Presentation details
TypeTech: Advanced MM applications
Tim Ahrens
Wednesday 27 September | 12:45 – 13:30
Location: TypeTech
Presentation | Theme: TypeTech 1 | Duration: 45 minutes
Methods for handling multiple masters beyond the conventional applications such as generating semibold fonts. The “boldness” information in an MM font is used to change the size of glyphs without changing the stroke weight. The method can be used to create small caps, Cyrillic lowercase and – since the horizontal and vertical scale factors can be chosen independently – even true condensed fonts.
Comparisons to existing typefaces show that the output generated by the model is rather close to that of the true glyphs. The method allows for subsequent manual refinements.
As a mathematical tool for the processing and combining of shapes it stands between the theories for the construction and the technologies for the reproduction of glyphs that are designed on the basis of the designer’s visual judgements. It integrates the “two cultures” as described by Matthew Carter, overcoming “that dichotomy [which] is deep in our habits of thought and education – if not in the actual anatomy of the right and left hemispheres of the brain, as it is fashionable to think.”
Speaker details
Tim Ahrens Just Another Foundry | United Kingdom
Type designer and architect Tim Ahrens runs the London-based studio Just Another Foundry. He is the creator of the Font Remix Tools and does research and writing about type related matters