Remote Sensing Tools

I’ve embarked on another personal project that I’ve wanted to do for several years. The creation of a “vision-centric” pixel typeface family — one that aimed to acheive a priority in both style and scanability at very small sizes. (As a friend commented, “That’s just what we need - another 8pt typeface on the Web.” I sensed the hint of sarcasm, of course.)

Background

I’m a great fan of the Grid in typography — pixel-fonts and bitmap-fonts at small sizes are essentially forced inherently to the grid. One of my alltime favorite typefaces is Gridnik, which a version distributed by Foundry was recently used by the band Nine Inch Nails in their design and promotional collateral for the album Year Zero. And more recently — I’ve noticed that Sears has been using Gridnik in their current television marketing campaign for the Craftsman Tools brand. It’s actually quite interesting when you dig into the history of Gridnik, and its creator Wim Crouwel (Nicknamed “Mr. Gridnik” by his colleagues). Mr. Gridnik, we could probably consider one of the forefathers of modern, machine-based typography.

Parts 1 and 2, Video interview with Wim Crouwel:

Helvetica, A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit

The full documentary film being produced about typography, which the Wim Crouwel interviews were sourced — more specifically for, Helvetica, is located here. I think I’ll be saving a few dollars to purchase the film when it comes on DVD this fall, of course.

And, I’d actually recommend this to any individual or organization involved with map production. I think it would be inspirational in various ways.

There’s been quite an advancement in typography that just as equally seems to go relatively unnoticed, or underappreciated by various industries that use type. My general observations toward mapping and visualization, for example, is that there seems to be a lack of the kinds of sensativities where design and the graphic arts has always placed significant importance on typography. In many ways, I find this somewhat troubling — as one of the objectives of any mapper, in my opinion, should be placing a more primary significance on typography since maps are completely dependent on type! Unless, of course, what I perceive as a lack of significance, is nothing more than a lack of training or emphasis on what works in typography within the mapping industries — which, could also be my own misconception coming from a graphic arts and design background. But, for the most-part, I generally don’t see good typography principles being applied throughout the mapping industry.

Noted: European media, I believe, has gotten the aesthetic and functionality of mapping right. For the most part, good typography is apparent mainly on the international media stage, such as with the BBC, DW-TV, and CNN International. Thus, my point-of-view comes mainly from a day-to-day exposure of media from both the local and national cable television options that are dominant in this part of the world. (CNN International uses Helvetica, and they use a more ‘European’ hillshading and color-scheme variation for representing maps. Rarely do I see the international media market using earth imagery, unless the circumstances are appropriate.)

In any event, an emphasis for me in typography has been to determine the most readable typefaces and use them where ever appropriate. In the case of pixel or bitmap fonts, I often find myself thinking that while outline typography takes significant strides ahead in their design — something is lost in the approach taken toward pixel-faces. The reason being, is that most pixel-faces either follow a common thread of uniformity or style that ultimately causes potentials for visual perception problems due to that uniformity in style — or, most typeface designers are typically set in their ways toward creating uniformity to retain style, because they simply don’t know or haven’t approached it any other way. Thus, I’ve finally gotten an older Windows 98 box up and running last week, re-installed Fontographer, and have been well underway in the process of creating what I hope to be a highly readable and vision-centric pixel-face family. (And thanks to Jim Gallagher and the folks at FontLab for their patience in helping find a solution to being able to run Fontographer again.)

The prototypes have already been created, with the working title Blackberry Terminal, carrying two distinct styles with five variations between the two. But the final name for this family is yet to be determined (even if I do kind of like the current name.)

One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with this project and dust-off the typography skills, was because when Yahoo! Maps made their recent map layer upgrade, I ran a couple vision-tests in order to determine what I instantly perceived with my own vision to be potential problems. Pixel-fonts obviously don’t directly relate to the issues I noticed, as the tests had more to-do with color schemes and typeface anti-aliasing — but it at least became the catalyst for my finally deciding on spending some time back in Fontographer. The old goals I once had popped back in there as a result — so thank you Yahoo! Maps!

Another goal in this project, is to also make these fonts TrueType and fully compatible with Flash. Considering where I think we’ll see some rapid development in the mapping areas now that Flex will be influencing things, I assume it will be a better option to make them as compatible as possible for as many development options as possible. And who knows — perhaps I’ll even decide to make them available at some point, when I’m satisfied with the final versions.

There’s also that annoying difference between how Microsoft and Apple handle DPI resolution for type that I’m looking closely at again. Microsoft uses 96 dpi to display type, while Apple uses 72 DPI — and Flash uses 72 DPI, regardless of operating system (yet another great argument toward the Flash plugin for certain applications).

As a last note, since one of my favorite bands was mentioned — check out Opensourceresistance.net. (No relation to OSGeo, for the record. And as far as I’m aware, not associated with Frank Warmerdam in anyway. Besides, I think he likes Rush more than Nine Inch Nails!)