67, 116, 162, 211
Karloff 10, 38, 61, 84, 106, 128, 129, 152, 179, 200,
227, 228
Kate Clair 20, 67, 116, 162, 211
King Louis XIV XI, XII, XIV, 6, 59, 104, 148, 196
Kurt Schwitters 30, 33, 50, 76, 81, 95, 123, 126, 140,
170, 173, 189, 220, 224, 237
L
Lance Hidy 41, 87, 132, 182, 230
Ludology Theory 22, 47, 70, 92, 118, 137, 164, 186,
213, 233
M
Manuale Tipografico 36, 83, 128, 178, 226
Matthew Carter 16, 34, 41, 65, 81, 87, 113, 127,
132, 158, 174, 182, 207, 225, 230
Maurizio Cattelan 51, 97, 141, 189, 237
Max Kisman 26, 73, 121, 167, 217
Mel Bochner XIII, XV, 7, 59, 105, 151, 199
Michael Worthington 31, 78, 124, 172, 221
Mike Kelley 51, 97, 141, 189, 237
Mikkel Crone Koser 32, 79, 124, 172, 222
Milan Kundera 18, 41, 67, 87, 114, 132, 160, 182,
209, 229
Modernism 25, 72, 120, 167, 217
Moravian Gallery 51, 97, 142, 190, 238
N
Neville Brody XII, XIV, XV, 6, 59, 104, 148, 196
Nicolas Jenson 40, 86, 132, 180, 229
Nikola Djurek 38, 84, 129, 179, 228
Nobel Prize 16, 66, 113, 158, 207
O Stuart Bailey 50, 95, 140, 189, 236
Oranda 24, 72, 120, 165, 214
Ortho-type 32, 79, 124, 125, 172, 222
Oswald Cooper 41, 87, 132, 182, 230
P Theo van Doesburg 24, 72, 119, 165, 214
Paolo Palma 32, 79, 124, 172, 222
Penumbra 41, 87, 132, 182, 230
Peter Eisenman XI, XII, XIV, 6, 58, 104, 148, 196
Peter Matthias Noordzij 28, 74, 122, 169, 218
Peter Verheul 16, 28, 65, 74, 113, 122, 158, 169,
207, 218
Petr van Blokland 28, 74, 122, 169, 218
Pierre di Sciullo 33, 79, 125, 173, 222
Pieter van Rosmalen 38, 84, 129, 179, 227
Piet Mondriaan 24, 72, 119, 165, 214
Piet Zwart 24, 50, 72, 95, 119, 140, 165, 189, 214,
237
Q Willem Sandberg 49, 93, 139, 188, 236
Quantange 33, 81, 125, 173, 224
R
Randomfont 28, 74, 122, 168, 218
Rem Kolhaas XI, XII, XIV, 6, 58, 104, 148, 196
Rick Poynor 51, 97, 141, 190, 237
Robert Bringhurst 20, 68, 116, 162, 212
Robert Rauschenberg XI, XII, XIV, 6, 7, 8, 59, 60,
104, 106, 148, 151, 196, 199
Romain du Roi XI, XII, XIV, 6, 20, 59, 68, 104, 116,
148, 162, 196, 211
Romulus 10, 61, 107, 152, 200
Royal Academy of Visual Arts 28, 74, 122, 169, 218
S
Sabon 20, 68, 116, 162, 211
Sinttik 33, 79, 81, 125, 173, 224
Sol LeWitt XI, XII, XIV, 6, 8, 10, 52, 58, 59, 60, 98,
104, 106, 143, 148, 151, 191, 196, 199, 238
T
Takashi Murakami 51, 97, 141, 189, 237
Theory of Honest Signaling. SeeLudology Theory
Thomas Curson Hansard 36, 83, 128, 178, 226
Thomas Hansard 38, 84, 128, 178, 227
Turner Prize 16, 66, 113, 158, 207
U
Univers 10, 61, 107, 152, 200, 203
V
Vanessa Beecroft 51, 97, 141, 189, 237
Venice Biennales 50, 95, 140, 189, 237
Verdana 42, 45, 88, 91, 133, 136, 184, 185, 231, 232
W
X
XTC 52, 98, 143, 191, 239
Y
Yves Klein XI, XII, XIV, 6, 59, 104, 148, 196