Type classifications are useful, but the common ones are not

http://kupferschrift.de/cms/2012/03/on-classifications/

kupferschrift *

Type classications are useful, but the

common ones are not
Verffentlicht am: 31 . MRZ 2012

This is an article I wrote for the publication about the conference

Research in Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts Kattowice where I
gave a talk on the subject in January 2012. Please excuse the lack of
illustrations. I will try to add some later, but usually those are empty
promises as you can see in other posts on this site. Estimated reading
time: 16 minutes

It is a recurring phenomenon that we tend to sort what comes in large
amounts to be able to grasp it, for quicker reference, and to nd it back
more easily. Once organized, you dont have to look at everything all the
time but only consult the parts of your current interest. The vast world
of type is a prime case. Grouping typefaces also breaks down the process
of identifying them into a less challenging task.
Any categorization covers three aspects: 1. sorting in (this is what
scholars and historians do, also type manufacturers), 2. reference
(educating) and 3. taking out or nding back (this is what the user
usually does). The aspect of nding a typeface though is crucial to many
more people, every day, than the act of classifying them. You sort your
CDs once and then only look at the respective shelf when you want to
listen to Jazz in particular. This is why I think a (more) useful
classication is one that helps the user to nd and select typefaces and
which is structured accordingly.

What happened?

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Assigning names to typefaces and classifying them is a rather new

occurrence in our 560 years of type. In the beginning, i.e. the rst 400
WordPress
years of typography, typefaces didnt even have specic names. Foundries
and printers called them by their size (which actually were names like
Paragon, Great Primer, Nonparaille, not numbers). All type looked
more or less the same anyway and was suitable for more or less the same
jobs continuous text. If a printer had more than one version of a roman
text face available they gave them dierent numbers, e.g. Great Primer
Roman No.2.
Then the industrial revolution happened. And with it the wish for louder
and more eye-catching typefaces than regular Bodoni at 24 pt. Plenty of
ashy new designs were invented, numerous variations in style and
jobbing type were starting to get available. With this, people saw the
need to give the novel things terms to communicate about them. But
which? Most typefaces werent based on historic models where you could
derive terminology from.
So type foundries all invented their own, more or less arbitrary
designations for their new styles, e.g. Egyptian (because everything
Egypt was super en vogue after Napoleon came back from his campaign),
Gothic or Grotesque (because that new alien style seemed weird) for
sans serif typefaces or Ionic, Doric and Antique for slab serifs. Not
only the designs were becoming more individual but also the
terminology, resulting in the problem that names were not universally
understood anymore. Terms were determined by marketing, not by style
or historic roots.
Still, the actual typefaces themselves were not given individual names
like today. A foundry rarely had more than two or three French
Clarendons on oer and an easy solution was to just number them.
Until around 1900 only the slightest to no attempts where made to sort or
classify typefaces. Rather it was considered redundant, impossible or
utterly inconvenient. One of the earliest endeavors was the system
proposed by Francis Thibaudeau in 1921. It is solely based on the form of
the serifs (as later did Aldo Novarese in 1964), which I regard less ideal,
but up until this stage in type history, it admittedly was a characteristic
feature picturing the dierent style periods rather ttingly. [schemes
for Uppercase and Lowercase]
By the mid 20th century, with new type issued weekly, it became
increasingly dicult to keep put with the developments and to obtain a
working knowledge of the countless variants known. For the rst time
classication was regarded as a problem and serious eorts were made to
establish a systematic approach to sort typefaces and to come up with an

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international solution.
The Thibaudeau system was developed further by Maximilian Vox (born
Samuel William Thodore Monod) who published his version in 1954.
Continuing with the same main groups as Thibaudeau, Vox unique
invention are terms for groups derived from the names of the most iconic
printers / examples (Garalde, Didone) or techniques (Manuale).
The Vox-system was slightly modied taken over by the ATypI
(Association Typographique Internationale) in 1960 and later
internationally adopted as a standard. Adapted versions were published
by the German DIN in 1964 and as a British Standard in 1967.

The limitations of those systems
An ever growing market for typefaces and countless new variants in style
show that the old systems like Vox put too much emphasize on the
historical order and the early seried typefaces. At the same time they
generalize greatly when it comes to sans and slabs. This is
understandable when we regard the age they were created in. The popular
and inuential neo-grotesques of the late 1950s like Helvetica and
Univers werent even issued back then and the international style and
with it the surge of sans serif type was just starting to take o.
The original idea of Vox was to enable the combination of dierent
groups and terms, like e.g. to have a Garalde sans serif (= humanist sans).
This alas was never really implemented apart from variations in the
British Standard and additional explanatory text for the DIN
classication. A similarly overlooked detail is that ATypI originally
suggested the simple structure to be further subdivided by their
members / the dierent countries to their liking. ATypI also did not
dene the terminology since this was the point especially hard to agree
on. Instead they assigned numbers to each group to allow comparison and
the translation of dierent adaptions.
Unfortunately, those ideas are largely forgotten. In fact now with a fully
international market and type community we see that it is exactly the
diverse terminology that became a big obstacle. Neither the terms coined
by the type foundries nor the ones used in published classication
systems are anywhere near being internationally compatible. For
example the French call sans-serif faces Antique, the Germans Grotesk,
the Americans Gothic which on the other hand is the term for blackletter
in European countries.
Unambiguous terminology might now be even more important than a

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coherent, rational approach to sort typefaces. Because before we even

attempt to achieve a classication, we have to be able to communicate
about type and letterforms with all parties involved designers,
printers, compositors, students, manufacturers, scholars, engineers and
perhaps even laymen.

