Digital Font Design: Alice

Rochester Institute of Technology

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2-1-1984

Digital Font Design: Alice

Lynne Garell

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Rochester Instituteof

Technology

A thesis submittedto the

faculty

oftheCollegeofFineandAppliedArts In _candidacyfor the degreeof

MASTER OF FINEARTS

Digital Font Design: Alice

Lynne Garell

Thesis Committee

JamesVer

Hague,

Chief Advisor Heinz Klinkon

Approvals

Chief Advisor:

James

C.

Ver Hague

Date

:

Heinz Kinkon

Associate Advisor: _ _

--;-_ _

:---_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_

Q

/1

Gily

Date:

Associate Advisor

:

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_N_a_d_in

_ _ _

~-~~_=_--~/M

,

19(fy

Date:

Graduate Academic Council Representative:

Date

:

/) I

I

Dean, College of Fine and Applied Ar;ts:

Date:

I, Lynne Garell, prefer to be contacted each time a request for

production is made. I can be reached at the following address:

Lynne Garell

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to myparents.

Thanks,

Momand

Dad,

for 25years ofyour

love,

supportand encouragement.

Iwouldalsolike to thank Mark Brucks

andChris Brownofthe

University

of

Rochesterfortheirvaluable

help

and input.

And

finally,

thanks to mycommittee

TableofContents

1. Introduction 1

2. Background 4

3. The

beginning

7

4. ThedevelopmentofAlice 9

5. Conclusion 19

Notes 23

1. Introduction

The purposeofthis thesis wasto designafontexclu sivelyforusein digital display.

My

concern iswithfonts that are usedto

display

information ortextonthecomputer screen; I didnot considerfont applicationstohard copy output such as lineprinters ortypesetting.

My

thesis researchbegan in March 1983. I began my studywith experimental work with_existingfonts. Wim Crouwel'sexperimentalCRT fontof1967 intrigues me,soI digitized itontoanApple II computer with a screen reso lutionof280 X 192. The font was intended fora higher resolution, soitwas

barely

legibleontheApple.

I alsodidsomeexperi

mental _greyscalework onthe Genigraphicssystem. I digitizedan uppercase "G"in Univers

45,

65and75ata size of18Geni units

high,

then reducedthatimage to 24 points,or2.6 Geni units.

Grey

scaling isan inter estingapproachtodigital fonts in that it paradoxically smooths outtherough, jagged linesof a character

by blurring

itsedges.

However,

it has drawbacks. One isthata_grey scalefontoffourorfive bits requires a largeramount of memorythanispracticalfor theaverage personal com puter owner.Another draw back to grey scaling isthat it isa cosmeticapproachto typography. It doesn't actually use computer

technology

to

develop

a clean design. Both oftheseexperiments

were accomplishedas pre

liminary

research.The bulkof myresearchwasdone

by

reading.Through the_library, I didan on-line computer search ofthe topic "font". Thisprovidedme witha list of192articles and reports whichhad been published since 1979. Ithenselected thosearticles most relevant tofont

design,

and began reading.

The majorityofthemater ial Ireadonthesubjectof digitalfont design had been researched and written

by

electricalengineersor com

puter scientists.Thesearethe peoplewhobuildcomputer equipment,createthesoft ware,and untilrecently, design the

display

ofthe computerscreen.This in cludesthedesignofthefonts

jbcdEpc|hL"itLnnopqr!Dl-uUUiLp

Lj

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~pi_[zij_=+j".

.:

:hht

1.

G

G

1. Wim Crouwel'sexperimental CRT fontof 1967.

2. Uppercase "G"

thatare usedto

display

texton

thescreen.Mostofthesefonts are5 X 7 dotmatrixfonts. Few

engineers aretrained to design

or understand

letterforms,

with

theresultthat

they

_copyor base

theirdesignson_existingtypes.

