Alternate Characters & Fraternal Fonts

In the 70’s I had a letterpress shop. One of the type cabinets I purchased when I was setting it up had a couple of drawers of wood type. The press and the cabinets are gone but I did save some of the type including the wood. It is now stored in a wooden box which was originally made for holding floppy discs. I later used a few of the characters in paintings. The press used for printing these was my thumb. I used them again to set the title for this section of the slideshow. The second R in “Characters” appears to be a P, but actually it is an alternate R, a legitimate (although archaic) Roman character dating back to at least the sixth century bce. Lavinium, votive, castor & pollux, bronze, 6th century bce,

In the sixth century Roman writing was either right to left or boustrophedon. The image at the top is seen in the correct orientation. The enlargement has been flipped. The “P” here is used to represent the sound /r/. Alternate characters have been used in Western typography since the beginning. The font used for Gutenberg’s 42 line Bible contained many ligatures. Gutenberg must not have viewed them as alternates, but simply what was required to imitate the contemporary script. ava n t G a r D E

In the early days of phototypesetting, Herb Lubalin concocted Avant Garde used initially for Avant Garde magazine. It contained a large number of ligatures. ABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQ+R|STUVWXYZ ^ ‰ ⁄ ﬁ ¬ µ ∂ π ∫ |#<>¤~≈∏ﬂ±◊ abcdefghijklm¶ nopq=r\stuvwxyz ™ ∞  ı ® ß … ≠ ©

m a n t i n i a

In the early days of digital type Matthew Carter designed Mantinia which has ligatured and superscript capitals. The design is connected to the Italian Renaissance through the paintings of Andrea Mantegna. Mantinia used on the cover of a new magazine TipoItalia, designed and edited by Claudio Rocha. In recent years, OpenType has focussed attention on alternate characters. The availability of this functionality has precipitated efforts to find ways it might be used in typography using the roman alphabet. ��b��c��d�� e��f��g� ��h��i��j��k�� l��m��n��o�� p��q��r��s�� t��u��v�� w��x��y��z��z a p F i n o

In addition to ligatures, there is a strain of alternate characters associated with the manuals produced by writing masters starting in the 16th century. Some 20th cenury type designers have produced typefaces in this tradition. Hermann Zapf’s Zapfino is one. It has been used for many purposes...... including this one. ABCDEFGHIJ KLMNOPQRS TUVWXYZ bﬂhk&lpqz

a r e p o S Wa s h i ta L i c

I made this relatively subdued set of swash characters for Arepo Italic. Arepo Swash Italic used for a book jacket designed by Christopher Stinehour.

ag ag

t u FF t u F F s c h o o L

We do have two characters in mainstream roman typography which have alternate forms that have nothing to do with swashes or ligatures – the so-called one and two story a and g. Goodnight comb And goodnight brush Goodnight nobody Goodnight mush Goodnight stars Goodnight air Goodnight noises everywhere

One of the uses of the single-story characters is for setting children’s books. FRATERNAL o F nts

It is possible to make fonts that can be used independently, and also mixed together character by character.The title for this section of the slide show is set in two fonts, Magma Thin and Numa Thin Titling. The A and O are from Numa and the other characters are from Magma. library bibliotheca artEs wissensChaft humanitIES musica skulptur géologie storia & litterae a Æ b c d e fghijklmnoØŒpqrstuvwxyz àæbcdéfghîjklmñoøœpqrstüvwxyz < 1234567890>

b a s a LT

The seed for making such fonts began to germinate mentally in the nineties as I was working on Basalt, a typeface intended for signage. A single font containing two versions of the design – normal width capitals in their usual keystroke positions and narrower capitals in the lower case positions. In this sign the genus, Leucospermum, is set in the narrow characters. The species and everything else is normal width. The narrow version is intended to be condensed but not look condensed. ABCDEFGHIJKLMN ABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ OPQRSTUVWXYZ

m aG m a & m u n c

Magma is shown in dark orange. It has turned into a very large sans serif family which so far contains 51 different versions. Munc, the uncial cousin of Magma, is shown in the lighter color. BUY LOCAL BUY LOCAL

B, Y, and O from Magma. U, L, C, and A from Munc. ABCDEFGHIJKLMN ABCDEFGHIJKLMN ABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ OPQRSTUVWXYZ OPQRSTUVWXYZ n u m a i ota , m aG m a & m u n c

NumaIota (not released) is shown in red. ORGANIC ORGANIC

All three fonts are used here. O and G from NumaIota, I and C from Magma, R, A, and N from Munc.

BUY LOCAL ORGANIC PRODUCE notes

Castor and Pollux images from Friggeri, Rosanna, ed., The Epigraphic Collection of the Museo Nazionale Romano at the Baths of Diocletian, (Milan: Electa, 2001). “Goodnight” text taken from Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Botanical sign designed by Andrew Keith Strauss.