Learning to Love the Jaggies:

designing bitmapped fonts

Early digital type designers were challenged by having a limited grid of pixels to create their letterforms for computers, handheld devices, video and arcade games. These blocky fonts were one of the distinguishing features of the 70s through the 90s and are mostly used today for a retro look.

While touring the variety and ingenuity of these early types we’ll concentrate on two designers and what inspired them: Susan Kare, who created Chicago (which became a defining font for the look of the Macintosh computer), and Zuzana Licko who co-founded Emigre Fonts in 1985 and designed a number of influential pixel fonts. And then we'll examine the process of making a bitmapped font with BitFontMaker2.

>Some Background

• Le Roman du Roi —the Age of Enlightenment's rationalisation of type design.
• The 8-bit arcade font, deconstructed —great short video by VOX of the whys and wherefores of 8-bit fonts as featured in Toshi Omagari's book Arcade Game Typography.
• A Byte Sized History of Computer Typography with Ben Zotto: A visual history of arcade game typography —video description: “This Letterform Lecture will take you on a whirlwind tour of bitmaps, cathode rays, and how type and computer technology have evolved together. This talk is part how-it-works and where-it-came-from, and part love letter to what is inevitably lost to obsolescence.” Excellent.
• About Bitmap Fonts —a short history.
• A Brief History of Type —more in-depth look at type construction from a global perspective.
• Letterform Archive: Threading Letters —letterforms and textiles. There is a thought provoking video by Doug Clouse called “Time to Spare: Type and Tectonics” which covers the modular use of type from teletype machines to weaving to bricklaying.
• Mark Simonson: Type Design Like It’s 1987 —an important American type designer discusses and demonstrates how he went about designing early bitmapped fonts on the Mac.
• Bitcount —bitmap meets variable font. Designed by Petr Van Blokland.
• More Bitcount —the making of Bitcount.
• Still more Bitcount —at Google Fonts.

>Theo van Doesburg

• The Alphabet Van Doesburg —essay on the creation of Van Doesburg's monolinear/rectilinear 1919 font.
• Foundry Types: Architype Van Doesburg —a digital version of the original 5x5 font.

>Susan Kare

• Susan Kare Pixels —charming student project on Kare's career.
• The Apple Mac, Chicago, and all that jazz —essay about “the woman who had the task of putting typography into the heart of the Mac.”
• Timeless Design Insights from Susan Kare: Mastering UI, Iconography and Typography —great overview of her work.
• Fonts Before Mac (1983) —focus on Kare's font designs.
• Susan Kare demonstrating the Macintosh Interface in 1984 —lovely period piece. Gotta love cable TV!

>Zuzana Licko

• Behind the Scenes with Licko & VanderLans —overview of Emigre at the Letterform Archive.
• Emigre: Online Archive —the viewable archive of Emigre magazine.
• Critical Conditions: Zuzana Licko, Rudy VanderLans, and the Emigre Spirit —short history of Emigre magazine and font design.
• Emigre #11 — Graphic Designers and the Macintosh Computer —Letterform Archive: “In coordination with “Inflection Point,” a new essay on Emigre, we’re posting a digital version of the magazine’s influential eleventh issue.”
• Emigre #11 — “Inflection Point” Essay by Emily McVarish — “From the aesthetics of bitmaps to the expressive interventions made possible by new access to typesetting controls, not to mention the self-publishing venture of the magazine itself, this issue combines modernist and postmodern agendas in a model construction of text-based community.”
• Lo-Res Font Family —material related to the Lo-Res font at the Letterform Archive.
• Lo-Res: An Incomplete History of Type —short history of Licko's Lo-Res font design.
• Lo-Res PDF —catalogue of Emigre's Lo-Res font family: “a synthesis of bitmap fonts.”
• Interview by Rudy VanderLans. —Licko discusses designing fonts. Regarding complaints that her designs aren't legible she claims “You read best what you read most.”
• Die Kreutzersonate Cover —Insel-Bucherei No. 375 (1925).
• Die Kreutzersonate Spread —Insel-Bucherei No. 375 (1925).
• You read best what you read most: An eye tracking study —testing Licko's claims about legibility.

>Tiny Tool

• Tiny Tools Directory —the wonderful directory maintained by Everest Pipkin. Over a thousand listings when last checked!
• BitFontMaker2 —created by Eiji Nishidai in 2011.

Toronto Metropolitan University's Centre for Digital Humanities
rbeatty@torontomu.ca