Type

designers,

ontheother

hand,

seemtobe _mainlycon cerned withdigital

typesetting

equipment.The typefacesare stored

digitally,

ratherthanon filmorin the formof cast metal. Thismeansthat the

finetuning

ofthe typeface takes place at

thecomputer

terminal,

but the

main concernhere iswiththe output, the hardcopy.

Sometype

designers,

such asCharles Bigelowand Donald Knuth withMetafontandC. H. Coxwith hisskeletal approach

tofont

design,

haveconcerned

themselveswith the designof fonts for digital display.

However,

most ofthisworkhas beenat theexperimentallevel rather than theapplied

level,

andthe

result is thatwe still must read

poorlydesignedcharacters

when weuseacomputer.

OneofthemajorproblemsI

seeis thatpeople wantto digitize

existingtypefacesforuse on a cathode_raytube.Typessuch as HelveticaandTimes

Roman,

designedin 1957and 1932

respectively,are_verypopular CRT fonts. Thesetypeswere designed for theprint_medium, for ink onpaper,and as such

they

are notmeanttobe dis

played asdotpatterns ona computerscreen.

It istimefor designers to learncomputer

technology

and applythisknowledge to font designsthatareproduced _solely forusein digital display.

Screen resolutions are

constantlybecominggreater and greater.The AppleII, a lowresolutionscreen, isnot capable ofdisplayinga

finely

detailed fontattextsize. The computerIused, the Xerox

Alto,

Isa medium resolution

display.A fontdesignedon theAltowouldbetoodetailed for

display

ona lowresolution screen such astheApple

II,

andnotdetailedenoughfor

display

onthe high resolution screensthatare

becoming

more prevalent. Aresolution of1024X 1024or2000 X 2000

could handlecharacterswith

morecomplexfeaturessuch

asserifs,curvesor a_variety

of anglesfor diagonal lines.

Therefore,

afontthatis de

signedataparticular resolu

tion isapplicable_onlyto othersystemswhich have similar resolutions.

A "meta-font"

is aschematic

descriptionofhowtodrawa

family

of

fonts,

not_{simply the}

drawings themselves. Such

descriptionsgive moreor

lessprecise rulesabouthow

toproducedrawingsof

letters,

andthe ruleswill

ideally

be

expressed in termsof variable

parameters sothatasingle

descriptionwill_actually

specify manydifferent drawings.1

Inabout 1453 Johann Guten

berg

perfected movable_type, which enabled aprinterto

accuratelyproducelarge

quantitiesoftype.Theresult

wasthat printerstried to

mass-produceina shorttime

what scribes hadpreviously

spent_manytedioushours

creating. D. B. Updikewrites:

Thereappearstohave beennothoughtin the

mindsof_earlyprinters

otherthantoreproduce

manuscripts_quicklyand

inexpensively. . . . Intent upon

imitating

manu

scripts,

they

feltobliged

toreproducethekindof

lettersthata readerhad beenaccustomedtoin

volumes written

by

hand.

...Inotherwords, to the firsttype-cutters_printing

was_merelyan evolution,

anddidnotappearanew invention in thesense thatitobliged themto decidewhatformsof letterwerebestadapted to thenew medium

they

had toemploy.2

Over fivecenturieslaterwe

areexperiencingthesame

reluctancetoaccepta new

technology

forwhatit

is,

and to baseourdesignsonthe

capabilities ofthat technology.

Type

designers,

engineers

and computer scientists must

recognizethatcomputers are,

in

fact,

a new_medium,and thereforerequire"newforms

ofletter".Wim Crouwei says, "The memoryofacomputer isanassemblyofcells,

chargedpositivelyor nega tively. This assemblyofcells

. . . couldbea newstarting pointforthe developmentof

newcharacters."3

My

thesis is an attempttounderstandthis

technology

andtousethat understanding to designa

fontthatfitsthe medium of

the CRT. What follows isa

descriptionofhow I designed

my

font,

which iscalledAlice.

