Hello
Type, signs and letters are everywhere around us.
From the first moment we wake up and look at our watch
to the last moment of the day when we read books or magazines
we are surrounded by letters.
According to a research from 2004
we are confronted with 5,000 messages a day
that is a message every 12 seconds, in some form or another,
digital or analogue.
All these message have some emotional impact upon us.
All these letter had to be designed, and this is what this talk is about.
People, or homo sapiens, have been using speech for over 80,000 years.
The history of written messages is only a tiny fraction of history of language.
The oldest written records are about 5,000 old.
So it is clear that writing is not really necessary for human communication.
We can live perfectly fine without type.
Type can materialise language. It allows communication across time.
Writing allows incredible advantages to human communication.
Type works very similarly to human voice.
Just like some voices can communicate more effectively than others,
some typefaces, too, can communicate some messages better than other type.
We can recognise human voices even when distorted by a bad phone line.
Type has the same identification value.
Type identifies content, and fills it with emotion.
I'm one of of those people who design type.
Today's age is more complex than anytime before, therefore
type reflects requirements of the time we live in.
This is one of the reasons why new typefaces are still designed.
For example, messages today are more hierarchical, so type designers
design typefaces that allow working with complex content.
When I talk about type, I don't only mean Latin writing script.
Typefaces which I design support over 250 languages,
in various writing scripts.
The truth is that there are already many typefaces.
So it is only natural to ask why designing a new one.
One of the answers can be this one:
If you look at offerings of commercial type foundries,
we'll find over 150,000 various fonts for sale.
There is a difference between a font and a typeface, but that is
outside of the scope of this talk.
Majority of this huge number of existing fonts were designed
for headline use, and are not suitable for using in small sizes.
If we were to find a single font that works well in small sizes,
we are left with only 20% of the fonts.
If we apply another selection criterium, and look for a font that works
equally well on computer screen as on paper,
because most of the fonts were designed for printing press, and reading on screen
is a relatively new phenomenon.
So if we look for those fonts, we are left with a tiny portion of what was
previously a huge list of fonts.
And if we say that we need to set type in multiple languages, say in Russian
Greek, or Arabic, we are left with one or two fonts that we can choose from.
And if someone else is using and claiming the same font already, and we look for
a unique typeface, there may be nothing to choose from.
This is the reason why new typefaces are being constantly designed.
And new typefaces will continue being designed, because they
continue reflecting the period we live in.
My work is usually very functional. I decide on different criteria —
legibility, economy of type setting, and eventually also emotional character of
the typeface that effects the reader.
After all testing, trying all languages, and output in different media,
the typeface will be ready for use.
There are very few people who make their living with type design.
I estimate there may be 200 to 300 such people.
Here, in Slovakia, it is exactly two people.
Those two: Ján Filípek, and Ondrej Jób, who happened to be my students
in The Hague (NL), and they design type for living.
This diagram explains why there are so few people designing type seriously.
To make a typeface, one needs knowledge of three very different disciplines,
that can't be acquired in one place.
You need to know how language works, basic knowledge of linguistics, which
is studied as a separate study field.
Type is dependent on technology. Technology renders all type.
Type is processed by printing or light, so type designer needs to know
about type rendering and possibly programming.
And there is a field of design, which is again studied separately.
Because one studies linguistics, technology and design in different schools
there are few people who practice type design.
Good typefaces use knowledge of all three fields.
There are about 7,000 languages in the world.
In India there are over 400 languages.
There are estimates that by the end of the century,
80% of those languages will disappear. It took millennia to
develop those languages,and only decades for them to go extinct.
There are various reasons for disappearance of languages.
One of them is that English is very popular, and erases differences
between regions and casts.
However, a loss of language is similar to loss of biodiversity.
With a loss of language we lose access to information
available only in that particular language.
India is incredibly multicultural and multilingual
This is a typical sign, a combination of 6 different languages and scripts.
I co-founded the Indian Type Foundry, and part of our work was research into
regional languages. This is a major script
the Devanagari, used to write the Hindi language.
Our research hasn't started looking at other typefaces,
instead, we would look at the base.
The most primary way to record information is handwriting.
We would observe regional, cultural differences how people write.
This foundation work allowed us to make typefaces for regional languages,
covering needs of the local speakers.
In India you can encounter languages that have no digital fonts.
Designing a typeface for those languages allows publishing books,
and possibly even preservation of those languages.
What is interesting about type design is that
a typeface is not really a product. It is more of a semi-product.
A typeface is not ready until someone uses it.
Without usage a typeface is as useful as a book that no one reads.
The use finalises the typeface, gives it personal character.
I collect examples of my typefaces in use,
because I can learn from them, and can surprise me.
Here are same samples of just one typeface — Fedra Sans,
the typeface which is used in the logo of this city.
European Union parliament is using it, because it covers all EU languages.
Perhaps less expected use is in the Bibles.
World Bible Translation Center is using Fedra in most of their editions.
And finally, the same typeface is used on the flyers of Greek terrorist group
responsible for bombing of embassies.
How on earth, one can decide that one typeface expresses
content on these three diverse messages,
from governmental, to biblical to terrorist pamphlets.
Each user probably chose this typeface from many others, believing that
it fits them the best.
It is interesting to consider what links those different users.
Here is one example of a recent typeface I designed — called Karloff.
While the forms of Karloff are very conventional, building on
work of Italian printer Giambattista Bodoni.
These forms are considered very attractive
often used in fashion industry.
High contrast between the thick and thin strokes
A few decades after Bodoni, these forms of letters
were used to catch attention of readers by making something
deliberately ugly.
I became interested in finding out
whether it is possible to connect beauty with ugliness.
Typeface Karloff tries to do both.
One construction of the letters, can be modified by changing
contrast between the thick and thin.
It mathematically shifts the black areas of letters from one side to another.
And it is possible to continuously shift between the
beauty and ugliness.
One version if pretty, the other repulsive,
and it is possible to interpolate between them
And exactly in the middle is a neutral version,
a type that looks just like typewriter's letters.
If we look closely at books published today.
We can find out that even books printed in 2014, use typefaces
that are relatively old, designed decades or centuries ago.
It is caused by the fact that typefaces have a potential to outlive
their makers.
The forms of letters are archetypal, changing slowly.
There are many jobs whose results are visible for a long time
Type design is one of those, and its results may stay around for
a very long time.
I'll end this talk with a detail of a poster that hangs in my office.
It is a calendar I designed. Each line represents a day.
This is a calendar of 21st century, with all its days.
Every day I come to the office, I cross a day, to see where I am.
If you look at this calendar, you will see days far in the future.
I have no idea if I will live this long.
But if I do my work well, and get a bit lucky,
my work can outlive me.