Contemporary Processes of Text Typeface Design

Michael Harkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000059922
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Tipografia

This book addresses the paucity of published research specifically dealing with knowledge of text typeface design processes.

Dr Michael Harkins uses a Grounded Theory Methodology to render a tripartite theory resulting in explanation and description of the processes of text typeface design based upon the evidence of subject specific expert knowledge from world-leading practitioners, includingMatthew Carter, Robin Nicholas, Erik Spiekermann, and Gerard Unger.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in design research, design epistemology, design process, typography, type design, information design and graphic design.

1 Introduction

Introduction

Although many contemporary works account for processes of printing and typography, the processes of text typeface design still remain relatively unexplored and unexplained. Some glimpses, insights and part accounts document the personal views and methods of designers toward text typeface design (e.g. Dwiggins, 1940; Goudy, 1940). Karen Cheng’s (2005) book Designing Type, claims that it ‘explains, in detail, how to design characters into a set of unified yet diversified forms’ (p. 7). However, the book’s core themes are formed around a comparative analysis of existing typeface glyphs with some commentary toward a methodological approach. It does not deal with knowledge of process to any great extent. The lack of documented knowledge with respect to text typeface design will be discussed further in Chapter 2. Little exists that attempts to address a methodological approach to typeface design in terms of research, specifically relating to knowledge of what text typeface designers do, why they make the decisions they make in designing typefaces, how they account for them and how they can be rendered as explication of process or processes. The current research is a response to this lack and presents developed theories, based upon analysis of knowledge in relation to interviews with world-leading text typeface design experts that were conducted specifically for this purpose.

Text typefaces are specifically designed to work optimally for the setting and reading of continuous text, for example, types set as the reading matter within book, newspaper, magazine and journal design, etc. The typical range of sizes at which text types would be considered for continuous reading are usually small sizes. Such sizes would normally be somewhere between 7pt and 14pt, depending upon the design of the typeface. Sans serif typefaces typically appear larger on the body in design than serif type designs and, therefore, are usually set at smaller sizes in text than serif types. Typefaces designed for use above these sizes (i.e. above 14pt) would generally be considered for display setting purposes only.

The focus of this research relates to knowledge associated with typeface design experts, what they do and the decisions they make in creating text typeface designs. Data is derived by way of testimonies via in-depth interviews with world-leading experts in the field. The use of experts in this sense is advocated by the likes of Nigel Cross (2007, p. 85) in terms of developing a greater understanding of design knowledge generally. The focus therefore is related to knowledge of the decision-making and actions of the expert – the processes of design. However, the author does acknowledge that by virtue of the fact that the participants of this research are experts in their field, the collected data pertains specifically to expert perspectives of typeface design. Although this may be perceived to create something of a tautological bind between epistemology and ontology, it is intentional in this research to study expert knowledge. It is not the intention to separate knowledge of process from expertise in this study.

This research adopts a Grounded Theory Methodology (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) as a simultaneous method of enquiry and analysis toward collected data in order to develop theory. This allowed for an emergent and inductive model of research enquiry to develop. Grounded Theory Methodology fits with the aims and objectives of this research in that ‘Essentially, the methodology is most commonly used to generate theory where little is already known, or to provide a fresh slant on existing knowledge’ (Goulding, 2002, p. 42).

Although research conducted in respect to design process has been established in other design domains, such as architecture (e.g. Akin, 1986; Darke, 1979; Eastman, 1970; Lawson, 1997); engineering design (e.g. Bucciarelli, 1994; Marples, 1960); industrial/product design (e.g. Cross, Christiaans, & Dorst, 1996); urban design (e.g. Levin, 1966), there is a specific lack of research regarding knowledge of the text typeface design process.

The research described in this book is intentionally limited to the collection and analysis of testimony from type design experts; the collected testimony discusses and describes designing with respect to Latin category typeface design – the basic Latin script used as the standard character set for most Western and Central European language bases. Such design in turn is found in other derived language bases worldwide. Further study that draws from this research in order to explore design for forms of non-Latin font language bases may be potentially useful.

