Comments for Ralf Herrmann: Wayfinding & Typography

Comment on The 10 best fonts from the Google Webfonts Directory by Rory

Rory — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:48:20 +0000

Nice collection, thanks for sharing.

Comment on How do we read words and how should we set them? by Erika

Erika — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:02:29 +0000

I’m not a linguist or studend of this sort of science, I work in education and I thought that was an interesting, clear and honest introduction of the topic. Its purpose sounds obvious to me.

Comment on Wayfinding observations: Landmarks and cardinal directions by Ralf Herrmann

Ralf Herrmann — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:34:12 +0000

Sure, GPS devices change the way we navigate thru a city dramatically. But the problem of “providing orientation within a spatial framework” is also not solved by such devices at the moment. There is still room for improvement.
And of course, at the moment, we cannot fully rely on such electronic devices – for example, if they don’t work in the subway …

Comment on Wayfinding observations: Landmarks and cardinal directions by Bagia Turca

Bagia Turca — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:27:54 +0000

Unfortunately it really doesn’t matter they way we start to think and design the wayfinding. They are studying that proved that people are using less the logic and the communication skills to help them self out. They completely rely on technology such as smart-phone, gps and so on. I’m base in London and I see tourists every single day. I noticed that quite a lot of them don’t even need to understand the tube map because they have all journey planned on the phone. Do you think is the case that designer start to embrace the technology and build beautiful applications instead than leave it to developers and web designer?

Comment on Rare Type Specimens at the Open Library (2012 update) by Wei

Wei — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:14:16 +0000

Great list, there is collection of scans in the “Silver Buckle Collction” from the University of Wisconsin Digital Collection http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SilverBuckle/Browse.html

includes the following:

Add “punch” to your printing with Hamilton wood type. 1951
American line type book: borders and ornaments price list, printing machinery and material. 1906
ATF Spartan: medium and italic.
Automatic white space.
Bauer types in use.
The Blue Streak Linotypes: master models 31 & 32.
The Blue Streak Linotypes: model fourteen.
Hamilton printing plant equipment / manufactured by Hamilton Manufacturing Company. Hamilton Manufacturing Co. (Two Rivers, Wis.) ([1922-1932])
Instruction on installation, care and operation of the chandler & price 10×15 and 12×18 craftsman press with rice automatic feeder 1934. Chandler & Price company (1934)
[Letter from Ray C. Cook, sales director of Hamilton Manufacturing Company regarding Hamilton wood type catalog no. 25]. Cook, Ray C. (1951)
La lettre d’imprimerie: origine, développement, classification & 12 notices illustrées sur les arts du livre. Thibaudeau, F (1921)
La lettre d’imprimerie: origine, développement, classification & 12 notices illustrées sur les arts du livre. Thibaudeau, F (1921)
Linotype news. 1963
Nickel-alloy type: Keystone Type Foundry. 1906
The Nubian: a new fashion in types.
Price list of printing type and typographic material. Mackellar, Smiths & Jordan Co (1891)
The printing arts: selected from a detailed description of all guilds. Sachs, Hans, Ammann, Jost (1968)
Two-series modernage typography introduced by the American Type Founders Company.
Type specimen book. Democrat Printing Co. (Madison, Wis.) ([1940])
Types: fancy metal rules and metal furniture too.
Wood 2. Morgan Press ([1964])
Wood type. Hamilton Manufacturing Co (1938)
Wood type. 1897
Woodcock’s printers’ and lithographers’ weekly gazette. 1881
Woodtype: selective emphasis for fine typography. 1960

Comment on Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface by Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:46:46 +0000

Ralf — Could you summarize in a sentence or two what the differences would be (as I’d like to understand)?

My considerations:
Large font at a distance.
People with varying eyesight.
Maximizing readability.
A font without “distractions” or flair to take away from the content.

I don’t put too many words on a slide, but when I do, I like them to be readable.

I’m doing a presentation today for more than 200 people and had been hunting around for something “different.” (Although, it’s much too late for me to be switching fonts, etc. now anyway — but I’d read through your excellent post with great interest).

Comment on Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface by Ralf Herrmann

Ralf Herrmann — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:38:02 +0000

Sure, it’s work in progress.
It’s not a screen font though. There are some similarities in terms of legibility, but making a screen font out of it, would be an entirely different project.

Comment on Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface by Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:34:43 +0000

Ralf — are you still planning on making this available? I see that this was posted nearly 2 1/2 years ago — I was interested in trying the font in some presentations to see if it helped with legibility for those who don’t sit as close to the screen.

Comment on Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface by Martijn de Heer

Martijn de Heer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:31:11 +0000

Amazing! Very nice how you designed it and those little changes but that make a big difference in legibility! Beautiful!

Comment on Using webfonts to insert characters or symbols in a website by Richard Fink

Richard Fink — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:32:59 +0000

Nice piece, Ralph. I’ve been thinking a lot about the unique possibilities provided by font stacks and so it was good to see somebody else also thinking – and doing quite creatively – along the same lines.

Rich

Comment on Using webfonts to insert characters or symbols in a website by Ralf Herrmann

Ralf Herrmann — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:23:54 +0000

Thanks for the mentions of the Unicode-Range feature. I was also using this in my demo in 2008 because Safari already supported it back then:
http://opentype.info/blog/2008/05/14/exploring-webfont-possibilities/

Still, it doesn’t work across all browsers either, so it doesn’t help in this regard.

Comment on Using webfonts to insert characters or symbols in a website by Crissov

Crissov — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:18:57 +0000

Did you try using

@font-face {
font-family: Droid Serif/*note: the same as usual */; 
unicode-range: U+1E9E;
src:url('dssz.eot'); src:url('dssz.eot.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'), url('dssz.eot.ttf') format('truetype');
} … 
foo {font-family: "Droid Serif"; Georgia, serif;}}

Comment on Using webfonts to insert characters or symbols in a website by batteur

batteur — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:24:28 +0000

Specifying fonts for special characters: “Creating Custom Font Stacks with Unicode-Range” http://24ways.org/2011/unicode-range

Comment on Dusty signs by Joel Mielke

Joel Mielke — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:02:33 +0000

Nice little video. I used to letter signs, but then I got into screenprinting for the trade (sign painters hate to screen print).
Vinyl just doesn’t look as sweet.

Comment on Using webfonts to insert characters or symbols in a website by Si

Si — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 02:19:22 +0000

>but certain browsers don’t always anti-alias

If you’re worried about these browsers (or more accurately OS’s / user settings) then you shouldn’t be using web fonts at all. Oh and be sure to set the gasp table properly.