Damn

Really beautiful piece of air lettering.

Damn right, this is refreshingly beautiful and wonderfully executed. Is it not possible to set up some kind of gallery for bigger pieces? It's a crying shame it can't be shown on this site...

Normally I see no point in saying anything negative about a piece of art, because I recognize others may well like what I don't; and I don't wish to discourage or anger the artist.

In the case of a nameplate for typographi.ca, though, I trust it will not be hurtful to ask: Shouldn't the nameplate for a site about type be made from a font, or at least lettering in the style of pen or brush which can be emulated by a font?

That is, the image is definitely art, but it seems not typographic at all. Many things have inspired fonts -- clouds, stonecutting, cave drawing, so if it inspires or could inspire a font in its likeness, I guess I'll have to retract this opinion. But my first reaction is that whatever artistic merit the light writing has, it doesn't quite "fit" this site's typographic themed purpose, even where it might beautify paper or screens dedicated to hundreds of other topics.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with Tubby Trouble. How is that NOT a piece of typography?

It is utterly utterly joyous, and in the true spirit of creativity and play. I saw it and I instantly started thinking about how I could experiment with that myself.

Great fun.

Aaah, Tubby, a fellow purist.

You're right, of course. But it's still a very attractive piece. How could this be? Simple. Type is not art. At least not that much. The same problem with the "winning" Typophile shirt: very well done, and very attractive, but not type, so out of context, and distracting.

hhp

I most vehemently disagree with the views of the purists. Is contemporary jazz not music because it doesn't follow the conventional melody and rhythm structures? Is Punk typography not typography because it uses found materials?

This piece is very clearly typography, how would we be able to read it if it wasn't? It all depends on how narrow you want your definition of typography to be, and I admit that we could discuss those boundaries for an eternity without coming to a consensus. Please, try to have an open mind.

I back-up Stephen's and David's opinion all the way.

Don't think of the definition as "narrow" (in terms of exclusion), think of it as focused, which you need in order to understand things.

For example, lettering is not type design because it doesn't need to worry about default sidebearings (among other things).

And of course Jazz is music - that's not a good analogy.

hhp

The lamp thing is fine. There is no reason it couldn't be the nameplate for this web site.

A side issue that seems to have come up is whether that lamp lettering is typography. There can really be no question about this: it is not typography. (Again, this does not mean it is not nice or could not be a nameplate.) It is clearly lettering. Typography is something done by using pre-fabricated letters (whether they are metal or digital) in a mechanical, repeatable way.

I think it is interesting that there could be so much confusion about this. Maybe this is an example of the way 'typography' has been extended to cover lots of things in recent years (especially with the focus on vernacular sources) that it really doesn't apply to.

I have also increasingly seen the word 'typographer' applied more broadly than maybe it ought to be. Many people nowadays use 'type designer' and 'typographer' to mean the same thing. While there are plenty of people who both make typography and make typefaces, there is no way that the act of 'type design' is included within the job of 'typographer.'

Since Typographica is not just about type design, but also encompasses all typography, book arts, design, etc., I don't see why it wouldn't fit...

This is one of the sweetest examples of non-font typography I've ever seen.

I think sites like this devoted to typography would be diminished if they did not implicitly include the topic of letterforms in general, regardless of how they are created.

Where exactly would you draw the line between the two, anyway? Is rub-down type not type because there are no side-bearings? Rubber stamps? What about picture fonts which contain no letterforms at all? If I turn a piece of lettering into a font so it can be typed, is it type now, even though it is indistinguishable from the original? Who is to say that some future font format will not allow the kind of flexibility currently only available with lettering? If I convert text to outlines, is it no longer type?

Certainly there are things that are definitely type and other things that are definitely lettering (or whatever), but there are many things that do not fit neatly into these definitions.

A superb photo, quite brilliant handwriting with light. What would possibly be even better is an animated version. It would have to be faked as if this was shot on video it wouldn't do the same thing as a long exposure photograph. But it would be nice to see the letters being written.
Which makes me think how interesting it always is when you see handwriting being done in movies. Back in the 40's and 50's you'd get close-ups of very nice handwriting being done, whereas nowadays you'd never see that sort of thing, and instead just see letters being typed on a computer screen.
Does anyone have anyone have any recollections of movie handwriting?

The mention of jazz immediately put a tune to what I was already thinking: "So what?"

Way to mangle a perfectly nice link to a very good idea and lovely piece of typ--lettering, sheesh.

> non-font typography

:-/

Mark: What can I say? Good questions.