Two (new) different ideas
There are two dierent approaches of classifying which I regard more
practical.
1. Classification according to form model
This is an idea based on the writing and letter-theories of Gerrit Noordzij
which I rst put together after learning calligraphy and typeface design
in the Netherlands. It doesnt follow Noordzijs terminology exactly but
his inspired me in the search for more generic terms, not connected to
a certain style period, because I found that the historic ones can cause
quite some confusion among beginners. What makes a brand new font an
Old Style typeface and one from 1790 a Modern? Or what does Humanist,
Renaissance and Garalde mean here anyway?
I expanded Noordzijs theories into a layered system comparable to
bones, esh and skin. Most text typefaces can be dierentiated
according to a small number of basic form models. You could call these
the bones or skeletons of a typeface. Those principles of form are largely
determined by the former writing tools e.g. the broad nib or pointed
nib and how the stroke contrast originally came into being.
1. dynamic, humanist form model: forms (contrast and structure)
derived from writing with a broad-nib pen. Noordzij calls this type
of contrast translation.
2. rational, modern form model: forms derived from writing with a
pointed pen = expansion
3. geometric form model: rather drawing the linear skeleton form with
a round pen, like in Futura = no contrast
These three models, the underlaying structural principles, are also
visible in the letter forms when you reduce the stroke contrast or remove
serifs. They determine the impression and the application of a typeface
to a very large extent. Of course, a beginning designer doesnt understand
terms like expansion or broad-nib pen any easier than French
Renaissance. But what most of us can agree on is the general appearance
of character shapes:
1. Writing with a broad-nib, held at a consistent angle, delivers an

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inclined course of contrast, open apertures and divers stroke width.

This gives the letters a dynamic and varied general form and feel
(also in the italics and caps, which follow the proportions of the
Capitalis).
2. In writing with a pointed pen, the thickness of the stroke is related
to the pressure put upon the nib during a downstroke, while other
strokes remain thin. The axis is vertical with high but less
modulated contrast and rather closed apertures. This gives the
letters a more static, sti impression. The letter forms (e.g. q, p, d,
b) and the proportions of the characters are rather similar,
especially the width of the caps.
3. the round nib renders linear, more drawn looking constructed
forms (e.g. circular o) like in Futura or monoline scripts. Caps often
follow the classical proportions of Capitalis.

The second level the esh is about the equipment and features
applied to the skeleton of a typeface. Those are serifs and stroke
contrast, either strongly visible or just a slight contrast to achieve the
impression of optical linearity. The actual form of the serifs triangular,
bracketed or straight is not as determining in my mind as it was for
Thibaudeau. One can incorporate these specic dierences into the third
layer of descriptives.

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Click to enlarge
The third, the skin level, gives us the possibility to introduce an innite
number of ner dierentiations between the main groups of typefaces to
describe even the most singular feature someone could ever look for.
Descriptives can address dierent forms of serifs, like bracketed or
straight serifs in the traditional categories of rational serifs, Scotch
Modern and Didone, or ornamented ones. Also decorative features like
stencil, inline, shadow are possible or terms related to style or
application like western, horror, comic or agate, typewriter, low-res are
possible. This detailed graduation can also be seen as a collection of tags.
With this set at hand, all kind of typefaces can be easily described by
combining the terms of the groups, just like Vox imagined it, too. A
Tuscan typeface for example could be characterized as a face with modern
skeleton, little stroke-contrast, bi-furcated serifs, western-style,
chromatic, poster, decorative, shadow, display and so forth. Okay, this
is probably not the unique, dedicated term most of us would like to have
at their disposal for typefaces, but they describe the typeface
appropriately.
The big advantage I see in this system is that the groups relate to the
impression and to some extent also use of the typefaces. It is relatively
easy to assign atmospheric keywords to the form models, like warm,
open, friendly to the humanist model and rather regular, strict, formal
to the rational form model. This helps the selection of typefaces
enormously, because the impression and atmosphere you want to achieve
is usually what you think of rst when you start looking for a typeface.
At least I do. Also, it aids combining typefaces as all fonts that stand in
one vertical column here combine well and harmoniously, whereas
mixing the horizontal neighbors is more tricky. If you are looking for a
more contrasting combinations you can pair the typefaces diagonally. So,
either stay in one form model or go for lots of dierence.