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2. Background

Writing by

hand is

fortunately

a_vanishing skill.In the future itwill serve_{onlyfor making}

rapid abstractnotes,which willbe of no valueexceptto the writer, and undecipherable

except

by

him. For true com

municative purposesitsrole

is finished. The letter-type for

ourtime will,

therefore,

cer

tainly

not be basedonthe

written ordrawnexamplesof

thepast.5

m

i

curve

2.

2.

A lowercase

"m"

and"i"as

typedon amanual typewriter. Noticethenarrowspaces

betweenthestemsofthe"m"

andthe_extra-long serifsof

the "i"

Diagonalcharactersoften causeproblemsin letter-spacing. Notice thespace

betweenthe"r"

andthe"v"

As I begantowork onAlice,

therewere several preliminary questionsto beanswered:

Wouldmy font be purely technicaland

highly

functional

or wouldit be purely experi

mentaland notnecessarily

highly

functional?Whatare

theadvantagesanddisadvan

tagesofproportional spacing

versusmonospacing? Do I

wanta singlealphabet,orone

with upper andlowercase

characters?Whatarethe advantagesanddisadvan

tagesof serif versussans

serif?Will the designprocess

takeplace attheterminal or atthe

drawing

board?

The firstquestionis the

mostimportant because it

determines theguidelinesI followin answeringthere

maining questions. I decided

toapproach _{my font from}a purelytechnicalpoint of_view, with_mygoaltobea

highly

legibleandfunctionalfont. I had in mindtheuserwho

wouldbe

typing

and_reading

textmatteronthe screen;

therefore,

legibility

and ease of_readingwere_veryimportant facetsof_{my design.}

Letterspacing

isanother

importantproblem. Most

existingdigital fontsare monospaced, for thesame reasonthat_earlytypewriters were monospaced: it'seasier

toimplementa monospaced

alphabet.

However,

these fontsare also awkward and often difficult toread.

Putting

a lowercase"m" in thesame setwidth as alower case"i" isawkward and it'san eye-catcher.Theoptimumfontis one which reads _smoothly without_catchingthe reader's eye.Proportional spaced alphabets are moredifficultto

implement,

but the

legibility

and eyefloware muchim proved. Becausethecomputer I usedhasthe_abilityto do

proportional spacing, I de cidedto design Alice to be

Thequestion of a single

alphabetisanotherone of functionality.Asingle alphabet

isoneinwhichthereare not

twoseparatedesigns for the

upper caseletterandthe lowercaseletter.

Instead,

one

designsuffices in bothcases.

Thismeansthat the design fora particular character couldbeatraditional lower

caseformoritcouldbea

traditionalupper case

form,

oritcould bea

totally

new

form.Someofthesingle alphabetshavealsobeen

phonetic alphabets.

Many

designerswhohave been

concernedwithletterforms

and

legibility

have designed

single alphabets inanattempt

tominimizethenumber of characters inouralphabet.

However,

wearetaught to

read a_{dual alphabet;}we are usedto_seeingdifferent designsfora capital "A"and a lowercase"a". Becauseof this,a singlealphabet would

be extremely difficult to im plement, and itcouldbea

veryslowprocess.Although theidea is

intriguing,

Ichose

to design Aliceas adual

alphabettomaintainlegibility.

1.

abcdefqhi

jklmnopqr

StUVWXU2

a

dd

1. HerbertBayer'suniversal

alphabet of 1926.

2. Singlealphabet of1927

by

Kurt Schwitters.

3.

Anthony

Rozak'sphonetic alphabet of1971.

2.

MU53K

DM L@beN

did

VOlKefl

AM 2.

J0L3

200hn danaGaem dm opeQNhftus

waasoSaus benohmen

(PODGem

wemce

poupsbsen Measren pnease usmk.

