Ai generated display Latin typeface: Mario

Dave Crossland

https://mario.visualfolder.xyz/story

k.l.

And?

Jens Kutilek

The outputs generated were then used in Midjourney to create typographic tables with different variants of the same letter. Those that interacted best with each other were then selected to develop a font.

Doesn’t sound to me like the letter forms in the font were directly generated by an AI.

The contrast between classic and modern calligraphy led the AI to generate letters that maintain a linear structure, interpreting the aesthetic elements of the serifs and integrating them into the letters through unconventional shapes, yet still preserving legibility.

I call BS, AI doesn’t "interpret" anything. And it can’t possibly know how to preserve legibility

John Butler

Moderngasm.

k.l.

Re Jens’ remark, LA Times had a nice article on that matter, yesterday: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2024-01-18/column-the-george-carlin-auto-generated-comedy-special-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-ai-right-now

Miles Newlyn

The active people on this forum are talented, perceptive and intelligent, and posting this seems to me to be an insult.

Nick Shinn

AI can certainly come up with some odd letter constructions that would never occur to one otherwise. But making them into a coherent typeface is another matter. Baby steps, here.

Dave Crossland

Miles, no insult intended. It seems newsworthy to me, and professionals should be aware of and discussing the news of our profession, shouldn't we?

Florian Hardwig

What interests me most about this is to see the source material, namely the calligrapher’s “drafts and sketches from the early 1900s” … but none of it is shown on the Story page, it seems.

A preview from September 2023 doesn’t make any mention of such original material. There, the process is described as follows:

1. Dalle2 image generator
Promt “a letter “A” in the style of (foundry name)
2. Midjourney blend
image A: visual (dalle 2)
Image B: Typography sketch
3. Training Process
Repeat

Enrico Sogari

@Miles Newlyn I totally agree with you.

John Hudson

Dave, I think Miles’ point is that this stuff is a long way from ‘news of our profession’. There is news about AI that has implications for our profession, and there is engagement by people in our profession with AI, but this seems neither.

Dave Crossland

Did I miss someone else retailing a font with AI generated letterforms?

Peter Bain

Hmm, I thought valid fonts were only drawn on artboards or "vellum" before being sent out for photography and grid manufacturing. 😀 I think the more valuable question remains whether readers, people creating graphics (or using software that composes type), or type licensers discern a difference between a well-made or interestingly designed typeface, and something that looks half-digested at the present.

Ray Larabie

As an art director, my process involved conceptualizing an idea, sketching it out, and then working with designers to refine it. This collaborative effort usually resulted in a final product close to my original vision. However, my experience with AI image generation has been quite different and often frustrating. The process starts with creating a detailed prompt for the AI, which typically generates images that are far from what I envisioned. Even after tweaking the prompt and trying multiple variations, the closest result is typically only a rough approximation of my idea, leading me to settle for something less than ideal.

While I acknowledge the potential for AI to eventually contribute to font design, I believe that using current AI systems for creating typefaces is not effective. These systems tend to produce designs that are either simplified versions of existing fonts or impractical concepts. This limitation is akin to trying to explore the moon with a zeppelin—a fascinating idea, but not practical with current technology. Though AI can create visually interesting lettering, for true typeface design, I see it as a dead end at this stage.

In the example, Dave posted, you can see about a dozen letters. But the AI never had to deal with the tough parts of turning this into a usable typeface.

How will the thick part of the D be used in other letters? Is there a case for making G with a heavy slug on the right? Will the W be a flipped M, if so, will it read as a U? Will the N be an inverted U or will it be more creative like the A? How will the X be constructed in a way that relates to the style of the rest of the alphabet? These are the kind of decisions that require thought. Maybe not human thought, but a system based on probability can't solve these problems.

John Hudson

.

Ray Larabie

I just wanted to add that I think if you can get it to generate enough variations, you can sift through and find things that look like viable candidates for letters. But, I don't think that's very useful for typeface design. 

Miles Newlyn

Dave, thank you, none taken.
John put it very well for me. Thanks John.

The post appears only buzzworthy, and not newsworthy. The author avoids any useful thought on the use of AI in the design process.

It would be worthy if we could discuss the value that has come from the use of AI in this project, but I can't see how to do that.

Vasil Stanev

I can certainly see it as a generator for ideas, because to me one letter has enough DNA to inspire a whole font. eg this image is the result of the simple prompt "alphabet" and it has an interesting /e that can be stylized and  developed into something usable. Inside the /e are also other interesting ideas. I can reroll this n times and get as many new ideas as I want. I see an interesting Q inside the /e, a peculiar N... 

Claudio Piccinini

Aside from that "a", which is sitting sideways rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise, the rest looks like something a modestly talented 1970s designer could have conceived without any automation. "Intelligence" is not the appropriate term for the "AI model", a machine is and remains a "quick processor" and nothing more.

As far as automating tasks goes, it can be good to follow developments. As far as inspiration for ideas drawn from algoryhtm generated images… anything can provide inspiration but to me these images look all the same.

John Savard

Miles Newlyn said:

The active people on this forum are talented, perceptive and intelligent, and posting this seems to me to be an insult.

If it were combined with the claim that it was as good as what those people produce, yes. But absent such a claim, it's merely a warning, and not an insult. And not necessarily a warning that the technology will soon get good enough to put you out of business, but rather the much less insulting warning that public taste might decline to the point that it would settle for this kind of stuff.

That was my initial reaction, although the typeface did seem to not stand out too much from some of the outrageous display typefaces of the 1970s. However, following the link to the Instagram page, I learned that the typeface is the AI-assisted creation of a Real Typographer who just happens to be an experimental typographer, one Edoardo Benaglia, and his intent was to see if AI could capture some of the style of another Real Typographer, one Mario Salvi, after whom the typeface is named.

Or at least he was a calligrapher, at the Pigno paper mill in Bergamo. An initial search by Google did not turn up a typeface he designed that I could compare to this modern imitation.

Ah. Mario Salvi was Edoardo Benaglia's great grandfather. Finally, a good excuse!