3 ms·

Took me 5 years to do this font

17 points by rustoffee 10y ago

saycheese 10y ago
Anyone understand what the author meant by: >> "If you want to be blown away by the power of context, just apply the 3 levels of IVO [Level 1 for the 1st paragraph, Level 2 for the 2nd paragraph and Level 3 for the 3rd paragraph], and you will see how you can read something that just feels so strange." Which is a reference to the text in this image: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*7Q6MjyIt2b-P9Eyixnzmsg.jpeg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*7Q6MjyIt2b-P9Eyix...
- iamthebest 10y ago
  If you follow the author's link and download the font, there are three separate available fonts: Ivo_Lvl1-Normal.otf, Ivo_Lvl2-Normal.otf and Ivo_Lvl3-Normal.otf. The graphic you linked to is rendered in Ivo_Lvl3-Normal.otf.
  - saycheese 10y ago
    Thanks, though if true, what paragraphs is the author talking about? Generally speaking, I'm trying to understand what the "power of context" means to the author - and assuming this example explains; though it's possible it does not.
    - theoh 10y ago
      I'm guessing he means "you wouldn't be able to read these wacky characters in isolation, but in a body of text you can infer which Latin character each represents". It's not unlike the sense of "context" of Context Mixing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_mixing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_mixing In the case of a human attempting to read his text, the context could be considered to include semantic hints, knowing how many letters are in the current word, etc. Edit: The paragraphs he refers to may be those rendered in italics in the preceding section of the article, but their content is not important in any case.
      - saycheese 10y ago
        Makes sense, reminds me of these (hoax) meme on mixing letters within words: https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ Unclear how this font in question addressed any real issues though; interested in the topic though, since I'm not aware on any science-based font system.
        theoh 10y ago
        Typeface design is a generally an intuitive, convention-based activity without much of a scientific theory behind it. (see http://www.typotheque.com/articles/the_science_of_typography http://www.typotheque.com/articles/the_science_of_typography ) The designer Phil Baines used a strategy of subtracting elements from each character to design a difficult-but-possible-to-read font in the 90s called You Can Read Me. It was actually inspired by an experiment by Brian Coe which was reproduced in a book from 1968 called The Visible Word by Herbert Spencer. You get the idea--the development of typefaces is quite a slow moving activity which owes a lot to the subjective judgements of idiosyncratic personalities, usually male. Over the last century there has been a minority of practitioners who strive for scientific rigor, though. "[The Visible Word] is a major contribution to legibility studies and presents a summary of over one hundred years’ worth of investigations by one of the UK’s most influential typographers. Spencers extraordinarily detailed 24 page bibliography is testimony to his investigation. The visible word is part of a programme of research into the readability of print in information publishing. In this book legibility is explored with equal thoroughness and objectivity. Resulting in the fact that people read most easily the kind of lettering they are used to. Although this may seem obvious in todays comprehensive documentation of the topic, much was learned from his lucid demonstration." http://www.designers-books.com/the-visible-word-herbert-spencer-1968/ http://www.designers-books.com/the-visible-word-herbert-spen... I'm not sure where to find "today's comprehensive documentation" of legibility and I suspect that it is a little tedious and empirical... But as an example, here's some more up-to-date research+bibliography in this article: http://gaultney.org/jvgtype/wp-content/uploads/BalanLegEcon.pdf http://gaultney.org/jvgtype/wp-content/uploads/BalanLegEcon....
        10y ago
jstewartmobile 10y ago
Butterick's "Practical Typography" gave me a new appreciation for fonts (http://practicaltypography.com/ http://practicaltypography.com/), and this guy seems every bit as passionate about them. For bringing fonts to the web, here are a few things that helped me a lot: - sfnt2woff/woff2sfnt for classic woff - Google's woff2 programs (https://github.com/google/woff2 https://github.com/google/woff2) for woff2 - fontforge for tweaks and fixes (http://designwithfontforge.com http://designwithfontforge.com)

