Intone - MA Typeface Design

Reflection on practise
Eleni Beveratou
Intone
Say or recite with little rise and fall of the pitch of the voice.
*Essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MA in Typeface Design, University
of Reading Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, June 2011
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List of contents
Introduction p. 3
1. Intone, a collage of inspiration and knowledge
1.1 Reading: A source of knowledge p. 4
1.2 Several sources of inspiration for my typeface p. 4
1.3 Defining the brief p. 5
2. A vicious circle: De-sign, De-cide, De-sign
2.1 Starting with the Roman p. 6
2.2 Starting with the Upright Italic p. 6
2.3 Starting with Greek: Italic and Roman p. 8
2.4 Waking up with a new idea for an Italic p. 8
2.5 New decisions, new conclusions new mix and matching of features:
A process that never ends p. 10
3. Towards uniformity, clarity and extension
3.1 My characters are dancing to all directions
3.1.1 Creating a consistent Regular p. 10
3.1.2 Creating a consistent Upright Italic p. 11
3.1.3 Extending the Italic, creating an inconsistent Greek Italic p. 11
3.2 Family uniformity
3.2.1 Similar features p. 11
3.2.2 Justified irregularities regarding weight distribution for the Greek p. 12
3.2.3 Spacing and kerning p. 12
3.3 Extension of the character set
3.3.1 Diacritics and numerals p. 12
3.3.2 Special features for the Greek Italic p. 13
Conclusion p. 14
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Introduction:
You are about to read through my experience regarding the development of the Intone
typeface during this year in the M.A. in typedesign, at the University of Reading. The
outcome of a learning process is always positive, considering that one comes out of it
stronger and with new ideas. However, the road through it contains a mixture of feelings
and battles with oneself in order to achieve the desired result.
The first part of this essay deals with how I became enthusiastic about creating this typeface
and describes the setting of the brief. The second part explains the design process; how
it started, the decisions that were taken and how the interpolation of a whole family and the
extension of the typeface into the Greek family was a key factor for changes. The third part
explains how all of the above were wrapped up, cleaned and organized in such a way as to
create uniformity and an extended typeface.
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From top to bottom and right
to left:
1. Hendrik de Roo’s typeface
Egmont cursive in Jan Visser
Fluitekruid, Verzen
2. Hendrik de Roo’s typeface
Erasmus in Margot Vos (1923),
De nieuwe lent’, Em Qyerido,
Amsterdam
3. Greek matrices from the Plantin
Moretus museum
4. Pierre Didot typeface Didot
Elder (1819) redeveloped by
Francois Rappo
1. Intone, a collage of inspiration and knowledge
1.1 Reading: A source of knowledge
This past year in Reading has been a constant exploration of different ideas and points of
view regarding type. Being exposed to different people, different historical resources and
different imagery, I managed to create a solid baggage that helped me understand what type
is all about. The interesting part about this baggage is that everyone has it, but it is not the
same for any of us. It is even built from the same pieces, but each one of us has
assembled a different puzzle, depending on his personal background and expectations
from the course.
1.2 Several sources of inspiration for my typeface
At the beginning of the year, I formulated a brief stating that the process of typedesign
could not escape conventional methods. This has been a great struggle for me, due to the
excitement I felt from acquiring so much knowledge here, in Reading. Trying to be exciting
within convention was a process that I could not follow. After reading Gerard Unger’s book,
“While we are reading”, it became clear to me that my situation was not a personal failure
but merely the consequence of a conventional typeface.
When it comes to typedesign, convention is the enemy of creativity. Therefore, I decided
to put this project temporarily in a drawer and start anew, with a more creative one. Four
items that drew my attention were the crucial elements that led me to this decision. The
first two are two poetry books that came into my possession. Both were typeset with Sjoerk
Hendrik de Roos’s typefaces, Egmont cursive and Erasmus. I found the small details (like
the serifs on the ascenders of the l, h, k, b and d in Egmont) of each letter to be very fascinating.
They made each character unique while, simultaneously, they created an interesting
pattern on the paper.
The third element was discovered during our trip to the Plantin Moretus museum. A “g”
that looked different from all the others caught my attention immediately. It was the “g”
from the Didot typefamily. Was it a mistake? It was almost standing out of the text but, at
the same time, was blending in a very harmonious way with the rest of the letters.
The last decisive detail was the discovery of some Greek punches that did not look like
Greek at all. Being Greek, my fellow students were asking me what these letters were. I felt
incapable of giving an accurate answer because these ligatures where completely different
from the commonly known modern letterforms.
After these discoveries I had enough food for thought and the design process that will be
analyzed in this essay was happily starting once again.