And I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't discuss -even celebrate- things outside typography, I just think that "branding" (like in a masthead or shirt) benefits by being in a focused context.

hhp

> non-font typography

This does not exist. Why not just call it lettering? That is what it is.

Mark Simonson says there are some things that are type and some things that are lettering and then there are some things harder to define. This might be right, but I don't think the lamp writing falls into this in-between category. It must be lettering and not typography.

> non-font typography

This does not exist. Why not just call it lettering? That is what it is.

Mark Simonson says there are some things that are type and some things that are lettering and then there are some things harder to define. This might be right, but I don't think the lamp writing falls into this in-between category. It must be lettering and not typography.

ty·pog·ra·phy    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (t-pgr-f)
n. pl. ty·pog·ra·phies

1.
a. The art and technique of printing with movable type.
b. The composition of printed material from movable type.

2. The arrangement and appearance of printed matter.

(American Heritage)

1. The art of printing with types; the use of types to produce impressions on paper, vellum, etc.

(Merriam-Webster)

I agree to disagree. I think non-font typography is a valid term to describe something like Sagmeister cutting a message into his skin... I don't think simply calling it "lettering" is as descriptive...

The areas are grey, and I don't mind a bit.

My humble opinion.

Martin--
"The Mystery of Picasso" has drawing and painting filmed from behind a backlit sheet. I saw this years ago and am pretty sure there's also a scene of drawing with a lighbulb. The artist is some guy named Pablo Picasso. ;-)

Tamye, so what's "lettering"?

hhp

Hrant, I'm not gonna pull out my Webster's to define lettering :) I said lettering is not *as* descriptive. Lettering does indeed describe the Sagmeister flesh-cutting orgy, but non-font typography is another term for it. Again, my opinion, but not mine alone.

Okay, the tag-line for Typographica is "Typography, design, book arts, etc." I don't see how the Jose's lamp-lettering-photo (or any kind of lettering, for that matter) contradicts this epitaph.

Lettering is making letters. In fact, I think type design is a special kind of lettering. Using the finished font is typography.

Sam: thanks! I actually have this on an old vhs recording from years ago. It's interesting in that you see him change his mind half way through one picture and essentially cover large areas of it with paint to block it out.
I'd still be interested in movie handwriting scenes though. Far more interesting than the academic blather in the parallel discussion going on here...

> type design is a special kind of lettering.

No way, dude.
Especially not text type design.

hhp

Far more interesting than the academic blather in the parallel discussion going on here...

Yes, well, some of us apparently have more free time than others (not saying it's not me)... :-)

What about the titles for the old Ben Casey show? Where the guy is drawing symbols on a blackboard. It had a tactile quality to it that I can still remember vividly.

> type design is a special kind of lettering.

No way, dude.
Especially not text type design.

So, are you saying that designing text type does not involve making letters? Certainly, creating a text face has some very specific requirements related to texture, optics, legibility and so on, but it's still making letters as far as I can tell, albeit in a very specialized way.

Mark said:

>I think sites like this devoted to
>typography would be diminished if they
>did not implicitly include the topic of
>letterforms in general, regardless of how
>they are created.

I'm with Mark on this one -- sure, it's not "purist," but so what? To me, it fits the the overall mission of the site.

Would like to second the notion of a gallery, too, please....

Like I tried to say, I think it's both useful and stimulating to discuss things even remotely related to type. But a masthead needs focus.

--

> are you saying that designing text type does not involve making letters?

Of course not. But I am saying that making letters is not designing type. Don't underestimate the signifiance of sidebearing definition: not only does it directly affect the positive forms as well (look at the lc "r" by any true master), it forms one inseperable half of Notan. And Notan is design. If you think it's boring, you're not a designer.

hhp

Huh? I thought the rule was if you didn't use Pantone 213 you weren't a designer.

(However, if you went and actually looked up Pantone 213, well, you have my sympathies, comrade.)

Since I define the general focus, I thus addend: and letterforms in general. Everyone happy now?

No. There is no type without the negative space.

hhp

I'm happy. There can be no negative space without letterforms.

> Please, try to have an open mind.

It's not really a question of open-mindedness -- it more has to do with knowing what words mean. There is some benefit to knowing what things might be considered typography (and why) and what things might not be. Some examples of things that are pretty clearly NOT typography: writing letters with a lamp, writing letters with a pen, writing letters with a brush. It is not some kind of bias or close-mindedness to say that these things are not typography; it is just confusion to insist that they are. And it's not a question of being dominated by ossified dictionary definitions, either. I don't think there is anything pejorative about calling lettering what it is.

