It’s incredible how the variety of typefaces and styles in modern maps and atlassen is so poor compared to old xilographic ones.

For example Google maps (one of the moden most used maps) use only Helevetica in black with a white outline, as there is only one, or two typographic level to understand and analyze maps. Of course, the system interaction allow to display less information rather than the whole amount of informationa of a non scalable map, but still streets, monuments, rivers and so on are pointed with the same typography.
Unfortunately the same problem still persist also on lots of new digital printed maps, where the whole informations levels appear at he same time.
The bad habit using and being friendly with Google maps seems has changed the way of designing cartography so, nowadays, the typographic variety on maps are really poor, using a not fit for maps fonts and improving level separation using colors rather than forms.

The digital font market propose just one font designed expecially for cartography: the Cisalpin from linotype, designed by Felix Arnold.
The Swiss designer/typographer Felix Arnold designed Cisalpin during the late 1990s, after he had challenged himself to create a contemporary typeface that could be used for cartographic uses. He came to the subject of cartographic typefaces after analyzing many maps and atlases, and discovering that there was no standard typeface for these types of documents.

From the linotype website there is a short outline of typographic requirements of cartography wich Arnold desumed from his research:
- very legible at small sizes
- the various weights all clearly differentiated from one another
- narrowness. Words close in around themselves to help them become more identifiable
- durable letterforms. Letterfoms itselves have to maintain their readability when placed over complex backgrounds. They have open interior forms, flattened curves, tall x-heights, and a capital height that almost reaches the tops of the ascenders
- italic should have a very clear angle of inclination
- optimize each letterform in the family so that they cannot be easily mistaken for another. This again helps minimize the misunderstandings that often occur because of illegibility.

So why just one font on the market with only 4 weights? It seems we still need a wider font choice to cover all the problem a map can has.

Take for example this italian atlas (printed in 1945). In these picture we can recognize at more than 10 different styles, but still it seems the font stucture cames out from the same idea, as a kind of superfamily that cover all the information layers these maps need to show.

The most interesting solutions made by xilographers who have “typed” all words on maps are, in my opinion the back slanted font and this sort of connected italic. Sometimes the two styles are even mixed toghether generating a third original new font. Great!

The idea that cames out is that could be a sort of matrix for designing this superfamily where font structure, inclinations, serifs styles and connections mix and cross one with the other allowing to organize information just using typography (all text are always in balck).
For sure this is a good starting process to design a new font for maps, wich actually is the project I and some friend are leading during a type design class here in Milan at CFP Bauer School.

So stick around, good news are coming!
andren

In the Capitolium Temple of Brescia, recently opened to the public, it is possible to have a look to some Roman Inscriptions from Vespasiano’s Era. Their importance is due to their popular origins: in fact near Brescia, there are the second most important marble quarries in Italy, that’s why in Brescia almost everyone could afford a tombstone or a tablet, so the shape of the letters used by the middle class was similar to the one of the official letters, except for some different particulars. The Capitolium Temple will be opened until the 5th of may 2008 and the entrance is free: that’s a good opportunity to visit a place which is third only to Rome and Aquileia for the number of Roman Lapidary Inscriptions.

Gianluca Seta

I found a nice discussion on Typophile concerning colored sheet music. This thread has a lot in common with EXP researches (ancient maps, writing system and so on) and, as usual, ancient experiment on these fiels are always fashinating and incredibly innovative.
For example: take a look the image above.
This strange, brilliant, vellum page, one of six, is a manuscript of church music a good 1300 years old. Long the only known pages of their kind, these manuscripts have for fourteen years been the object of one of the most intensive joint research efforts ever made by Egyptologists and musicologist.
Recently this research uncovered one more such page in the Cairo Museum. Then from Beirut came word of a bound bellum text with similar symbols. The pages stand now as an early Christian Egyptian description of Ptolemy’s “harmony of the spheres.” This poetic and durable philosophy of sound-making planets dates back long before Christ - at least to Pythagoras and was already familiar when Shakespeare wrote “there’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest but in his motion like an angel sings.”
What the bright circles on this page (14″ by 15 3/4″ ) mean no one absolutely knows. To Dr. Eric Werner of the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, and to Dr. Ludlow Bull of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the dots at the left of the page, seven plus five spheres, represent heavenly bodies and musically interpret the zodiac.
The six words written on this page are in Coptic once the common tongue of Egyptian Christians. The Words at the top mean “Spiritual Music”. Those below and to the left mean “sacred hymnsinger.” Below these, a brief word states simply, “beginning,” and one at the foot of the page reads “end.”
Copyright © Barbara Hero 1996-2002

andren

My thesis deals with the design of a font for small size uses.
The intention is to build an innovative tool that can be a guide for this kind of projects. An instrument conceived to support the comprehension of the variables involved in the project, of their own specific importance and of the different ways they interact in the design process of a small size font. This tool allows the production fonts that change according to the selective values.
I have developed and experimented this model through the project of a real font. I have chosen these four variables as basic parameters in the construction of a font:
- shape
- weight
- width
- metric

This is very interesting because if  we put these values on four axes, we can interpolate it and see every different combination of our font.
The resultant font will undergo other optical modifications about:  
- internal angles     
- contrast   
- contour

This is a valid tool to analyse and control what kind of variables are important in order to design a font for small sizes.

