Streamlining Dafont Creation?

The examples they show are crude, but so were the examples that were given in the documentation of Fontographer 1.0.

I'm generally skeptical of parametric type design. It seems too reductionist, too limiting. But I wouldn't categorically write it off either.

If nothing else, it might be useful for trying out ideas very quickly. In the hands of a skilled type designer, we might be surprised by what could be done with it.

I would suspect, though, that even "good" fonts created with such a tool might have a certain sameness to them.

James: I think scanners have already done to type design what sampling did to music. This looks more analogous to a synthesizer. Techno fonts anybody?

On the other hand, maybe they aren’t exactly being realistic about parametric design’s limitations…

“What if creating a font perfectly fit for your website was easier than browsing through a webfont library?”

There've been some really nice new tools lately for making fonts, and what makes them so good is that they were designed by type designers.

You can tell these guys know a lot more about programming than making fonts. I wonder if it would help if they were working with an experienced type designer.

It's undeniably cool and fresh, though on the surface it appears to put font making into an art-free zone. However, that's not to say someone who's able to put some art into it might not be able to squeeze some art out of it. The thinking is along the right lines (which is to say simple), especially if Prototypo and Metapolator are able to turn marks and other OT features into background functions, obviating the need for much of the nerd layer.

It's my feeling that education is the worst place for such a tool, as it is too easily operated by people who have no discipline or judgment. Yet, if it incorporates more traditional editing tools as well as the automated ones, why not?

A problem I see with parametric tools like this is that it all hinges on the particular font model employed. You're limited to creating only fonts that are based on that particular model. If you look at fonts in the real world, very few share a common model. And the models, in most cases, are usually way more complex.

As type designers, we create the model in our heads as we create a typeface. It goes hand in hand, and the model changes as the typeface design evolves. It's difficult to imagine a parametric type design tool that could capture the richness and subtly of such models, or if they could even be encoded. I'm not sure most type designers could fully describe the models they employ. So much is based on observation and intuition, things that are difficult to quantify or measure.

Not that such a tool might not be useful, but I think it would be easy for novices to get the impression that type design can be reduced to tweaking a few sliders.

David, sorry for not being clearer. I was referring to print tools of the InDesign variety, not web tools, about which I agree with you completely. I still live largely in the antique world of print.

I don’t see how this differs from interpolation, which we have adjusted to for generating weights etc. (sometimes requiring extra fixed defaults along an axis).

As long as the type designer can draw the glyph-part shapes at the poles of the axes, what is the problem? A serif is a serif, stroke thickness is stroke thickness, stress angle is stress angle, and so on. These are generic qualities, not aesthetic drawing judgements. One could even invent new axis categories, such as roughness or irregularity, to throw into the mix.

I think that parameterized type design as presented in Prototypo and Metapolator is an interesting development and that these tools provide at least a valuable preview of what will be possible in the (near) future. One can emphasize the shortcomings in the programs and underline the superiority of the type designer’s eye and intuition, but at the same time one should acknowledge their increasing versatility. Also I believe that by mapping the underlying harmonic and rhythmic aspects of type more insight in what exactly comprises the creative process in type design and what are its constraints, can be gained.

I can’t resist briefly mentioning the development of the chess-playing computer here. In the chapter ‘Computer developing a human game’ of his book How life imitates chess, former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparow describes his first encounters with these machines in the 1980s. At that time he underestimated the potential of the chess computers because in 1985 he made a 100 percent score against 32 different top models. Kasparow writes about the ‘doomsday scenarios about people losing interest in chess with the rise of the machines’, but comes to the conclusion that the gloomy predictions didn’t became reality. He notes that the ‘heavy use of computer analysis has pushed the game itself in new directions. The machine doesn’t care about style or patterns or hundreds of years of established theory. It counts up the material, analyses a few billion positions, and counts up again. It is entirely free of prejudice and doctrine […].’*

Actually I believe that if something can be defined, it can be programmed. Also in type design. And I believe that if something can’t be defined, it doesn’t exist. That is a highly controversial statement, I know.

When it comes to education, I think that the value of tools like Prototypo and Metapolator is purely relative to the quality of the educators. In incapable hands every tool is a disaster. The only critical comment I can make, is that the applied parameterization is from the outside, i.e., not organic. Based on my research I’m developing LeMo, which I believe is more organic, i.e., it applies parameterization from the inside.



As an exponent of his pen-oriented school, I started lecturing in line with Noordzij’s theories when I succeeded him at the KABK in 1987. After canonizing Noordzij’s doctrine for a number of years I began to realize that making the step from writing to drawing letters was quite complex for the students. One does not necessarily need to handle a pen or brush to study and apply the effects of such a tool IMHO (it can help to literally refine one’s hand, though). For this reason I developed in the course of time LeMo as (geometric) representative of a formalized Humanistic minuscule. My students use this model for exploring the construction of the supported letters, for creating their own writing examples instead of copying my hand (see above), and for experimenting with the basics of typography. Therefore the emphasis is less on controlling pen and brush, and more on the research into the basic patterns of writing, and subsequently on these in typography, as it is a related medium.



Fernando Mello is a former Plantin-Society student of mine (2012–2013 EcTd course) and he is one of the exhibitors at the Inside/Outside expo, which opens on 17 May 2014 at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp. He used LeMo as basis for a new typeface that will be published by Fontsmith Ltd in London.
On one of his exhibition panels Fernando writes: ‘The DTL LetterModeller was the real beginning of my practical design during the course, as I have defined main proportions (also the basic spacing) by going to LeMo, taking the 'Renaissance' preset with visible serifs as a starting point, and adjusting proportions and dimensions from there. After that a basic schematic font was exported from LeMo, and then imported into Fontlab. Modifications in spacing and general dimensions of the font were made as long as the design progressed, but the core essence of the dimentions and the broadnibbed pen scheme generated through LeMo stayed through the whole design process like a skeleton.’



* Garry Kasparow, How life imitates chesss (London, 2008) p.134.

That drawing method looks interesting! It might be particularly useful for making thin sanses with subtle stroke modulation. The outside curves look a bit bumpy to me in places, though; I'm wondering whether that's an inherent difficulty of this method.

After realizing that even long adverts were not enough, the DTL tribe desperately started looking for other ways to impress the Berlowian Oracle.