NEW RELEASE
Amplitude: Turning Function Into Style

I think Amplitude is one of the most interesting works to come out in a long time - the sort of thing one expects from a seasoned designer with many years of accumulated insight, not somebody who's still just warming up it seems!

What's most interesting is that although Schwartz has appropriated traps largely for aesthetic effect (whereas in origin they're purely functional), Amplitude is no push-up bra: it seems to have superb technical underpinnings in terms of its distribution of styles, including proper associations in the Cartesian space (like how the Wides also have a huge x-height).

It's rare that I feel like buying type with no immediate application at hand. I want Amplitude!

hhp

I bet there's already a stream of memos from magazine art directors to executive editors to request the purchase of Amplitude.

Hrant, I want it too!!

I guess I don't see what you two see. Are you saying that Z doesn't look a bit funky and out-of-place to you? I think that it would be just fine if he hadn't turned 'function into style.'

Of course, the more I look at it, the more it appeals to me. I guess I should examine, then post.

"Amplitude is no push-up bra" - hhp

Classic.

It should also be noted that Amplitude is the new face for Wallpaper magazine. Including the masthead/logo etc.

EP, picture it without the traps... Lost in the crowd.

hhp

Correction:
The Wallpaper masthead is not Amplitude.
Close though.

Clarification:
Though it may not be used in the masthead, Amplitude was used by Wallpaper* magazine as part of their redesign, and is ‘unveiled’ in issue 59 (June 2003) along with Matthew Carter’s Big Caslon Italic*.

The typographic side of the magazine’s re-design was overseen by Paul Barnes, who – as a matter of trivium – designed the typeface used on the cover of Björk’s Pagan Poetry single. He also has a website in the pipeline.

Jordan

*Though Big Caslon exists in Font Bureau’s listings, an italic variant is definitely missing. Whether this means BCI is not for general release or they haven’t got round to doing it yet I couldn’t say.

Maybe this will stem the tide of improper Bell Centennial use. By that, I mean the usage of BC as display type and not for its ink-trapping design.

Nylon's logo also has exaggerated ink traps. Very trendy.

I'd like to see Amplitude's use in Wallpaper. Any jpegs?

Using features that are "pre-emptive" (Tobias Frere-Jones used the term in FB catalog re Griffith) of press gain at small size, as a style feature for display type, is not new. I've used it on several faces (eg Brown, Worldwide), but as a subtle finishing to fairly generic letterforms.

So what really impresses me about Amplitude is how the ink-trap feature is integrated into an original design. It's a different level of design, IMHO.

What we need is a separate word for that kind of structural "design", to give it more props. Or maybe we should just stop calling re-styling, revivals, and genre-work "design" at all...

Is it just me, or do other people recognize a (fairly) distinct categorical divide, and merit, between these kinds of design?

"Is it just me, or do other people recognize a (fairly) distinct categorical divide, and merit, between these kinds of design?"

What do you mean by this Nick?

> is not new

Yes, true.

So who can point out the first font to use traps decoratively? My candidate is FF Bradlo.

> do other people recognize a (fairly) distinct categorical divide, and merit, between these kinds of design?

I don't get it - can you elaborate?

--

BTW, Christian, are you there? I have a question: In the PDF from the FB site, what the hell is that exclamation mark - it has a comma in place of its dot!? :-)

hhp

>I don’t get it - can you elaborate?

Sorry, try this.
In architecture and fashion, when working plans are made, the distinction is made between designing and drafting. The design being the original "concept" work.

And in music, the distinction can be made between composition, and orchestration.

But in the graphic world, we use the same word "design" for many purposes. I'm suggesting that the design involved in producing an original typeface is categorically distinct from that involved in doing a revival, a restyling, or genre work.

I've always found it strange that a person who produces a type revival is called the designer. This is not to deny that there are grey areas, but that doesn't mean the distinction should be ignored.

I've done several revivals, often with different names than the original, and I don't really feel like I "designed" the faces.

Oh yeah, totally.

Reviving is nothing compared to original work. Very very few people manage to make text fonts that are sufficiently original.

hhp

I wish Font Bureau would think abut the way they show fonts: the poster for Amplitude is beautiful, but that 'Stonehearths' listing format they use makes everything look dull.