6

Themainpurposeofletters isthepracticaloneof_makingth oughts visible.Ruskinsaysthatalllettersarefrightfulthings andtobeendured_onlyon_occasion,thatistosay,inplaces wh erethesense oftheinscription isof moreimportancethanex ternalornament.This isa_{sweepingstatement,}fromwhich w eneed not suffer_unduly;yetit is doubtfulwhetherthereisa rtin individual letters. Letters incombination_{may be}satisfyi

Themainpurposeoflettersis thepractical one ofmaking tho

ughts visible.Ruskinsaysthatalllettersarefrightful thingsandt

obeendured_onlyonoccasion,that istosay,inplaces where

thesense oftheinscriptionisof moreimportancethanextern al ornament.This isa_sweepingstatement,fromwhichwe ne ed not sufferunduly;yetitisdoubtfulwhetherthere isartinind

ividual letters.Lettersincombination_{may be satisfying}andin

Textsetin 9/10 Baskerville

(top)

and9/10 Avant Garde (bottom).

The debatebetweenserif and sans seriffonts isan

ongoingone.

Many

people thinkthatfor reading printed

textmatterthe besttypeisa

basicseriffacesuchas BaskervilleorTimes Roman.

It isthoughtthat theserifs

help

indistinguishingone

letter fromthe next,thereby

causing lesseye strainand a greater ease of reading.

However,I'mnot surethat

thisistrue inthe case ofa

CRT. A seriffaceonalow

resolutionscreen isoften less legiblethanasans serif

becausetheserifs aremore noticeable;

they

take_upa greater proportion ofthe

character. It_{is very difficult to} accurately reproduce

finely

detailedserifs ona lowor medium resolutionCRT.

Therefore,theserifsareoften

largeand clumsy.Idecided to

approach_myfontasa sans

serif,withthe possibilityof

usingoccasionalserifsto distinguishcertain characters.

When I began toworkon

Alice_myideawastodoall

the

designing

attheterminal,

and noneon paper.

My

thought

wasthat typefaces for the

print medium aredesigned

with pencil on_{paper, then}

transferred tometal orfilm or

bitmap.Because I feltso

stronglyabout

designing

a

font_solelyfor

display

on the

CRT,

I thought that the design

process shouldtakeplace at

3.The

beginning

ThecomputerIworkedonis

the Xerox

Alto,

witha screen resolutionof606 X

808,

and containing489,648 points. It is a vertical-format875-line

raster-scannedTVmonitor witha refreshrateof60fields per secondfromabit map in themain memory.

ThesoftwareIusedis Flashand

Fontedit,

written

by

Clint Parkerofthe

University

ofRochester. The fonteditor

hasa

display

thatconsistsof

the bit map representation(32

pixels

by

36 pixels),themenu andthe fullfont displayedat actual size.Selectionswere made

by

_operatingamouse.

Thisallowed metoeither

"ink"

or"erase"apixel; in

other_{words, this is how I} controlledwhether each pixel

wasturnedon or off. Ialso usedthemousetomovethe

entire charactereither verti

callyor

horizontally

withinthe

bit map; I used it tostore a completed character, togen erate a characterontothebit map representation,andto

exitfrom the fonteditor.

The fonteditor appears onthescreen as blackchar actersona whitebackground,

butwhenIviewedthe font in

text

form,

I hadtheoption of eitherwhite onblackorblack

on white. Ithinkthatwhite on

black iseasier ontheeyes,

sofromthe

beginning

I de

signed _{my font}as white characters ona black field. The final design for Alice is

alsointendedtobereadas whitecharactersonablack field. When thescreen

display

isreversedto blackon_white,

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Digitaltypedesign raises a unique problem of_combining computer

technology

withthe

typedesigner'sart and artistry.

The existing designs have beenprepared

by

mathemati ciansandengineers aided

by

asmall amount of consultation

with atypedesigner. Eventu ally, toachieve

high-quality

fonts,

typedesignerswill

have toassumethis joband willhave to learn enough computer

technology

to

expresstheirdesigns in this

newdigital language.