Hey, speaking of writing letters with a lamp, did anyone see this really cool piece of air lettering?

fwiw, plenty of contradictory stuff if you Google

“What is typography”

Hey, 4dash, who are you?

hhp

From Bringhurst's foreword to his "Elements of Typographic Style" (1st ed., 1992):

The principles of typography as I understand them are not a set of dead conventions but the tribal customs of the magic forest, where ancient voices speak from all directions and new ones move to unremembered forms.

- and -

Typography is craft of endowing human language with a durable visible form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage - of the living, speaking hand - and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise.

DENIED!
Bringhurst is chirography worshiper.
DENIED! :->

BTW, that's not a root, that's a ball&chain.

hhp

Why all the fuss about whether something is typography or not? I think typography is such a limited word... why does it have to imply just the mechanical (or digital) way of reproducing letters? I'm not a purist. I like everything that has to do with letterforms, be it calligraphy, handwriting, lettering, or typography, or whatever. Why can't we have a word that encompasses everything to do with the visual manifestation of language? If someone knows of one, please let me know.

Visible language.

hhp

Flurry of interest. Some, just a little, emphasis on what seems, to me, the obvious distinction:

Whenever the final product is produced by hand, it is not type. (Final product = end image, exclusive of distribution technologies, i.e., xerography does not make photocopies of handwriting into typography; posting a photo on the WEB does not make air lettering type.)

Although there are faces with multiple versions of the same characters, to approximate the spontaneity of hand-written letters or script, the essence of type is the ability to automatically reproduce the same image over and over. (This is true for dingbat "picture fonts" as well.)

Type may be created by hand, but it is not applied by hand. Even rubber stamps already have the letters spaced and aligned.

The bridge between hand creations and type is that someone may admire some handwriting, hand lettering, or hand-drawn art and produce a font somewhat in its likeness. At some level, that is where all type has come from, notwithstanding the nifty new tools we have today. It's still a big project, even with scanners and computers.

But, back to the beginning, if it cannot be endlessly automatically replicated, it ain't type. If the final product wasn't automatically replicated, it didn't involve type.

The fact that type lovers may also be lovers of all art, all alphabetic expressions, etc. is irrelevant. Type and typography are good words with precise, solid meaning. Not every entry in your dictionary is "ossified." Hand typography is an oxymoron (except for limited specialized applicaton to short-run letterpress). Yes, word meanings evolve, but not by such unfounded and chasm-wide leaps.

Better seek either an established term like "visual arts" or craft an entirely new one for lovers of all letterforms, lovers of all alphabetic expression, lovers of all readable expressions, or lovers of symbolic communications (lest we next have protests from the semaphore special interest groups) than to distort the standard meanings for type and typography. I would not dispute handwriting and typography are both visual arts. To change the distinct and well-understood meaning of typography is confusing and a net loss for our ability to communicate, no improvement.

I come to typographi.ca because I love a particular subset of the visual arts: type. I'm sure there are other specialized sites devoted to bamboo brush, penmanship, etc. which don't refer to Baskerville, Gill, Caslon, PostScript, or Zapf -- and shouldn't.

"Communication is always lousy. With hard work, we can make it less lousy; but we can never make it good." -- heard from a member of Toastmasters

Just so you know: what you see at Typographica is what the editors find interesting to present. We just might post something on ferrets who play pinochle and paint letters if we think it's worth mentioning. So, expect discussion of typography here, but don't expect it to invariably fit your definition.

Visible language: nicely put. Succinct and accurate. Yet there are two words, not one. One would be good. Visible language? Is that the way you think about letterforms/typography/chirography Hrant? Very interesting. I've never heard it put that way.

On a tangential note, anybody catch Ving Rhames painting light portraits on TCM recently?

Fascinating. The world heads towards war, and we are exercised about the definition of typography.

Gosh. Profundity.

> I've never heard it put that way.

I got it from a magazine:
http://www.id.iit.edu/visiblelanguage/

hhp

> Why all the fuss about whether
> something is typography or not?

Is it just fuss? Reading this thread over, it seems like there are represented here some very different ideas about what typography is. If this is a web site that is focused on _typography_, among other things, isn't it useful to discuss how we can identify the thing we're reading and writing about? I tend to think that this kind of dialogue would be just as important, if not more so, than discussing how nice you think a new typeface looks.