BTW, Christian, are you there? I have a question: In the PDF from the FB site, what the hell is that exclamation mark - it has a comma in place of its dot!? :-)

thanks, everybody, for your compliments on this face. it took about 3 1/2 years to get it to this point, so it's nice to see it received well!

hrant - to answer your question, the exclamation/comma and question/comma are for sentences that are only partially emphatic or interrogative, i.e. sentences like:

• Do you need anything from the store?, because I'm on my way there.
• I think that's crazy!, but I don't have a problem with it.

are there an existing Unicode slots for these characters, or is it time to lobby for them?

i think these fall into the same category as the interrobang: interesting punctuation marks that people would probably find useful if they could get past the fact that they look kind of silly.

Hrant, Christian implied it but didn't explicitly say — the ‘exclamacomma’ and ‘interrocomma’ are extras. There are the standard exclamation and question marks in the fonts, of course. Take another look at the last More Info page on the website for the full character set.

— K.

Nick, I tend to agree with you that it would be useful to make distinctions between wholly original designs and revival/restylings. I think they are different categories of work and creativity. I don’t think that restyling is necessarily lesser than original work, but they are of a different nature and should be recognized as such.

Ravel’s orchestration of the ‘Pix at an Ex’ is no less masterful because he started with Mussorgsky’s brilliant composition, but it is important to note the role of both artists and to make the distinctions.

Then there is the in-between, the time-honored Theme & Variations. I would consider Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody to be quite original, despite the fact that he clearly started with Paganini’s theme.

These are examples from classical music. I’ve been contemplating the corollaries in type design lately, but haven’t come to any conclusions yet.

— K.

PLEASE PLEASE no more "Unicode lobbying!"

feature dlig {
  sub exclam comma by exclamcomma;
  sub question exclam by interrobang;
  sub question comma by questioncomma;
} dlig;

Hmmm. That sounded rash. Please disregard the caps. :-) To put it more positively...

I think these new punctuation marks are a great idea, but should be considered a part of the design and not an addition to punctuation in general, which I liken to numerous overly ambitious "alphabet reform" efforts over the years. The easiest way to implement those symbols is using a LIGA (ligatures) or DLIG (discretionary ligatures like quaint ct and st) feature in OpenType. In fact, you could arguably include them in LIGA, because anyone wanting to set interrobangs and interrocommas and commabangs (they're yours, so I guess you get to pick the names!) would probably want the fused versions by default.

Mr. Schwarz, do you have FontLab 4.5 and InDesign 2.0?

> sentences that are only partially emphatic or interrogative

What you guys really need is floating question, exclamation and emphasis* marks that can be placed on any vowel - which Armenian has, heh heh.

* Helps you avoid Italics entirely!

> classical music ... corollaries

I have found that possibly the best parallel to type design is shoe design.

hhp

Why not just replace the dot with a comma like a semicolon, and call them Semiquestion and Semiexclam? Wouldn't the characters be simpler and less cumbersome?

...Great idea MODERN

>only partially emphatic

It's the top part of the question mark and the bang that determine emphasis; I've always assumed that the choice of comma or period was about tempo, and the amount of connection implied between the phrases they separate.

So perhaps the exclammacomma would be useful when you have a number of rapid exclammations, e.g. "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill" or when an exclammatory phrase is rapidly followed, e.g. "Holy Cow! --that's what I thought you said!" Here the typographer already has the options of following the bang by a dash or lower case initial to indicate more connection, but the exclammacom would akso make immediate sense to readers.

>only partially emphatic

Surely this distinction should be conveyed by the top part of the mark. Some old style faces, eg Italian Old Style, have very tentative question marks.

Perhaps fonts could come with two versions of both exclam and bang, "tentative" and "committed". But again, these distinctions already exist -- bt repetition. In chess, eg, "P-R4?!!" describing what at first sight appears to be a stupid move, but is really very smart.

>only partially emphatic

This is already a typographic option, using a normal bang, but short, from the all small cap font. You get this effect in fonts with ascenders that are a lot higher than cap height, that have cap height bang and question marks.

All art is derivative. The theme and variations is just a formalization of that concept... sort of a "here is what I stole, and here is what I did with it" type thing.

Who is so darn filthy rich that can pass me the money to buy this beauty?

Thanks in advance.

Have a great weekend..

Anyone interested in seeing Amplitude get a vigorous workout is directed to the Sept. 2003 issue of Vibe.