Academic Research on Type Design Methodology

Mithil Mogare

​I am conducting an academic study titled “Design Thinking for Custom Type Design: A Framework for Beginners.”

Purpose of the Study:
This research aims to bridge the gap between UX design thinking models and type design practice by:

1. Investigating whether conventional UX frameworks (e.g., IDEO’s 5-stage model) suit custom type design briefs.
2. Documenting methodologies used by global experts to solve bespoke type challenges.
3. Proposing a beginner-friendly design thinking framework tailored to type design.

Your insights would be invaluable. 

Questions:

1. Adaptation of UX Models:
   Do you believe conventional UX design thinking models (e.g., double diamond process, google design sprint) can be directly applied to custom type design briefs? If not, what key steps required to solve the type design’s unique problem (Like planning, Ideating)?
2. Process for Custom Briefs:
   When solving a custom type design brief (e.g., a font for dyslexic readers or a brand-specific script), what methodological steps do you follow right from the thinking level? Please share an example.
3. Framework Components:
   If a structured design thinking model were created specifically for type design beginners, what critical components should it include to balance artistic intuition with reproducible processes?

Impact:
Your input will directly shape a pedagogical toolkit to empower novice designers, ensuring type design’s craft traditions evolve without losing accessibility for newcomers.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

John Hudson

I suspect the number of type designers able to answer your initial question, i.e. those who are also familiar with conventional UX design thinking models, is vanishingly small. I’ve no idea what ‘double diamond process’ is, for example.

I can offer some insights on how I work on custom font projects, beginning with a pre-planning stage that involves working with the client to properly define the design and technical brief. This is discussed in detail in our overview of commissioning custom fonts. The extensive set of questions we ask clients is intended not only to accurately scope—and hence price—a project, but also to narrow the brief into an actionable plan in which the nature of the design and its implementation is pretty well established before I start drawing anything. These days, a lot of my design thinking is conducted while I am walking through the forest with my dog. By that stage, I know what the glyph set is going to be, so can consider both common, characteristic shapes and edge-case, difficult shapes from the outset. Put another way, by the time I start drawing, there are few surprises: there may be chance discoveries, and opportunities to pivot, but I’m not encountering things I have not already thought about.

The design process once drawing has started—and I use ‘drawing’ here to refer to all the stages involved in translating the idea of a typeface into the implementation of a font—is reflective and iterative. It is the process of refinement of the idea and refinement of the execution. I don’t know how that compares to UX design, but I know that it is very different from a lot of graphic design, in which multiple moods or concepts are being developed, often presented to clients, and then selected and developed. In type design, if you don’t have a clear idea what you are going to make before you start making it, you have failed to properly define the brief.

Hermina

Hello,
I find the idea of bridging disciplines very interesting, and it made me realize that I may have unconsciously applied some UX principles in my approach to type design as well.
I'm a graphic designer, and I define myself as a generalist working across coding, drawing, and typography. I'm especially instrested in learning / thinking models in type design since I never received formal education on the suject. I have some thoughts I'd like to share and I'd be happy to participate in the survey from the perspective of a self-taught beginner. I hope it's useful.  

1. For me, the most important part has been the discovery phase: understanding  what the overall landscape looks like, what can be done, what kinds of subjects professionals have explored, where its boundaries lie. This gave me a general orientation within the field. The rest, for me, follows as a natural flow.
2. My own method tends to follow a repetitive, test-driven loop:  `idea => test => adjust based on results =>  recreate => retest ... ` — similar on how we iterate in software testing. See : Dave Lawrence's workflow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCo_CdjDi9I
3. Structured frameworks can be efficient, but they also risk making the creative process too rigid (as you may have suggested when noting the balance between productivity and creativity). It took me years to unlearn what I've been taught in art school, and I've never trusted single linear frameworks. I believe it's crucial to explore multiple ways of thinking and doing, to help learners become aware of the approach they're using and to encourage them to shape their own. In short, we learn better through constant comparison across divergent things, and we need to learn to understand ourselves.