Merely

copying existing fonts has

8 thecharacters appearthinner

andthescreenflicker ismore

apparent.

When I began_working on

theAlto I spent severaldays experimentingwiththefont

editor.Iused Helveticato

experiment withbecause it

wasthesimplest available

font.

Eventually

Iwas_readyto begin thetaskathand. I

realizedthat I_probably

wouldn't get good results

by

startingwith a _{blank screen,}

because I had neverbefore

attempted afontdesign. I decided toselect atypeface

anddigitize

it,

thenusethat

fontas a pointofdeparture for Alice. The typeface I

selected is Univers

55,

de

signed in 1957

by

Adrian Frutiger.

Univers isa well-designed

family

of21 sans seriffacesthat

rangefromcondensedtoex

pandedand from light to bold. It

isan elegantandsimple

type,

and I felt that itwouldbe a good

startingpointfor_myfont. Theunretouched Univers font hasacharacterheightof12

pixels._{On the bit map} represen

tation,thebaseline_{is line nine;} thex-height is line

four;

the cap height is linetwo andthede

scenderline is lineeleven.The

average width ofa lowercase

letterisseven pixels, andthe

averagewidthofan uppercase

letteriseightpixels.

Thisunretouched version of

Univers 55 is extremelycrude.

When I readtextmatteronthe

screen Irealizedthatone ofthe

mostimportantcharacteristics

of_{my font}wouldhave tobe

smoothness. Earlier

fonts,

as wellas_myversion of

Univers,

tendto haverough curves and

jaggeddiagonalswhich are even

more obvious whenjuxtaposed

with straight verticalorhorizontal

lines.

Iworkedtowardan overall

smoothness

by

looking

atthe

characters and

trying

toanalyze

places where Icouldinsert

vertical orhorizontal lineswith

out

disturbing

theregularityof

the letter.Therefore, Iwantedas

regularacharacteraspossible,

because

irregularity

or

unusual-nesswoulddisrupteyeflow.

ABCDEFG

HUKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

abcdefQhijkl

mnopqr

stuvwxyz

1234697690

?!#$%~&*ono<>'v

I

**

+

Univers55,unretouched, as

itappearedontheAlto

4. The developmentof

Alice

With mygoal of a

highly

legible

font,

I had toaimfora simple, opendesign.One_way

to open_{up the design}wasto

separate strokes

by

at least twopixels.Twoparallel

strokesthatare separated

by

onlya single pixeltend to blur together. This happens for tworeasons:

One,

the

scanningbeammustturn on the_{first pixel, then turn off,}

then

immediately

turn back

on. Becauseoftheclose

proximity of_{the pixels, the}

beam _probably isn'tableto

completelyturn offbefore it has toturnbackon.This meansthatwhat should bea black backgroundcould

appeargrey.

Thesecond causeof

blurring

is thespreadofthe

phosphor. Althougheach pixel is

technically

either

turnedon or_off, thereis

ft/1

\f\f

some spreadbeyond the

exactboundariesof a given

|"Y1

1

[

S

pixel, andthissmall amount

I I I

\AJ

ofspreadcan causesome

blurring.

Another waythatI simpli

fied the fontwastominimize

thenumberofdiagonal lines andcurves.Ireplacedthese

with vertical andhorizontal lineswheneveritwaspossible

without

destroying

the

identity

of each character.

Oneofthefirstareas whereIappliedthese two principleswasin the upper case"M"and "W".

First,

I

altered each charactersothat

insteadof

having

fourstrokes,

it hasthree. Thisallowed me

toopen_{up the}area between

the strokes,aswellasto design thestrokes as verticals

10

uu

V

vw

Ialso altered thelowercase "v"

and "w"sothatthestems are vertical ratherthan

diagonal.Thevertices ofthe

characters areformed

by

short45anglesthatendwith asingle pixel.

