Creating typefaces isn’t as easy as you might think...

A drawing from a sketchbook, exploring the possibilities of the phonetic alphabet...

One of the things I have struggled with as a type designer is explaining what I do for a living. This was especially true when I was starting out. I might be at a party with my girlfriend, now my wife, and we would be meeting some new people for the first time. At some point, one of these people would ask, “So Cyrus, what is your job?” I lived in particular fear of this question. I knew it would involve a lot of explanation about what a typeface is, how drawing them really is my job, and that it ...

The history of screen fonts is also the history of electronic authoring, design and publishing on computers. For over 30 years, from early electronic publishing, to the Internet of publishing today, screen fonts have proved of growing concern to users and publishers. What’s good? Or more appropriately: What are good options that should be available to users? Or to “Our” users?

Personal computers began with aliased screen fonts, otherwise known as black and white, or just plain bitmaps. In the mid-90’s Adobe introduced a version of Adobe Type Manager which produced anti-aliased type. Then in 1999, as Apple released its tenth operating system, anti-aliased type came to the Mac. Microsoft announced its own anti-aliased type rendering in 1999, then included various anti-aliasing options in Windows starting in 2002, and now, Microsoft’s most recent OS release contains anti-aliased type by default and a collection of fonts made especially for the purpose.