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The Mystery of the Dune Font
- enriquto 4y agoNone of these covers shows "the" Dune font, for me. The first edition of Dune had a very stylized calligraphy that looked like arabic. I remember it vividly since my dad had this book in the living room, among others; and when I was learning to read, this was the only cover that I couldn't read at all. (It was a translation, but with the same cover.) These letters are shown on the wikipedia page about the novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29 EDIT: The covers of some modern french translations are also incredible. Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and effective design.
- dunefox 4y agoThat's not arabic, rather just cursive.
- xwdv 4y agoMany children have grown up these days without learning cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts they think Arabic first.
- dymk 4y agoGiven the Arakkis language is based on Arabic, I would not be surprised that the typographic design of Dune fonts is supposed to evoke a feeling of Arabic
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoMy grandmother noticed graffiti tags, which are very ornate generally, and concluded that they were written in arabic.
- caskstrength 4y ago> Many children have grown up these days without learning cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts they think Arabic first. Wait, are you saying that children in US schools write in block letters these days? That must be slow!
- IIsi50MHz 4y agoContrary to what olduns would have us believe, cursive is NOT [fundamentally] faster than printing. Rather, the people who have trouble 'printing' quickly seem to be those who rarely 'print' their letters. Also interesting to me that, among people who use cursive, both difficulty producing legible cursive and complaining about being unable to read somebody's cursive (sometimes their own) seems more common.
- caskstrength 4y ago> Contrary to what olduns would have us believe, cursive is NOT [fundamentally] faster than printing. Do you have links to back that up? Due to my illegible cursive I often fill all kinds of forms in block letters and definitely _feel_ that it is much slower.
- IIsi50MHz 4y agoI'd start by saying that illegible writing should be a disqualifier for comparison of speed. Slow down until it's legible! Some factors affecting which writing method is fastest for you, (while remaining legible to others and your later self, include which one you use the most, and drippiness of the ink. Runny ink (or paint!) can be more prone to blotches, soak-through, and other blemishes, especially when printing, lending itself better to constant movement and cursive. You may find that a hybrid of semi-joined and unjoined lettering fastest. I do not recommend shorthand if someone else will have to read it; shorthand is notoriously variant between practioners. Anecdata from people I've talked to or my own experience about writing faster than cursive users in our cohorts won't help anybody much. Nor will my discovery that straight-stroke runes allowed me to keep up when taking notes from a particularly fast-talking history teacher. So, about the request for links… (-: The link I reached for returned 404, and isn't in Archive.org (one truncated PDF file, which won't open), so I went digging. Wellll… raking, more like. Mostly, I found articles and posts claiming either "cursive is faster" or "no conclusive evidence for any claimed benefits of cursive". Consequently, I turned to: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cursive https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cursive Of the 7 relevant-seeming papers I've read so far, and another 4 grepped, I'm seeing (1) tiny cohorts with either no significant speed difference or small improvement with cursive, (2) usually turned out to be testing the wrong thing (like how fast a cohort's speed with one method improved, without comparison to any other method; or whether teaching one or another method affected the subjects' ability to read in general), (3) sometimes no attempt to account for legibility. For me, all the extra loops and curves seem to conspire to make me fit less writing in the same space and use more ink/pencil/whatever.
- esrauch 4y agoI'm old enough to have mainly used cursive in school and I definitely had the thought that it seemed like a vaguely arabic-inspired cursive when I saw it the flourishes on the D.
- landhar 4y agoThe flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I was taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at school. I remember (as a kid) thinking it was odd that to write a `D` one had to start by writing an `I`, but never questioned it. But from looking at examples of cursive on google images, it seems like that form is no longer as prominent.
- b112 4y agoThe flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I was taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at school. We've now established that you went to school in Arab, and this is why you wrote D in Arabic, for at no point did you counter this logic. (I am using chatgpt reasoning here)
- peepee1982 4y agoI disagree. The wide gamut in line thickness and the orientation of it is typical for Arabic fonts, but not for cursive ones. Personally, this kind of line reminds me of a arab dagger even.
- drivers99 4y agoThe variations in line thickness are exactly what you’d get with a calligraphy pen (and pens before ball points like fountain pens, quills) and are a function of the consistent direction of the pen and the smoothly varying direction the line is being written. So you will see it in all old pen/quill writing styles.