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1.3. Defining the brief
The aim of my M.A. project was to design a typeface that would capture details from the
process of writing with tools. It would be a typeface mainly for poetry books, since short
lines allow for more freedom to differentiate each letter and make it unique within the character
set. The typeface would cover both Latin and Greek and could be used for bilingual
publications.
Regarding Greek, my goal was to create a script that would match the Latin in colour and
would be free of the “latinized flair” that most of the available Greek typefaces have. Handwriting
is never completely consistent, this is why the typeface family is composed of a
regular, an upright italic and a cursive italic, each granting a different feel and meaning to
the text.
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Negative Remarks:
1. Very accentuated serifs.
2. “N” and “h” too pointy compared
to “d” and “o” which are
too round.
3. Restart.
4. “E” looks weird but I don’t
know why yet.
5. “G” is interesting but doesn’t
really fit the rest.
6. It is a bit too bold and I would
like something slightly more
refined.
Positive remarks:
1. I like the top serif on the “d” and
the “n”; they have a strong deep
cut. I like also the right part of the
ascender of the “d” that leans to
the right translating the movement
of the pen.
2. The serif on the “h” has
something but maybe it is a bit
excessive for the regular. I will try
to imply it on the italic.
Negative Remarks:
1. What happened to the top serif
of the “h”?
2. Contrast is better on the sketch.
3. The outstrokes look better on
the sketch.
4. The serifs don’t fit. They seem
as if someone forced them.
5. The form of the stem doesn’t fit
the ascenders.
Positive remarks:
1. The sketch is better.
2. The stem has something
interesting.
2. A vicious circle: De-sign, De-cide, De-sign
2.1 Starting with the Roman
Imaginary scissors and glue were the main tools for this introductory process. To set the
style of the typeface a lot of fast decisions had to be made. I started writing “adhesion” with
my pen and ink; I picked the one that looked interesting and started designing from there.
I felt that scanning it and digitalizing it while being really faithful to the trace of the ink
would prove interesting; it did. However, the result was far from being typographical and
uniform.
Later, I started sorting out the features. Some had to stay, some had to go and others would
best fit the Italic. The result was already more typographical, but very inconsistent. The
“n” was angular whereas the “b” and “o” were too rounded. The bottom serifs were more
prominent than poetry would require. There were many issues to be addressed. That is why
I decided to put my Roman, that was still influenced from the previous brief, aside and get
back to it later with a clear mind.
adhesiong
2.2 Starting with the Upright Italic
2.2 Starting with the Upright Italic
I particularly liked the feeling Upright Italics gave to the paper, so I decided to try it out. I
thought that the world in itself was hiding something; “up” and “right”. So I started designing
my Italics by always keeping the right side of the letter completely vertical and slanting
only its left side. This seemed to work out for the letters that started on the baseline and did
not surpass the x-height, but it was problematic regarding the ascenders and descenders.
For the serifs on the ascenders, I decided to employ an element that came up from draw-
6
he

Negative Remarks:
1. the joins are a bit black
Positive remarks:
1. the roughness of the upstroke
gives a lot more character to the
letter
2. the problem with the thin
ascender and descenders is solved
3. the serif on the p corresponds
better to the overall lettershape.
4. the ellimination of the serif was
a positive idea.
ing the Roman but didn’t quite fit with it (the serif on the “h”). Despite my efforts, bottom
serifs looked out of place so I decided not to implement them. Thus, I developed a Mix
Serif Italic, featuring serifs only on the top parts of the letters. A second look at the initial
sketches made me realize that some worth-keeping features had disappeared during the
“first sorting”.
Comparisons between my sketch and the first digital version of the typeface, as well as the
first conclusion drawn from my work led me to better shaped forms. My initial aim was to
create an impression of the letters being created with one single stroke. Based on the trails
of my pen, I lowered the junctions and rounded the bottom of the stem. I also made the
endstroke thinner and longer, creating the feeling of a faster movement
of the pen.
The real problem, however, was that of a very thin ascender and a descender that lacked
grace. Wanting to abide by my rule (a vertical stroke on one side), I experimented in order
to get rid of that very thin ending. I figured I should break the stroke in half. I also decided
to keep the straight stroke on the left for the top half and on the right for the bottom half of
the long stems. This formed a very interesting corner that I implemented on the bowls of
the letter. This was achieved by accentuating the thin parts, sharpening the instrokes and
“breaking” the outstroke.
h h
p
Before pAfter
Before
n n
Before
After
After
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Manutius Greek
Negative Remarks:
1. The Regular Greek is way too
playful.
2. The Italic rho and epsilon are
too round for the style of the
typeface.
Positive remarks:
1. The descender of the “m” has
something intresting that I should
try to apply to my Latin.
2. On the Italic, letters like eta,
mu and alpha resemble the Latin
version.
3. The weight on the vertical axis
gives a better impression of the
Greek letterform.
