Virtual Typography

4.4

4

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Digital typography: 4.4 Technology and beyond

4.3 New trends in Europe 4.5 The ‘cult of the scratchy’

Technology and beyond

As soon as initial problems with the availability and

compatibility of digital equipment were overcome,

computer-based typography offered technically

perfect results. The precision with which computers

calculated typographic compositions put all previous

technologies such as phototypesetting in the shade.

But some designers considered the technical perfection

to be another challenge to be tackled. They strove for

diversity and individuality, fi nding the clean-cut results of

computer-generated typefaces too cold and impersonal.

Fontographer

The international distribution of Fontographer, a type-

design software originally developed by Altsys in 1985,

lead to a boom in typeface design in the late 1980s.

Thanks to software developments, and technologies

allowing the online distribution of fonts, the DIY attitude

that had been seen during the 1970s punk period was

re-introduced to typography. The ease with which fonts

could be copied without purchasing licenses lead to

a situation where designers often ended up with huge

collections of fonts.

Beowolf and Trixie – LettError

LettError was the title of a typographic joint project between

Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, who both worked

for the renowned design offi ce MetaDesign in Berlin. The

Dutch design duo understood programming well enough

to make deliberate use of pre-programmed computational

errors for aesthetic purposes. Their typeface Beowolf

(opposite, top two images) (1989), uses a code that moves

corner points randomly along the outline. This causes

an alteration in shape each time a letter is printed. This

computational inconsistency defi ed the digital perfectionism

even more than Trixie (opposite, bottom image), a font that

had been created in 1991 on the basis of the type of an old

typewriter, and named after a friend, Beatrix, who owned the

machine, even though there is not a single point left in the

font that relates to the original machine. Trixie and Beowolf

can be seen as a reaction against the clinical perfection of

computer technology.

‘I am really interested in type that

isn’t perfect, type that refl ects

more truly the imperfect language

of an imperfect world inhabited by

imperfect beings.’

Barry Deck

‘Technology is nothing more than a

process, not an end in itself.’

Jonathan Barnbrook

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