MASTER FONT DESIGNER CAUGHT IN TAWDRY TYPE TELL-ALL
LOGO, FONT & LETTERING BIBLE 213
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David Berlow designs
a (kinder and gentler)
family of e-mail fonts
STONE Hearths welcome cold si
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The madder boxer shot another quick, gloved jah to the jaw of his <
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnd
he original inspiration
. came from film titles for
the movie The Thief of Bag¬
dad, a silent classic. After a hard day of work in September 1999, this
movie came on TV and I started shooting digital pictures off the screen.
The next day I digitized a few characters. Then I forgot about it until 2000.
Actually, I didn't forget, I got busy with other jobs, built a house and a new
studio, and then I returned to complete Tobagdad shown above, right.
Tobagdad vs. Romantina
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Below: top, initial com¬
parison of three faces.
Middle, early version of
Italicata. Bottom, the
very first version of the
Handwriting style, which
was drawn—by hand!
with a digital tablet.
With the film title to go by,
Berlow began drawing stroke
letters in Illustrator, "but I
very shortly move out of that;
maybe after h." Then he cut
and pasted parts together to
fill out the rest of the style.
He uses the same method
with most of his fonts, com¬
posing them from what he
calls "chunks." Berlow claims
that despite all the styles and
the variations on the letter-
forms, no further reference
was used. "It's always just a
fragment that you have
to start with."
Then another year passed, and in mid-20011
started thinking about how to make better, more
expressive e-mail fonts. Despite the fact that tech¬
nology—in the form of low-resolution screens,
lowbrow e-mail applications and the limits of
HTML—conspires to hinder type visually; and
the sharing of property over the Internet hinders
the financial rewards of developing such a face, I
figured, what the heck.
So, I thought about how low-contrast faces
are what good-legibility fonts end up looking like
in print, and how I prefer reading serif fonts. This
brought me back to the simplicity and clarity of
the titling fonts used on the silent screen. And
also, how well the face I had drawn could func¬
tion for certain kinds of e-mail—like between
lovers. With that as a basis, I began removing
most of the frills and emotion from the Tobagdad
face, and thinking of an appropriate font for busi¬
ness e-mail, I pushed it toward a typewriter face.
This effort yielded Biznicina pretty quickly. The
serifs are plain, the body widths are relatively
uniform and narrower, and the forms are simple,
but otherwise it is a cousin of Tobagdad in imme¬
diate appearance.
STONE Hearths шеісогш
STONE Hearths welcome!
STONE Hearths welcome
STONE Hearths welcoi
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The madder boxer shot another quick, gloved jab
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he, mactd&b окжел, tJiot another ryuick, фуш1}а
Romantina
Casualità
Biznicina
Bisnizlena
Handwritin
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DouglasFairbanks@THIEFOFBAGDi\D
DouglasFairbanks@THIEFOFBAGDAD
DouglasFairhanks@THIEFOFBAGDAD
D Then, I felt I should add a face for casual e-mail, like interfamily, and between friends. This took a cou¬ The Italicata was drawn to work with all three Once all the outlines have been finished (the David Berlow entered the type industry in 1978 as a letter designer for Arabianlte the sites seriously or \ Business Take scouting the sites seriously о 2 00% Лі_ < three of us are going \J IhJb % Casual Dad says the three of us are ¿roi serie horn much I loved yc G¡ f R о mance I uuanted to tell yo-ti horu much pred on this or we think th&y going to the f f us are going- to the fair oi \ome help with t •fiîp with ih* motherіп$ parí ju loved you тЦ houu much I loved you right thatЪшь ыщ fr*- tztt tjùM-!. tfiat ÍlOft AOUt
ple of tries, as there is little design space available in
the low resolutions of e-mail between the business
and romance faces. Eventually, I settled on a
Cheltenhamesque set of terminals, relaxation of the
horizontal strokes, a less geometric pattern of round
shapes and freer formed diagonals. During the
process, I went back and forth between the three
styles, widening and narrowing bodies, timing shapes
and spaces to arrive at the three styles [shown diago¬
nally opposite]. And then, with a light heart at having
left three years of on/off work on the romans, I start¬
ed working on italic faces for emphasis.. .and more.
roman styles. The swash and other experimental
characters led me to conclude I needed a handwriting
face for signatures and personal messages in other¬
wise nonpersonal e-mails, and finally I saw the need
for an oblique version of the business face for really
urgent business.
handwriting face is far from there), the six styles will
be converted to TrueType, hinted and tested at all
sizes from 9 pixels per em to 67 pixels per em to make
sure they behave properly on all screens. While the
design process continues, however, I check to make
sure the outlines are going to produce significantly
different text. Above and right are tests of the three
main roman faces down to 12 pixels per em, where
the smallest differences can be seen.
Mergenthaler, Linotype, Stempel and Haas type foundries. He joined the
newly formed digital type supplier Bitstream, Inc., in 1982. In 1989, he
founded the Font Bureau, Inc., with Roger Black. Font Bureau has developed
new and revised type designs for The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street
Journal, Newsweek, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Hewlett Packard, Apple
Computer, and Microsoft. The Font Bureau Retail Library consists mostly of
original designs and includes over five hundred typefaces.