Books on developing font weights?

I'm struggling with the creation of different weights for typefaces. There seems to be a science to adjusting weights. Can anyone recommend books or other resources that impart this wisdom? 

Comments

  • Ramiro EspinozaRamiro Espinoza Posts: 839
    edited February 2021
    You can ask Gunnlaugur SE Briem at (https://sites.google.com/view/briem/contact-encryption?authuser=0) for his old website "Notes on type design" which sadly is not online anymore. Pity, I think it was an useful resource.


  • Ramiro EspinozaRamiro Espinoza Posts: 839
    edited February 2021
    Also you can get Creative Lettering Today by the multi talented Michael Harvey. There are some tips on making bold versions in this book (and so much important information and advises). Strongly recommended.


  • Thank you very much, Ramiro! 
  • Get The Modification of Letterforms by Stanley Hess. It explains how to build families with a variety of weights and widths. It’s a forgotten classic of type design.
  • edited February 2021
    @Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.) First of all: there is no science.  :-)  But: below is a particularly useful diagram (page 59 in Frutiger's "Type Sign Symbol", 1980).


    What's more obscure (and contested) however is how to determine multiple weights on a gradation (simply linear doesn't generally work out). I think there have been some good threads about that here.
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  • Thank you all, you're being hugely helpful! 
  • That looks very familiar.
    Good memory.
    When I asked this very same question (ages ago) you told me to go look it up. In a book that cost ~$300 at that point IIRC. When you could've done what I just here...  :-)
  • More like $400 now! 
  • More like $400 now! 
    One copy on abe.com in Germany for under $200, one copy in the US at over $500.

  • Nick ShinnNick Shinn Posts: 2,131
    James has all the best books!
  • Sorry to do this to you guys but I got mine for $35 (thanks to a tip by erstwhile font friend Phan Nguyen).
  • I was going to say, a lot of the diagrams (including that one) from Type Sign Symbol are also included in the more recent Adrian Frutiger Typefaces: The Complete Works, but looking it up I see that, since it's also out of print, it's fetching a pretty steep price as well. 
  • edited February 2021
    @Mark Simonson Checking... I'm seeing some copies for $150. I could never get myself to pay that much for it TBH. I think the most I've paid for a type book is $70 (the 1982 facsimile of Rudolf Koch's incredible "The type foundry in silhouette" of 1936).
  • edited February 2021
    @Daniel Calders Thank you, I hadn't heard of that book – sounds pretty promising. Just bought a used copy for $8, free shipping!
  • @Daniel Calders Thank you, I hadn't heard of that book – sounds pretty promising. Just bought a used copy for $8, free shipping!
    That's a deal/steal! It's a great book even for the full price, very underrated imho. Enjoy the read!
  • @Daniel Calders I got it! Yes, worth WAY more than $8. Thank you.
  • James PuckettJames Puckett Posts: 1,969
    Glad to see I’m not the only one who was gobsmacked multiple times by Samara’s history.
  • @Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.) Thanks for the insights!

    Good thing history is the least relevant part of the craft.
  • Perhaps. But how can I trust anything else he says? 
  • edited March 2021
    I read some more, and now it's just hilarious. On page 30, he shows an image from Peter Behrens' 1901 book "Lebens in Kunst." There is no such book (and if there was, I'm sure the title would employ proper German grammar) – though Behrens did publish "Feste des Lebens und der Kunst" in 1900, which is where the  image is taken from. Compared to this, misspellings like "Behrenschrift" and  "Merganthaler" are just sprinkles on this sundae.

    I'm not the type who does this, but I emailed him and recommended hiring better editors. I expect no response whatsoever :)
  • @Oliver Weiss (Walden Font Co.) I'm glad you emailed him. If he accepts the critique with an open heart at least that means he's a real designer (versus a mere fragile artist).

    On being able to trust: it's not binary, and you can learn how to filter.  :-)  There are many people here on TypeDrawers who often make ridiculous statements (such as "using a freely available font has no impact on branding") but I still take their opinion on certain other things seriously. So when it comes to Samara's now-exposed failing in the sphere of history, people who over-value historicism might feel better about themselves by discrediting anything else he might contribute... but that would be their loss, not his.
  • John HudsonJohn Hudson Posts: 2,955
    My copy of the Samara book arrived yesterday. So far I have only looked at the illustrations, which as least seem to include some useful and fairly novel ways of presenting and explicating comparative insights. I am not surprised to hear about the factual errors, since it is a non-specialist work coming out of a graphic design context.
  • Ramiro EspinozaRamiro Espinoza Posts: 839
    edited March 2021
    Some of Samara's statements on J. Gutenberg are present in P. Meggs' History of Graphic Design, a text not very rigorous when it comes to typography. It's a pity that in many design academies it's still one of the main books recomended for art and graphic design history topics.
  • Chris LozosChris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    Adrian Frutiger Typefaces: The Complete Works,

    Glad I bought it when it came out!
  • edited March 2021
    I continued reading Timothy Samara's book, and am glad I did. His explanations of features and underlying concepts are very lucid, and easy to understand, so I am getting out of it what I had hoped for after all. There are still some oddities - such as the caption on a diagram referring to mark-up that doesn't exist, or oddly aligned graphics that destroy the point they're trying to illustrate, but I've now learned to roll with it.

    Then today I received a kind and humble response to my email from Mr. Samara. He acknowledges the shortcomings, and takes full responsibility. A second printing will hopefully correct many of these issues.  

    So, overall, I recommend this book, though pedantic nit-pickers like me will need to let their hair down. 
  • Then today I received a kind and humble response to my email from Mr. Samara. He acknowledges the shortcomings, and takes full responsibility. A second printing will hopefully correct many of these issues.
    Very good to hear all that.
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