This book accounts for research that results in a developed Grounded Theory and resolves in three core categories along with sets of sub-categories and dimensions (Glaser, 1978). Each of the theoretical propositions is raised from and grounded by data. The core categories are Trajectorizing, Homologizing and Attenuating. These identify and explicate significant characteristics pertaining to the collective expert participants’ knowledge of practice.

In terms of contribution to knowledge and in answer to the research aims, this enquiry provides theoretical renderings of text typeface design knowledge in the form of these three main areas rendered as Grounded Theory core categories. This research also contributes knowledge in terms of the unique collection of interviews produced as part of the research enquiry.

Motivation for the Research

The lack of research in the subject area (discussed further in Chapter 2) presented the opportunity to conduct a study that would contribute to knowledge in terms of establishing research relating to text typeface design process. It was also envisaged that such a study would allow subsequent research to develop.

The identification of the gap in knowledge leading to this study partly developed from the author’s interests as a design educator, as well as from his prior education and design interests in the area of typeface design and typography. He observed there appeared to be little to consult with regard to the rationale of decision-making and the drawing and rendering of form relating to text typeface design.

An additional key motivation for this research was that it would benefit future research, practice and teaching in the subject area by means of establishing a research-based view of the processes of text typeface design. It was anticipated that such explication of process would also help establish formal descriptions of knowledge in the area, which in turn would aid toward professionalising such specialist subject knowledge.

Research Questions and Aims

Initial questions with regard to this study were based upon such thoughts as: Why was there a lack of recorded knowledge? What kinds of knowledge appear lacking? How would acquiring such knowledge be best approached? Who would hold such knowledge in order to address the problem? In relation to text typeface design process, this study is concerned with a main research question:

Can knowledge of text typeface design process be revealed and if so can this be explicated theoretically?

In relation to the questions and concerns of this enquiry, the aims of this research are as follows:

1. To reveal and describe processes of text typeface design from accounts given by type design experts.
2. To evaluate whether it is possible to construct theory or theories of type design process from the accounts of practice and procedure given by type design experts.
3. To offer possible, descriptive and/or generative theory/theories that will allow further study to develop in the area of text typeface design process as well as informing practice.

Contextual and Historical Framing for the Research

Often perceived as related to the subject domain of typography, typeface design is a specialist area that concentrates on the designing of letterforms, characters or glyphs conceived to work in relation to one another within specifically designed sets. These are, in turn along with spacing, designed relative to the glyphs, presented as a group of accessible functioning entities in the form of a font. Currently and overwhelmingly, these are in the form of fonts delivered as small computer software packages.

Text typeface design seemingly poses a somewhat paradoxical initial problem for the designer – in order to begin to see how a typeface may become whole, a designer must begin with looking at detail first by way of individual character design or details of character designs. Ultimately, a typeface must work on both micro and macro levels simultaneously – on the level of detail of the individual characters that make up that typeface and on the level of how these individual characters appear and behave when combined with spacing to form words, sentences and paragraphs.

Text type designers must also work within obvious constraints. This enquiry relates to the Latin character set. There are constraints of adherence to forms recognisable as accepted letterforms for use within a given range of language settings/expectations. There are also constraints that govern issues relating to the legibility and readability of characters when set as words and sentences at small reading sizes. Text typeface design must adhere to particular norms for any given group or set of languages a character set may be deemed appropriate to represent. Therefore, there is something of a notional precedent in relation to acceptable form imposed upon the design problems from the outset.

The constituent parts that make up a typeface design must work independently of each other but also harmoniously in any possible combination. These may include various glyphs: letterforms (both lower and uppercase), numerals, punctuation, diacritical marks, symbols and any associated spacing required in order that glyphs are positioned appropriately in relation to each other when in use. Therefore, this research interrogates expert designer knowledge of the design process in relation to designing and/or making of text typefaces. The study does not concentrate per se on the creative or conceptual development processes toward letterform design. Neither is it concerned with the design of types intended exclusively for use as display types, individual letter designs or lettering and calligraphy etc. This research is concerned, however, with knowledge in relation to developing letterforms or indeed generalizations regarding the designing and development of letterforms that are intended to be part of a set or group of associated forms that will in turn become a text typeface design.