- peepee1982 4y agoNo, not like this. You'd get a different kind of variation in line thickness. That was the main point of my comment, but apparently I didn't explain it well.
- SamBam 4y agoBut quite clearly designed to draw a connection to the Bedouin-inspired Fremen, and general North African-like setting.
- ernesth 4y ago> EDIT: The covers of some modern french translations are also incredible. Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and effective design. Indeed, the Robert Laffont 2020 edition looks great: https://www.noosfere.org/livres/EditionsLivre.asp?numitem=1330 https://www.noosfere.org/livres/EditionsLivre.asp?numitem=13...
- wazoox 4y agoYes the metal cover with forms changing with the light are great, look almost like holograms, extremely SciFi! The static pictures can't make them justice.
- smithza 4y agoI was wondering where I got that copy. My old one had its binding failed and I purchased this Robert Laffont special edition (an email promo maybe?). Thanks for pointing it out for me.
- Semaphor 4y ago> Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and effective design. For those interested: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/P/B08HPFCMLS.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_SX500_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/P/B08HPFCMLS.01._SCLZZZZZZ...
- Zecc 4y agoSee also: Sun Microsystems' logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun-Logo.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun-Logo.svg
- Cockbrand 4y agoWhen I went to my first computer fair as a teenager, I saw the Sun Microsystems booth and was blown away by the fantastic logo. As I had never seen a Unix machine before, I didn’t know what to do with the computers on display, though.
- noisy_boy 4y agoThe very first Unix I was exposed to was from Sun; I remember seeing the logo on their servers and thinking that those were the most beautiful computers I had seen (which isn't much because I had hardly seen any servers before that). I still remember that one of those came with a key (forgot whether to turn it on or lock the power button panel?)
- BadOakOx 4y ago> Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. This is what they went with for the movie posters too: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Dune_%282021_film%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Dune_%282021_... ...although, they cheated a bit with the E. EDIT: Here is a better resolution: https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2sxSn0jjjQoIIZfZjC6j5GZkMVR.jpg https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2sxSn0jjjQoIIZfZjC6j5GZk... :)
- wkat4242 4y agoIt reminds me a bit of a visit to the optician :)
- thisOtterBeGood 4y agoDUNC :D:D They went for the right decision there, I wouldn't call it cheating. It's a nice to incorporate the importance/uniqueness of that planet in the dune world. They could've just went for a horizontal line/pipe and noone wouldve cared.
- n1b0m 4y agoThat makes sense given Herbert borrowed heavily from Middle Eastern, Islamic mythology
- derbOac 4y agoThanks for pointing that out, as I had almost forgotten about that first edition. I was trying to remember where I had heard of Chilton, the publisher of the first edition, and realized it was automotive manuals! The story of that first edition is interesting and somewhat sad, although maybe edifying and not alone in publishing and other forms of narrative arts.
- serallak 4y agoI remember reading that, because the editor was as you said better know for its technical manuals, a friend of Herbert joked that maybe they thought to publish an Ornithopter maintenance guide.
- sandworm101 4y agoI liked the original cover because it is the only one with a truly alien landscape. Once the movies started being discussed, Dune became and an earth desert with earth-like sandstone rocks. Look at the rocks in the original cover. They were different enough to clearly not be from earth geology.
- dvh 4y agoI have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's advice how to approach these books: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569
- jonah-archive 4y agore the advice in that post -- I completely agree but I would say that if you enjoy God Emperor (I do, deeply), between that and Heretics go read _The Dune Encyclopedia_, which is a hard-to-find paperback but an easy-to-find PDF written as an in-universe encyclopedia set after God Emperor. Yes, some things in it are contradicted by the remaining two books, but it adds such a powerful structure to the extant universe in a remarkably satisfying way.
- mathieuh 4y agoI've read the Frank Herbert Dune books back-to-back several times and love them all, but I've never tried his son's additions to the series because I've read a few people saying they're not worth the time. Do you agree?
- dunefox 4y agoIt's just Dune fan fiction...
- giantrobot 4y agoIt's just a model!
