AKMA’s Random Thoughts

My Lurid Past

Mark D (in yesterday’s comments) and Micah (in chat) expressed surprise that I ever designed a typeface. Strange, improbable perhaps, but true.

I first worked on type in 1980, when I was working at a computer-graphics start-up in Pittsburgh; that’s where I first heard words like “kerning” and “anti-aliasing.” One of my jobs involved editing the bitmapped type that our software used. I still have nightmares about Cheltenham Bold 24, adding a row of pixels to a curve, taking the pixels out, adding pixels, deleting pixels (without a mouse, naturally, but with a flaky bit-tablet that had to be degaussed every couple of hours). Frustrating as the tools were, I fell in love with type there.

When I retreated from business and took up academic life, our first computer was a Kaypro II with daisy-wheel printer; I promptly bought another daisy-wheel with a more attractive typeface than the one that came with the printer. When I discovered type-editing tools on our Mac (our second computer, a Mac Plus), I began editing bitmaps again — first for Greek character sets, then for more satisfactory display typefaces.

In those days, before actual editors wanted me to write for publication, I put off chores, grading papers, committee work, whatever else I had to do, by designing typefaces. Some of my stuff still lingers in the less selective typeface libraries online. My payment yesterday was for Sinaiticus, a face designed to approximate the Greek uncial letters characteristic of the earliest majuscule manuscripts of the New Testament. I also produced a very crude rendition of Gill Sans, from a period (now unthinkable) when Gill Sans didn’ come licensed with every major software package. Probably the most remunerative typeface I built was more precisely a collection of sorts, a series of crosses and other theological symbols, Little Gidding (since re-worked, though not re-released, to include some glyphs specifically useful for planning worship — newly titled Liturgical Gidding).

I’m not even a good amateur type designer, though when I’m in a whimsical mood I play with others’ designs to add ligatures or other useful alternate glyphs to typefaces that lack characters I need. It’s fun, but I don’t have the hand with beziers that digital design requires. Nor, for that matter, do I have any real type design tools; whereas PC users have (or used to have) at least one highly functional freeware type design application, Mac uses have always had to rely on commercial wares. Fontographer hasn’t been updated in years, doesn’t run under OS X, and still costs more than I could possibly afford — even if I had time to use it. So for the time being, I’ve given up type design. I have way too much to do, to indulge that particular distraction.

It was fun, though. . . .

DRMA: "Dreamer" by Supertramp; "Let Down" by Radiohead; "Reno Dakota" by the Magnetic Fields; "The Beauty Of The Rain" by Dar Williams; "I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord" by Lyle Lovett; "Another First Kiss" by They Might Be Giants; "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin; "Doesn't Make It Alright" by the Specials; "32 Flavors" by Ani Difranco.

Posted by AKMA at December 27, 2003 04:05 PM | TrackBack