2.3 Starting with greek both italic and roman
As stated in my brief, I had a very precise idea of the look I wanted my Greek to have. I drew
my inspiration from these old Greek manuscripts, leading me into switching my tool to the
ottoman pen. Despite the change, the result was still either too wooden or too handwritten.
My exposure to the currently available Greek typefaces aiming to look like Latin didn’t
offer any help. I couldn’t find a balance between “wooden” and handwritten and, most
importantly, I couldn’t decide which features to borrow from the Latin, in order to maintain
coherence. Since my Roman design was not set, it would be difficult to make decisions
regarding the Greek. It lead me, however, in discovering new features that could also be
implemented in the Roman. So, I turned to my Greek Italic.
Truth be told, Greek is a script allowing a lot of freedom of shapes. It is harder, though,
to create a uniform pattern compared to the Latin. Greek Italic is closer to the nature of
the Greek script than the Upright, which was developed for typographic use. It was easier
to borrow shapes from the Latin, when creating the Greek Italic, as the modularity of the
stroke was very fitting. Designing the Greek and having to deal with round shapes and big
counters made me realize: Despite Latin Italic being angunlar, shapes with big counters or
some others (e.g. “o”, “v”, “w”) would not match the rest of the typeface due to being less
angular.
2.4 Waking up with a new idea for an Italic
Gerry recommended that I should work on one more Italic. I also realized that just an Upright
Italic cannot fully replace an Italic. Therefore, I started creating an Italic that would
have a cursive feel (like writing with a pen). The letters would not touch, as to create a more
typographic look. Starting points were the very low junctions (that in a second staged were
also applied to my Roman and Upright Italic) and strong serifs that almost touch, trans-
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ηρεμια
ηρεμα

Old Greek Family letters
Negative Remarks:
1. Serifs on the “m”, “n” and “h”
create a line that negatively affects
legibility.
2. The junctions are too low.
Positive Remarks
2. On the Greek Italic, some letters
(e.g. sigma, final sigma) have
loops making them too busy or
unreadable.
3. Some letters (e.g.”t”) look
squeezed.
lating into a fast movement of the pen. Inspiration was drawn from the way children are
taught to write calligraphy.
For the Greek, I wanted to keep the feeling given by old Greek matrices (shown in the first
part). While doing research, I came up with some old family letters that resembled the old
Greek. Legibility was debatable, but it proved to be a good starting concept.
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For the top image
Negative Remarks:
1. The break of the stem creates a
typeface than leans to the left.
2. The instroke of “a” doesn’t fit
with the rest.
3. “a”, “d”, “e”, “s” and “g” need
to follow the inclination of the
upstroke of the “n”.
4. The bottom serif of the “d”
makes the letter too dark.
5. The junctions are too high.
6. The pattern need less contrast
7. “z” has too many features.
8. “g” is too complicated.
2.5 New decisions, new conclusions new mix and matching of features:
A process that never ends
The character set was there. I had to expand it, but the base was solid. In an imaginary world
all I would have to do was press the “perfection” button and that would be it. But in our real
world this was only the beginning of new problems and challenges. I soon realized (as you
can see in the footnote of each drawing) that my character sets lacked uniformity. As Gerry
would say: “You are not going to like what I’m about to tell you, but it seems as if you were
designing every character in a different day with a different mood”. I wanted my characters
to be unique, but I had gone overboard. As Mathew Carter would say: “the aim is not a group
of beautiful letters, but a beautiful group of letters, is what is essential for legibility”. That
served as my motto for the following steps.
3. Towards uniformity, clarity and extension
3.1 My characters are dancing to all directions
3.1.1 Creating a consistent Regular
adzesiong
adzesiong
final form of adhesion
One of the problems I encountered was that my Regular text was “dancing” too much. Each
character had too much of a personality, disrupting the flow of reading by creating a messy
pattern. In addition, the Regular, Italic and Greek looked like separate typefaces. With a
closer look I realized that this was due to some characters lacking common features.
However, I had to make the horizontal alignment work before anything else. Once the
letters would work next to each other, I started modifying the spacing. It was then that I
comprehended how important spacing is; it would clearly demonstrate the problems.
Zooming out from micro-typographical details enabled me to better understand the problem.
I decided to introduce the strong diagonal allure to all of my characters and to distort
the weight in the same manner for all of them. Moreover, I added more corners to my inner
curves to make some characters match (e.g. “o”, “n”).
The creation of the Capitals and the Small caps was a straightforward process, although I
spent some time on the letters “E”, “F”, “L” and “T” before coming up with a solution for the
serifs on the horizontal stems. Afterwards, I developed the Bold. It was spaced tighter than
the Regular to ensure homogeny between the counters and the space among the letters.
