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Commentary

Interactive 3D Type

John Baichtal on November 19, 2004

Ortho-Type was released last month at the Teach Me conference in Venice. The project is the work of European designers Mikkel Crone Koser, Enrico Bravi, and Paolo Palma. It is a Java based program that permits web users to type in a word or words, then change the weight, angle and dimensionality with a series of controls. I’m not really sure what the purpose is beyond fun and experimentation, so you’ll just have to jump in and experience it for yourself.


UPDATE, NOV 22 – Enrico Bravi sent me this further description of the project:

ORTHO-TYPE is an experimental 2D and 3D typeface, readable from two different point of view in space at 90 degrees. The online applet was done using Processing.

Not just paper or screen, but a variety of possible ‘interpretations’ of the same typeface… in real and virtual spaces.

We analyzed the use of an alphabet within different dimensions systems; a quite weird thing, if you think that typography has always been a strictly 2D thing.

Even if I think that the strength of the project is connected to the third dimension, I was fascinated by the idea that each point of view could actually generate a different alphabet to be used than also in the 2D printed world… From the Applet, it’s possible to export as Illustrator vectors the letters that one has before manipulated as 3D models.

(feature not available in the online version at the moment, as we wanted to keep it for local use only!)

We were even planning to have a TTF exporter, but seems to be a quite complicated matter, so we are fine with vector graphics at the moment.

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Typographica is a review of typefaces and type books, with occasional commentary on fonts and typographic design. Edited by Stephen Coles, also of Fonts In Use and The Mid-Century Modernist.

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