17 points by rustoffee 10y ago

Anyone understand what the author meant by: >> "If you want to be blown away by the power of context, just apply the 3 levels of IVO [Level 1 for the 1st paragraph, Level 2 for the 2nd paragraph and Level 3 for the 3rd paragraph], and you will see how you can read something that just feels so strange." Which is a reference to the text in this image: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*7Q6MjyIt2b-P9Eyixnzmsg.jpeg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*7Q6MjyIt2b-P9Eyix...

iamthebest 10y ago
If you follow the author's link and download the font, there are three separate available fonts: Ivo_Lvl1-Normal.otf, Ivo_Lvl2-Normal.otf and Ivo_Lvl3-Normal.otf. The graphic you linked to is rendered in Ivo_Lvl3-Normal.otf.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Thanks, though if true, what paragraphs is the author talking about? Generally speaking, I'm trying to understand what the "power of context" means to the author - and assuming this example explains; though it's possible it does not.
  - theoh 10y ago
    I'm guessing he means "you wouldn't be able to read these wacky characters in isolation, but in a body of text you can infer which Latin character each represents". It's not unlike the sense of "context" of Context Mixing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_mixing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_mixing In the case of a human attempting to read his text, the context could be considered to include semantic hints, knowing how many letters are in the current word, etc. Edit: The paragraphs he refers to may be those rendered in italics in the preceding section of the article, but their content is not important in any case.
    - saycheese 10y ago
      Makes sense, reminds me of these (hoax) meme on mixing letters within words: https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ Unclear how this font in question addressed any real issues though; interested in the topic though, since I'm not aware on any science-based font system.
      - theoh 10y ago
        Typeface design is a generally an intuitive, convention-based activity without much of a scientific theory behind it. (see http://www.typotheque.com/articles/the_science_of_typography http://www.typotheque.com/articles/the_science_of_typography ) The designer Phil Baines used a strategy of subtracting elements from each character to design a difficult-but-possible-to-read font in the 90s called You Can Read Me. It was actually inspired by an experiment by Brian Coe which was reproduced in a book from 1968 called The Visible Word by Herbert Spencer. You get the idea--the development of typefaces is quite a slow moving activity which owes a lot to the subjective judgements of idiosyncratic personalities, usually male. Over the last century there has been a minority of practitioners who strive for scientific rigor, though. "[The Visible Word] is a major contribution to legibility studies and presents a summary of over one hundred years’ worth of investigations by one of the UK’s most influential typographers. Spencers extraordinarily detailed 24 page bibliography is testimony to his investigation. The visible word is part of a programme of research into the readability of print in information publishing. In this book legibility is explored with equal thoroughness and objectivity. Resulting in the fact that people read most easily the kind of lettering they are used to. Although this may seem obvious in todays comprehensive documentation of the topic, much was learned from his lucid demonstration." http://www.designers-books.com/the-visible-word-herbert-spencer-1968/ http://www.designers-books.com/the-visible-word-herbert-spen... I'm not sure where to find "today's comprehensive documentation" of legibility and I suspect that it is a little tedious and empirical... But as an example, here's some more up-to-date research+bibliography in this article: http://gaultney.org/jvgtype/wp-content/uploads/BalanLegEcon.pdf http://gaultney.org/jvgtype/wp-content/uploads/BalanLegEcon....
        10y ago

jstewartmobile 10y ago

Butterick's "Practical Typography" gave me a new appreciation for fonts (http://practicaltypography.com/ http://practicaltypography.com/), and this guy seems every bit as passionate about them. For bringing fonts to the web, here are a few things that helped me a lot: - sfnt2woff/woff2sfnt for classic woff - Google's woff2 programs (https://github.com/google/woff2 https://github.com/google/woff2) for woff2 - fontforge for tweaks and fixes (http://designwithfontforge.com http://designwithfontforge.com)