   
It's a great topic, I wonder why there haven't been more responses. Like John pointed out, maybe it's quite cross-disciplinary to intruduce UX-specific terms in a type design forum.
I'd suggest framing your questions in a way that aligns more closely with the language used by type designers, avoiding UX-specific jargon,since UX principles are, after all rooted in congetive processes. You can then reverse-map the answers onto your UX models. That may lead to more relevant insights to support your research.

Mithil Mogare

Double diamond process

Mithil Mogare

Designers, Please participate. It would be a great help. 
Thank you in advance.

Nick Shinn

Most of the briefs I’ve had start with a placeholder typeface (in prototype layouts) that the client wants something better than. For their financial director, not having to pay an enterprise licence fee, and for their creative director, something uniquely brand-expressive. Or the client’s agency may have come up with a few characters rendered in Illustrator, as a starting point.

So for me, it be like “different but the same.” In other words, negotiating plagiarism.

Occasionally, my brief is earlier in the process and more open-ended.

BTW, Double Diamond—works wonders!

Nick Shinn

London in the Swinging Sixties.
Photo by Iain MacMillan.
Note the psychedelic Double Diamond (double) billboard lettering! 

Mithil Mogare

Nick Shinn said:

Most of the briefs I’ve had start with a placeholder typeface (in prototype layouts) that the client wants something better than. For their financial director, not having to pay an enterprise licence fee, and for their creative director, something uniquely brand-expressive. Or the client’s agency may have come up with a few characters rendered in Illustrator, as a starting point.

So for me, it be like “different but the same.” In other words, negotiating plagiarism.

Occasionally, my brief is earlier in the process and more open-ended.

BTW, Double Diamond—works wonders!

interesting!
Can you tell me step by step procedure of yours to finish the Custom type right from the mock ups on illustrator with design tweaks in the prominent characters till the font file hand over. (Include programming even if it is not needed.)
e.g. 
Mock ups
Planning of weights/ascenders/xheight and other parameter in the matrix
Drawing on paper
.......
.......
Font hand over

thank you!

Dave Crossland

I do not believe conventional UX design thinking models can be directly applied to custom type design briefs, because I believe (perhaps incorrectly, I admit) that they are intended to involve a wide range of different job-role stakeholders in exploring a wide range of outcome ideas and aligning decision makers on the aptitude and value of outcomes. Whereas typeface design is a very specialized  topic, which most of those wide ranging stakeholders have no insights into or experience with, and so it is rather such an outcome from such models ("ah, to solve these problems, we need a new typeface!") than amendable to such models. Instead, when deciding to commission a type designer for a project, what is most useful is to tell the type designer what problems you as the client are facing, and as Nick Shinn has said, it is likely you are already using some existing type and finding it problematic in some ways, so articulating those problems directly is very helpful. 

To explain how to develop custom type design briefs, I contributed to the http://designwithfontforge.com/en-US/Planning_Your_Project.html guide and especially the diagram in the middle of the page. The key idea is cybernetic style feedback or "OODA" loops. John Hudson already mentioned his custom fonts page, which I think is excellent, and there's also the Tipo-E book which I remember has a good chapter on Briefs.

Nick Shinn

I would add that I rarely work from scratch, but usually modify one of my existing designs. This is feasible as I have made many designs over many years, in many different genres, so there is a good chance that transforming one of these will fit the bill. For instance, in one job that specified a high-contrast sans, removing the serifs from an old-style design worked out quite well.  

Is there a similar process in UX design?

Mithil Mogare

Nick Shinn said:

I would add that I rarely work from scratch, but usually modify one of my existing designs. This is feasible as I have made many designs over many years, in many different genres, so there is a good chance that transforming one of these will fit the bill. For instance, in one job that specified a high-contrast sans, removing the serifs from an old-style design worked out quite well.  

Is there a similar process in UX design?

Not really... But it has lean methodology which goes into the loop to solve something.
can you tell me the general process if you start from the scratch? Because you must have experience of all eras like metal type, photo type and digital type. I would love to listen from the perspective of metal type designer and digital type designer.

Nick Shinn

No, I have only done custom type design in the digital era.