- latch 4y agoI'm not the parent, but I've also read all the original 6 books a great number of times, as well as about 7 or 8 of the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune books, and I'd say they aren't worth it. They largely explain things that, as far as I'm concerned, didn't need explaining. As you probably know, they wrote a 2 book conclusion to the series. These 2 books largely tie the Frank Herbert Dune universe with the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune universe. And that seemed quite forced to me and, cynically, felt like an attempt to force you to read their Dune prequel trilogy (because otherwise, you'll be WTF is Erasmus?) I feel like Frank Herbert, being an immensely better writer, would have been able to conclude the series without forcing a prequel trilogy onto readers. It wasn't until I read some of the more immediate books (universe time-wise) from the duo that I came to appreciate how effortless Frank Herbert's writing is. Gurney Halleck is loyal, he just is. And that loyalty is clearly based on respect for the Duke, being on the side of "good", and a hate for the Harkonnen. We don't need a justification for Halleck's devotion. It's pure and effortless character development. The duo doesn't have that seem ease of writing, so instead we get the back story, torture and rape (lazy themes) that tainted the character/original work.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThat Dune Calendar from 1978 would work for this year too. Wonder if there's high quality scans available? Edit: Reasonable scan here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/bh17j5/the_dune_calendar_1978/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/bh17j5/the_dune_calen...
- mustacheemperor 4y agoWow, the artwork is just beautiful. I wish this could get a re-release now that the new movies are introducing Dune to a new audience.
- prepend 4y ago> Strangely enough, the name of this typeface is barely known even among die-hard fans. This doesn’t seem strange to me at all. I’m a fan of many books and I don’t know the name of any of the typefaces. I think it’s funny that this author links fandom for fonts to fandom for Dune and thinks people interested in Dune are also interested in typefaces. I like this article and was curious about the distinctive “dune font.” But not enough to Google it in the past 40 years.
- narag 4y agoMaybe he meant typography die-hard fans.
- prepend 4y agoPerhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans. I would think most typography fans wouldn’t even be aware of Dune.
- narag 4y agoTo be honest, the same sentence caught my eye. I can imagine there are some fans of both Dune and Typography. But it's more probable that it's due to some effect I've been observing for a while. Not sure if it has a name, all these pieces of Internet wisdom have a name, like "Gell-Man Amnesia", "Godwin's Law"... maybe I could call it narag's effect? I mean that any YouTube channel or Instagram account, that has some niche topic as focus, tend to greatly exagerate what is considered a normal engagement with such topic. As an example, most persons own one watch and one perfume, if any. If you want to buy a new wristwatch or perfume and do your little research, you'll find reviewers that own hundreds of perfumes or dozens of watches, some of them ridiculously expensive. Why? You can create a channel that helps the viewers to choose their one and only cheap purchase, but good luck monetizing that. You need recurring visitors, to improve your watching times. Brand deals also require you are able to send whales to the vendors. The noble art of Typography and a blog seem a little too sober of a setup to fit that description, but who knows, I'm sure there are pros very passionate about typesetting. https://www.quotes.net/mquote/907087 https://www.quotes.net/mquote/907087
- GNOMES 4y agoIs there a name for the art style depicted on these covers? They're beautifully done
- sandworm101 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco The covers are a 1960s minimalist deco design. Abrupt geometric shapes, the sort of stuff that is easily printed/viewed using the tech of the time. The colors are solid and few, which make printing easy. The colors are also not absolutely necessary. The shapes come through equally well in black and white media. And if you want to look good on the low-res TV of the time, you go with big solid shapes. No doubt these factors contributed to the redesign of the original cover. Contrast the posters and covers of todays media. They like to hide lots of little detail, perhaps to promote the use of higher/brighter media formats. That's why FIFA got rid of the old soccer balls.
- GNOMES 4y agoI normally see Art Deco in reference to buildings, furniture, and cars. Guess I never actually looked at Art Deco paintings/images before.
- TheRealPomax 4y agoSorry, are we looking at the same covers? There is no 1960s minimalism in the original covers, they are fairly detailed 1970's scifi surrealism.
- ChickenNugger 4y agoReminds me of https://typesetinthefuture.com/ https://typesetinthefuture.com/ This one was my introduction to the site: https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/12/01/alien/ https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/12/01/alien/
- pklausler 4y agoI always enjoy seeing the "Dune" font in unexpected places, such as the logo of the Washington Square Mall in the western burbs of Portland (OR), and wonder whether there's a Herbert fan somewhere with a sense of accomplishment for having used it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mrybczyn 4y agoSince you've mentioned FONTS and SCIFI, you must now read: https://typesetinthefuture.com/ https://typesetinthefuture.com/ the blog, and the book!
- randomcarbloke 4y agoThe original "the power of failing" font is lost.