After fixing the Greek Upright Italic I worked on my Regular Greek, making sure that they
are more distinct. I rounded the outstrokes and sharpened the instrokes to better resemble
the Latin.
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3.1.2 Create a consistant upright italic
The upright latin lowercase italic had found its way with constant but small changes mainly
on fi nding the right way to slant each character as the rounds and the ascenders and descenders
so that they look as if they are inclined on the same way. Reguarding my greek I
used the conclusions I had drawn from the previous stage in order to add more modulation
on the curve and borrow even more features from the regular. What I found very diffi cult
this time was the capitals. Having a lowercase with a nice transcription of the writting fl ow
the uppercase was jumping out of the text. Ellimination once more of the serifs an paying
more attention to the modulation of the stems was the key to solve the problem. Overall
the upright italic is spaced rather tightly so that it becomes more easily distinc when side by
side with the regular.
3.1.3 Extending the italic, create an unconsistant greek italic.
By now it was clear to me that serifs and a cursive letterforms were a poor combination,
especially when the typeface is developed for text sizes. Therefore, I limited the pronounced
and horizontal serifs in letters like “u”, and “n”. I raised the junctions for a better
curve modulation and extended my character set with capitals. Through a quick look of
handwritten letters, I concluded that the capitals can be really crazy considering that they
will always be typeset in combination with lowercase characters. So I decided to borrow
features from Greek, French and German script capitals. Intone proved to be a typeface demanding
variations and contextual alternates, which is something I am looking forward to
work on in the future.
Developing the Greek was the most pleasant part of my work so far. It was very interesting
to discover new ways of writing a letter without compromising legibility. At fi rst, I tried
to stay faithful to the grid and keep it as a text typeface. However, letters with prominent
ascenders and descenders seemed a bit “squeezed”. Gerry made the same observation and
advised me to get out of the grid and not to be afraid of "going crazy". This proved to work
and each letter had its suitable space. A few letters were overlapping, though, so I created
some open type features with contextual alternates and ligatures, in order to explore
possible solutions.
3.2 Family uniformity
3.2.1 Similar features
adzesiong
adzesiong
adzesiong
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3.2.2 Justified irregularities regarding weight distribution for the Greek
Originally, the Greek script has a switch on the weight of the lines. Unlike most modern
Greek typefaces available today, the ones I created feature heavier lines on the top and bottom
part, rather than on the sides, in order to create an old-fashioned Greek typeface that
communicates the handwritten character and “sits” better on the page.
3.2.3 Spacing and kerning
The more you space, the more you need to space! It became clear to me that the overall
texture of the text gets better with spacing. However, some details become more prominent,
demanding adjustments to the spacing or the design of the letterform itself. At the
end I only applied basic kerning between capital and lowercase letters and a few lowercase
combinations, in both Latin and Greek as detailed kerning should only be done when the
typeface is totally adjusted.
3.3 Extention of the character set
3.3.1. Diacritics and numerals
àáâãäåăāą
ἀἁἂἃἄἅἆἇ
ἈἉἊἋἌἎ
1234567890
In a somewhat final stage, I added diacritics, old style numbers, and polytonic Greek characters
to my typeface. For now, only the old style numbers are developed, because they are
better fit for poetry collections. The addition of polytonic Greek was mandatory for Greek
poems. This revealed several issues that helped me understand how to properly space them
and how to carefully distinct diacritics and punctuation. All of the diacritics are strong, thus
emphasizing the intonation of each word.
12

3.3.2 Special features for the greek italic.
Considering that the Greek is based on handwritten forms, there was room for open type
features in the Intone Italic. Some of them were purely personal choices (e.g. initial and
final forms) and others were required in order to support some character combinations.
Examples of liguatures (black symbolizes when the open type features are enabled):
γγγγ στστ ντντ
Examples of contextual forms:
επι επι
ένω ένω
έλλα έλλα
φλ φ λ
ετ ετ
Examples of contextual forms:
άρτα ιόνια
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Conclusion
I was taught that “conclusion” is the part where you summarize and wrap up your work,
adding a small sentence in the end that gives an opening towards new ideas. Well, this is the
first time that I consciously don’t want to do this. This past year in Reading was consistently
providing me with new ideas and the more I learned, the more I realized that typedesign is an
intricate process; it cannot be wrapped up unless there is a deadline or client waiting for it.
The more I work, the more I discover obvious mistakes. This makes me happy, because now
I can actually see what I wouldn’t even notice in the beginning. I am happy to put my work
aside for two months and get back to it in September, with fresh ideas and without stress.
What I would like to do is fix the mistakes, clean it up, space it better, get rid of features that
I cannot make up my mind about at the moment, extend the character set of each style. I
am glad that I joined this Master’s program and I am looking forward to further develop the
skill I acquired here in Reading, in the sphere of a real world.
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