It is one thing to say that one person's definition of typography is slightly more strict than another's, or vice versa. But it is maybe more of a problem when our definitions diverge so fundamentally. Some of the writers above are sure that the guy making letters with a lamp is doing typography. Others are positive that what he has done has nothing to do with typography. Seems like we can all learn something if the people with conflicting notions try to explain themselves -- explain how they came to their particular understanding of typography. I don't think this is fussy, irrelevant, or esoteric, as has been suggested above.

And as poetic as those Bringhurst quotes about magic forests might sound, I'm not sure how pertinent they are here. Maybe for the time being it would be more constructive for people to offer their own views of what typography is (while making a good effort to explain the basis for these views), instead of relying on famous writers.

Another thing: how much discussion in these online type forums (either here or at the other places) really takes on typography itself? The impression I get is that many people are interested in discussing typefaces, but often in a way that seems to fall outside the context of typography (as I understand it, at least). More and more I've wondered if this isn't somewhat limited or misguided. Is it a case of not seeing the "magic forest" for the trees?

I feel it's pertinent to quote Bringhurst, so I did. His ideas are relevant to the matter at hand. I don't subscribe to everything he opines, but I certainly respect his voice. And I like poesy. Typographi.ca readers can agree or disagree, and discuss it, and that makes it worthwhile.

It's not easy for me to define what typography is, or what it means to me. Although I'm still in my 30s, I've spent more than 20 years working professionally with type and myriad forms of communication. Seeing the evolution that's occurred in that short amount of time, and being a part of it, I cannot bring myself to box it all up in semantics and dictionary definitions.

What I have to say on the subject would take up a lot of space, and that wouldn't be appropriate here, and not terribly interesting.

I like that Stephen is bummed that JL Martinez' lampwriting won't fit on a t'ca banner, and has a possible affinity with letter-painting ferrets. I like just as much that Hrant feels that type is not art, and calls Bringhurst a chirography worshiper.

I find it a bit presumptive when people want to restrict, without cause, the course a discussion should follow.

I find it dull when people post anonymously. Their opinions are valid, but become less so in a forum where most people aren't afraid to speak out while using their own names.

> restrict, without cause

But it's not without cause: it's to promote focus/depth.

hhp

I think it looks pretty. --Love, Nell

Forest for the trees:

I'm not sure that we've yet established that "typography" and "lettering" are necessarily mutually exclusive.

But, am I the only one who has noticed that the incredibly cool light-image of "typographica" is misspelled...? (Someone got the "h" out of there.)

DT

Damn.

> I'm not sure that we've yet
> established that "typography"
> and "lettering" are necessarily
> mutually exclusive.

No, I don't think we have, and that wasn't so much what I was getting at. What I was responding to was the reticence to discuss how we think typography could be defined. (The argument was that such a question was beside the point.) My take on this was just the opposite, that this discussion would be worthwhile -- especially since there seem to be so many different understandings of what typography can be.

The goal of the discussion would not necessarily be to reach a consensus on a definition of typography. The benefit could come from the discussion itself. Just to repeat the question: does it make sense to be interested in something, to discuss it with others, to read books about it, but at the same time not be interested in talking from time to time about what exactly one thinks it is?

As for "the forest for the trees", maybe that was too cryptic. What I was getting at was that it seems like sometimes when all of the focus is on the typefaces themselves, with not much attempt to talk about them in the context of typography, is this maybe not missing the point? I was trying to link this point to the main question by asking if maybe by talking about typefaces in a vacuum -- appreciating them on their own, for their own sake -- we might actually be thinking about type as if it were lettering.

Would I be right in saying then, that the main disctinction between typography and everything else (lettering, writing, calligraphy etc.) is the systematic application of letters – that typography is infinitely reproducible from pre-fabricated parts?

If so, then I think typography shares a lot of similarities with other forms of ‘visible language’. The inherent nature of alphabetic symbols/characters/etc. is systematic. It is meant to be ‘infinitely reproducible’ too. The main difference seems to be the tool used and the whether the result is predictable or variable – that how good the tool is in replicating the ‘ideal’ set of characters/letters/etc.

Since writing/lettering/calligraphy predate typography, it is rather natural that we are somewhat still working under the influence of writing, and readers still expect, and/or dare I say prefer that historical root. Though type designers these days are enjoying much independence in generating forms that have little to do with these predecessors of typography. We are writing (by hand) less and less now, so that close relationship between writing and type may just continue to diminish. Type, on the other hand, also influences the way we write, and has been an especially important influence on lettering.