My

designs for the lowercase "u"

and "v"are_easilydif ferentiatedwhen placed side

by

side, but the"v" could

have beenmistaken fora "u"

when seenseparately. One

suggestion wasthat the

outside edgeofthe"v"

ap

pearedtohave the_sharp

vertexofa

"v",

but that the insideedgeblurred sothat it

appeared roundedlike a"u". The bottom design for the"v"

is

onethat I tried inan attemptto furtherdifferentiatethe two

characters.

However,

this"v"

is

very awkward;the linesare rough andthecharacter appears

blurrednearthevertex. Iended

upusingthe originaldesign

because_{I don't think that there}

isa

big

problem in

differentiating

betweenthe"u"

11

I designed twoversions ofthe

upper case"U". The design ontheleftwas an attemptto unify theupper and lower case

designs;

thecapital letteris alargerversionofthe lowercaseletter. This design

appeared awkward anddidn't fit in withtheremainderofthe

font,

soI designed theversion on theright. It issmoother and notasawkward, andthis is the final design ofthechar acter.

mm

12

TheUnivers lowercase "y" is

extremelyrough andjagged.

Instead ofa lettermade of

twodiagonal _lines, Ialtered

the"y"sothatit ismade

almostentirelyof smooth

horizontalorvertical lines. I

also puttwopixels ofspace

betweenthe bottomofthe

bowlandthe tail.Thiswasto

open_upthecharactersothat

therewouldn'tbe blurring.

Initially,Idesignedthechar

acter sothatthebowlrested

onepixel abovethebaseline.

Thiswastoallow enough

spacebetweenthe bowland

thetail,whilemaintaininga

short overall characterheight.

Thiscreateda slightlyuneven

baseline,and I eventually increasedthecharacterheight

sothatthe bowlscould rest

onthebaseline.

I designed the lowercase"g"

to follow the design ofthe "y". The bowls connectthe

sameway,andthebowl is two pixels abovethe tail.

Again,

thebowlofthecenter

designrests one pixel above

the

baseline,

but thiswas

13

Anotheroftheways inwhich

Iopened_{up the}characters of

Alicewastoexpandthe

x-height. Anexpanded x-height

lends itself to the designof characters with_strongverti

cals ratherthandiagonals

and round curves.Italso allowsformore vertical space

within_{the character; this is}

particularlyrelevantwith

characters suchasthelower

case "a"and "e".The bowls

ofthese two lettersoften

appear crowdedtogetherand

blurred;

in

Alice, they

appear

clean and open.

The most_commonly noted

problem ofdigitalvideo

graphicsisthatof "jaggies". Asloped linecannot be

represented_smoothly

by

discrete points, and appears

ratherasan_annoying "stair

step"

pattern.The insertionof

intermediatepoints,

halfway

between the lineand

background colors,alongthe

stair steps,smoothsthe line

edges; thevisual effectis a

14

i

bdh

Oneoftheproblems with

designinga font foraresolu tion aslowasthis isthat each pixel makesup sucha largeproportion ofthechar acter.Ifa pixel isturnedoff, thecharacterisn'tquiteright,

but ifthesame pixel isturned

on,thecharacteralso isn't quite right. Thisproblemwas

obvious whenIworked onthe

lowercase"a".Theshoulder

curved downwardin the

original letter,but Iconverted

it toastraight horizontalline.

When theshoulder extended

the fullwidthofthe character, the letterappearedto

tip

to the left. When Ierasedthe firstpixel,thecharacter

appearedto

tip

totheright.

Eitherdesignwasacom promise,but Ichosethe

centerdesign. Similarcharac

ters, such asthe

"e",

"g"

and

"y",

have tailsthatextendthe fullwidthofthecharacter, so

this design for the"a"

was

consistent with theremainder

ofthe font.