Last week I had the opportunity to present some of the most interesting researches of progetto exp about programming and typography during the ‘Type Family’ workshop organized by Alexander Tarbeev in the faculty of Book Design at the Moscow Printing Arts University.
You can find the video of the speech here

(Eretica: a ‘work in progress’ typeface)

Many thanks to Elena Novoselova for inviting me and for giving to EXP this great opportunity
thank you

andren

The second step is to go back in time. Can these letters entered in traditional printing technologies?
So I have developed on a polymer (a chemical compound) two different kind of letters, one with dithering, for matte paper, and another version less close to the original digital one, but more versatile in all kind of papers.
I think the results are pretty good, and satisfying. Translating the process and bringing the appearence back into analogic.

step 1: the film

step 2: develop the film on the polymer

step 3: print!!

More images on my flickr page
Thanks to Lucio Passerini and all the staff @ CFP Bauer, Milan, June 07.

andren

For an open map everyone has is own solution.

Strict people starts to look at the existing folds trying to suppose the right way to recompose it.
Someone else, more bold or lazy, prefers to fold it always in a new way – but soon it’s impossible to get the original compactness.
In hurry ones are hopeless: after confused attempts they are entrapped.
Only few ones win this fight.

An oriental remedy suggests calm and space engineering. What???

A miura-ori map, with its interdependent and slanted angle folds (coming from a traditional origami method applied to the solar panels packing), allows you to open and close it in a simple consecutive movement.

Not too much happiness: with normal folder machines is not easy to realize a miura-ori map, it still needs handmade presence also in a serial production – so probably is too expansive to be preferred to a standard orthagonally-folded map.
Waiting for a cheaper mechanical solution (even if work seems in progress), you could built it on you own.

Maria Rosaria Digregorio

P.S. If a miura-ori map is not enough, why don’t you keep always with you a foldable globe? Good luck.

an open source project.

andren

Grundy & Northedge splits after 25 rich years, but still their work on infographic are very interesting for the high quality of illustration-information.
http://www.grundynorthedge.com/

Every company has a culture, but it can take time to learn, and the stated culturecan often differ significantly from what people actually experience.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/355002597/

A visual guide to making cocktails, unfortunately the photo has been taken in a very bad way so we can’t really appreciate the work, but still interesting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbryson/117630272/in/set-72057594090196496/

An eye on graphic news, a selection of some of the most interesting works from all over the world, the example #11 is the one I prefer about a lifesize human infographic, is it possible?
http://www.visualjournalism.com/

The monster engine. Take a look at how kid’schetches can became artistic illustrations. Marco Bucci & Dave Devrie’s works.
http://drawergeeks.com/Kid_Creatures/Kid_Creatures.html

Illustrations, Comics, Diagrams, Paintings, Maps and Secret Codes, affixed to the hidden plywood wall of a backyard fort with masking tape. Anything can inform thrugh graphic and visual language?
http://zettwoch.blogspot.com/

From the same blog: Mardi Gras Bingo / Cartoons vs. Pictograms a nice restyling of old bingo cards in a funny and smart way.
http://zettwoch.blogspot.com/2006/06/mardi-gras-bingo-cartoons-vs.html

Evolution of Speechballoons: During the 18th century, British caricaturists changed the shape of speechballoons from gothic speech-bands or flags into fluffy balloons, our modern speechballoons, changing the name in ‘labels’.
http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.speechballoons.evolution.html

Watermark design: what a nice landscape is our body, and how close to planet hearth is it! I wonder how could be the body of an alien caming from Mars…
http://www.watermark-design.com/illustration_heartmap.html

Words can speak volumes, but, as every letter writer knows, there are times when they simply won’t do. And when the author happens to be a visual artist, the results can be both intimate and transcendent.
http://www.papress.com/bookpage.tpl?isbn=1568985231&cart=112912551729641

A collection of vintage luggage label, awesome!
http://www.vintagelabels.org/

A periodic table of visualization developed by Ralph Lenger & Martin Eppler.
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

Swivel is a place where curious people explore all kinds of data with tons of diagrams and infographics.
http://www.swivel.com/

New York City Subway Smell Map: created from reports sent in by Gawker readers, the map displays particular smells - horrific and sublime - encountered throughout New York’s subway stations.
http://www.gawker.com/maps/smell/

Decodeunicode: Unicode 5.0 encodes 51,980 graphic characters on the Basic Multilingual Plane.
Here you can see them all.
Through a wiki function, we collect information on every single character:
What does it stand for? In which languages is it used? Since when has it been known?
http://www.decodeunicode.org

andren

Some days ago I litterally stumbled on a nice website taking jokes of the department of U.S. homeland security’s brochures. As safenow.org reports, the pictures used for this kind of propaganda are so ambiguos that could mean anything.
In case of emergency how can this pictograms be helpfull to us?
This is another story that proves this kind of comunication, a little far from traditional alphabets and grammars, is subjected to an amount of information everyone can’t really understand, for example because of losing of the traditional grammar stucture such as subject, verb, context and meaning.
The karate example works very well in this funny interpretation rather than the traditional “use the back of your hand to feel the lower, middle, and upper parts of closed doors,” and so on.

Is this more comic or dramatic? I hope noone would misunderstood too much the government advices, findind himself caught in the act of doing non sense things remembering only the visual content and forgetting the real meaning of the brochures.
Drawing doesn’t mean simplicity, and Pictionary can demonstrate how difficult is to translate language and comunication into a legible and universal image.
This is the a funny way to underline the limits of this project, probably.
On the other hand a single pictogram or icon can be more precised if contextualized, in the case of the brochure, and, if taken it out from that precised context, than the range of meanings, that could be awarded to, are wider, giving more freedom of codification to communication.
Try this at home, take a look at this .pdf (1, 2, 3, 4) and invent your own first absurd aid brochure!
A game is always funny, but an emergency doesn’t allowed too much attempts. andren