Early works relating to the subject of devising types also account for the crafts and trade of punch-cutting and type-founding (Fournier, 1995; Moxon in Davis, & Carter, 1958). Of these early activities and professions, the punch-cutting of letters was regarded as one of the more highly skilled, if not the most highly skilled, crafts. It is also acknowledged that distinct divisions of labour existed in association with such activities (De Vinne, 1900, p. 11). Punch-cutters worked in minute detail to punch, counter-punch and engrave the ends of steel bars in order to make reversed letterforms that, when struck into a softer metal such as copper, could be used as a matrix (Southall, 2005, pp. 3–4). This matrix would then be incorporated into a mould in order that a single lead type might be cast from it, these types being cast one at a time (Moxon et al., 1958, pp. 134–184). The process of punch-cutting and casting the moulds would have to be repeated for every individual letter or character needed to create a font of type, each related by the characteristics commonly recognised as being distinctive to any given particular typeface or design.

Divisions of labour between the various stages in the process and manufacture of types meant that the design of letters, the cutting of punches and the casting of types could be conducted by different workers. However, prior to the late nineteenth century and the invention of photographic transfer, there was no method to reduce the design of model letters to appear at text size on the ends of the small steel bars from which punches could be made (Southall, 2005, pp. 13–17). Early designs could only be used as a guide and would need to be interpreted by the skill of the punch-cutter.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the move toward industrial mechanisation in many areas meant the cutting of punches by hand was supplanted by mechanised methods of production (De Vinne, 1900, pp. 348–350). This move toward industrialisation brought with it a clearer separation in the division of the designing and making of type (Southall, 2005, p. 19). Drawings relating to the designing of types became less of a guide, as was the case of model letters for the earlier hand punch-cutters; from this point they become the machine pattern or specification of the final letter designs for types.

As technologies advanced with time, the manufacture and use of metal type eventually gave way, by and large, to photo-type and typesetting. The designing of types or what could be described as the type-image became closer still to what would appear as the final form or delivered image of the type. Within the last few decades, digital type has become the common form of reproducing typographic matter for print and on-screen renderings. The removal of the image of the letter as photographic film from the process of production has meant that designers today are working with digital media with the forms of letters directly within the medium in which they will be delivered. Today the type designer is able to work with outline Bezier curves and/or coding/programming, producing outline digital type-forms as they may appear in final products – the digital drawings become the resultant typefaces within a font. This affords contemporary typeface designers to work more closely in connection with the delivered form or product of their design than at any other time.

Methodology

This research adopts a qualitative Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) approach as a general method. This is a simultaneous method of enquiry and analysis toward collected data in order to develop theory. An initial ‘key informant’ (Goulding, 2002, p. 60) was utilized to initiate and orient the data collection; this facilitated continued ‘theoretical sampling’ (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), where sampling is determined on the basis of the emerging data, analysis and theory development in accordance with Grounded Theory Methodology. Comparisons and differences from the given expert accounts focus the analysis in relation to developing description and theory that elucidates contemporary expert text typeface design practice. It is anticipated that the Grounded Theory generated in this study will aid in the future description and articulation of text typeface design process. This may prove to be of value in terms of a descriptive and generative nature in approaches to practice, education and further research enquiry.

This research began with what the author identified as an emergent ‘sensitized’ (Given, 2008, p. 246) focus in relation to a lack of recorded expert knowledge. Grounded Theory Methodology involves systematic but nonlinear processes. These include the collection and coding of data via theoretical sampling and analysis by means of constant comparison leading to raising concepts that become theory through the method of memoing. In turn, this leads to developing theore...