This illustrationshows letters

My

initialapproachto the designofthe lowercase"f" was similartothatofthe lowercase"g"and"y". I

wantedtoallowtwopixels of spacebetween theshoulder and_{the crossbar, but the}

characterheightwas such

that the_{only way}todo this

wastolower the crossbar so

thatitwas onepixelbelow thex-height.Thiswas another compromisein design that

was_particularlyobvious in "ft"

combinations.Thecross

barofthe"t"

remained at

x-height,

which made an awk

ward"ft"combination. When I

expandedtheoverall character

height,

Icould putthecrossbar ofthe"f"

atx-height and still

have twopixelsbetweenthe shoulder andthecrossbar.

ft

ft

ft

4567

7

The numeralseven isthe_only

characterthathasadiagonal linethatisnot a 45angle.The lower design isoneI did inan

16

Itriedavariety ofdesigns for

the lowercase "t"inan at

tempttoresolvetheproblem

withthe"f". First Icut offthe

leftside ofthecrossbarofthe

"t",thenIlowered thecrossbar

by

onepixel. Thiscut-off

crossbarworked when the

"t"

was preceded

by

other char

acters, butwhenthe

"t"

began aword,itwasn't as

quicklyrecognizedasa "t". The strongverticallinecreated

achannelthat theeyewasn't

usedtoseeing.

My

next solution wasto

leavethecrossbar one pixel

below the x-height,but to

returnto thetraditionaldesign

ofacrossbar.This solution,

when paired withthe lowered crossbar ofthe"f",createda

very wavy lineoftext. The_only

acceptable solutionwasto

Whenever possible, I tried touse a45anglefor diagonal lines. I

began thiswiththeuppercase

"R",

which hada rough diagonal

line in_earlydesigns. After

that,

I

implemented the45

angle in the

ampersand, theslashes andthe

parentheses.

17

18

There isoften confusionbetween

the numeral0

(zero)

andthe letter.O (oh). Onesimplesolution

to this problem is the diagonal linethrough thezero.Thisis the final designof_my numeralzero,

compared withtheoriginal

Universzero.

'L

00

Anotherarea of confusion is

between theupper case"I"and

the lowercase"I".Thisproblem

is_{quickly illustrated in this}

text,

whichis setin Helvetica. Isolved

thisproblem

by

_adding afoot to

thelowercase

"I";

thefoot is of

thesamedesignasthefootof

5.Conclusion

Thedevelopmentof

Alice,

as with_any

font,

was atedious

process of major and minor changes and adjustments.

But itwas also a process of experimentation.I hadnever

beforedesigneda

font,

so

thiswasanattempttocombine whatI knewoftraditional type

designing

withwhatIcould

discoveraboutthecapabilities

ofa cathode_{ray tube.}

I believetheresultisa

clean,smooth and elegant

font. It is_easytoread onthe

screen.Therearefew jaggies

or rough curves.Thecharac

tershaveanoverall consis

tency

and evennessofcolor.

And

finally,

Alicewasde

signed_specificallyfor digital display.

A_greyscale

font,

while providingsmoother curves and

diagonals,

requires a much largeramount of mem orythanatwo-bitfont like Alice.

Grey

_scalingisalsoan

attempttoputa print-oriented typefacewhereit doesn't

belong

- the_computer

screen.

Helvetica,

whichisavail

able onthe

Alto,

isamuch rounderfontthan

Alice,

as

wellas

having

arougher

overallappearance.It isalso

wider.Theaveragenumber of

charactersperline for Alice is

85,

or3570characters per screen.Helveticaallows an averageof78charactersper

line,

or3276characters per screen.

I tried putting Aliceonto

an Apple II.Atthesame number of pixelspercharac

ter,

the fontwasmuchlarger

onthe Applethanonthe Alto. At thatsizethe fontwas more

applicableas a

display

font

thanas atext font. The

let-terspacing

was alsocom pletelyoff.In mostcases, therearetwopixelsbetween any two letters in Alice. On the

Apple,

onepixelwould

have beensufficient.

Ultimately,

Aliceshould

havea_contrastingpartner

fpnt,

such as abold version,

an italicoralargersize.

Givenmore

time,

Iwould

havedesigneda boldversion ofthe

font,

asI think that is themost elegantsolutionto theproblem of a_contrasting

font design.

One oftheother problems I hadwithAlicewas in let-terspacing.

Ultimately,

each fontthatis Implementedona computershould havea

letterspacing

tableaspartofthe

software orhardware. Thistable

wouldallowfor thevarietyof character_{combinations,}and give each possible combination

itsown

letterspacing

parameter.

Iwould like to have beenableto doatablelike this for

Alice,

but ontheAlto thatwould have requireda_{programming knowl} edgethatI don't possess.How ever, theproblem of

letterspacing

has inpartbeensolvedwiththe

useof verticalstems ratherthan

diagonal stems.Thisenabled me

to

bring

characters closerto

getherand avoidthelarge inter-characterspacesthatoften occur withdiagonal stems(for example, the lowercase "v").

The

following

page shows

Alice inuseontheAltoasatext

font,

and atthe bottomofthe pageis the full font.

Locate:

Change:

Command:

window:

0

mode:

INSERT

input:

qoogs2 output: googs2

Twas

fcrpg,

and

tj

Did

gyre

|nd glmbtp

W^H&

uJabe;

fill

mirnsf

were

ihe

borpgoues,

find

the

mufhe

raths

qirtgrabe,

''Beware

Ihe

Llabberuj6ck;;my son!

^

The jaws

that

bite;

thef

claws

that

catch!

Beware the

Jubjub

l^

ahri

jshun

The

Tfumious

Bandershatehj^

H took

iftis

;

prpal

swonOrt

band:

Long

time

:

the

manxbnre

to

he

sought-So

rested

he

by

the

1n3mt&6^tre

e

;

find

stdo]}

awhile

in

thought.

find

as

in

uf

fish

thougfe

tie

^obtf#

The Jabbenuock^

with

m&

of

flame,

CamioW^

find

twrl^d^as It

carrel

fjrte/twot

Ohe^

twol

;fi3l

tW^

^n^

tHr

The

uorpat

blade

went

sriiKr-srlack]

He left

It

lead,

and with

Its

tieatf

:

He

went

galumphing

facl

"find

hast

thou

slain

the

Jabberwock?

Come

tc

>

iny

arms*

my

beamish

hoy!

M*f^ffTTluBt,Htff]

He

chortled:

in

his

jp

Twas

brillig;

and

the

sb'thy toues

Did

gyre

and

gimble

in the

wabe;

fill mimsy

were

the

borogoues,

find the

mome

raths

ttutgrabeA

fi&CDEFGHI

JKLmrtOPQRSTUyOi:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuuwxyz

1234567890

A?!i#$#~MX}[]+H**<>

. _,

;

-;

Notes 23

Donald

Knuth,

"TheConceptofa Meta-Font,"Visible Language 16 (Winter 1982): 4.

Daniel

Berkeley

Updike,

Printing

_{Types: Their}

History,

Formsand

Use,

2volumes(Cambridge: Harvard

University

Press, 1922),

1: 5-6.

Wim

Crouwel,

"Type Design fortheComputerAge," The JournalofTypographic Research4(Winter 1970): 54.

Wim

Crouwel,

"Type Design fortheComputerAge," The Journal ofTypographic Research4(Winter 1970): 54.

Wim

Crouwel,

"Type Design for the ComputerAge," The JournalofTypographic Research4(Winter 1970): 53.

M. V.

Mathews,

Carol LochbaumandJudith

Moss,

"Three FontsofComputer-Drawn Letters,"

The Journalof

Typographic Research 1 (October 1967): 352-353.

Christopher

Schmandt,

"SoftTypography,"

Proceedings

24

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