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This system was published in German speaking reference books and since
then is relatively widely used in Germany. However, it is not awless and
sometimes dicult to adapt for real-life applications. The terminology
stays my main construction site. Do people actually understand what is
meant by dynamic and static? The latter was my replacement term
for the initial rational but right now I tend to get back to it again,
because I have a hard time describing a rationalized english roundhand or
modern italic as static.
Also, one could argue that the problem of any taxonomical approach is,
that a typeface can only be one of those things even if we think of it
more like piles or fraying clusters and less of self-contained drawers. Its
not realistic to say that a typeface can only be serif or sans given the
numerous semi-sans and semi-serif examples. In the same way do we
know typefaces who happily live in the middle of the humanist and the
rational form models. So, where to put those? Id advocate to place them
on the play-board near what determines the feel of the typeface most,
even if we give up immaculate grouping for that. An alternative would be
to introduce more piles or to nd a way to assign a typeface to more than
just one group or descriptive, like you can do in a database environment.
One would think that an interactive system solves exactly this problem
but actually the adaption for FontShops applications was rather tricky.
My system works surprisingly well as a simple list, because it brings the
chronological order of the rst few groups out more clearly. It works
okay in a matrix, especially because you can change the axises (form
models in horizontal order or vertical) and enter it from dierent
sides. But sorting over 7500 typefaces from the FontShop catalog into a
customized classication I made for their iPad app was a challenging acid
test. The main reason for my problems was the set-up of their database
though, which only allowed typefaces to be assigned to one class. This
ultimately proved me that the world of type is not as simple (anymore).

2. Micro-Classification or tagging
A possible solution to this problem and another approach I grew very
fond of in the last years is the micro-classication you can call tagging.
It is at rst a non hierarchical approach, which makes it far more exible
and user-centred, often even user generated. You could call it a
democratic take on classication. If people subjectively regard this
typeface as holiday or girlish, then why not have them nd the
typeface with those keywords. The problem with tags added by users
though, or also by marketing people, is monitoring. I did this voluntarily
for MyFonts in the past extensively (besides tagging typefaces) and was

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just stunned at times by the silly and ridiculous tags that were
occasionally added to fonts.
Tagging of course works more or less only in a (interactive) database
environment. The most consequent example for it might be the MyFonts
website, but also other type vendors work with a similar system more or
less successfully. Here, the browsing or search interface is crucial, as you
see in the example of fonts.com with its long, unstructured list of
keywords. What is most confusing here on a page they call
classication are keywords like serif, script or simplied
chinese next to scary on the same level. In my opinion, it would be
practical to oer tags in a basic hierarchical order as an entry point to all
those dierent styles of typefaces, dierent levels of keywords. For
example displaying serif a dierent level of tag than holiday.
Speaking to type manufacturers though I got an additional view. Some
told me that sales went up signicantly after they added more tags, and
more informal tags that is. So, what should you do when you see that
people nd the typefaces they want this way. Should you force educate
them, force your classication on everyone if it is maybe not even helpful
to them?
However, the biggest issue in an international tag-system is the language,
or again, terminology. French users might want to tag or look-up
sans-serif typefaces under the term Antique while the search brings up
a list of decorated slab serifs (see ambiguities mentioned before).

Stepping back
As I am busy with this topic for 14 years now I get really desperate at
times. I can understand why my predecessors did not want to continue to
bother at some point and why the discussion is preferably avoided at
conferences. Although I had intensive experience from teaching and
earlier tests, I was hoping to nd some new clues in a small research.
What are the more weighty characteristics? How do people distinguish
typefaces?
Well, to cut a long story short, it was not as fruitful as I had hoped and
just brought up what I already knew or suspected.
I confronted students and friends of dierent level of knowledge with a
pile of type samples and let them sort those into groups however they
wanted. After that I asked them to assign names to their groups. To break
you the most disappointing outcome rst this last task did not bring
up anything at all. They had a very hard time to name the groups.
Students with some knowledge used the existing terminology, blending

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all systems they know of, i.e. called some dynamic or static, used Vox for
other groups or the traditional Anglo-American terminology. The ones
who did not have any education in typography were able to describe what
they saw and sorted, but couldnt come up with a single, catchy term.
Well what did I expect. This is not surprising at all.
What was veried is that they separated script or decorated faces from
text faces rst. Secondly they separated serifs and sans. As a third and
actually more pronouncedly than I thought they separated typefaces
with stroke contrast from linear ones. Even to the extent that some
separated fonts that are supposed to look linear, thus with just small
optical adjustments, like in Univers or Bureau Grotesque. My guess is
that this comes due to the lack of other criteria they had at hand, e.g. not
being familiar with the idea of form models for further distinctions. The
form model was not surprisingly the most advanced, hence most
dicult thing to recognize. It is obviously a fact that distinguishing
typefaces must be learned.

Unfortunately, many researchers in type classification become so
involved they forget the basic purpose of any attempt to formalize a
structure: simple communication. Alexander S. Lawson

Conclusion and outlook
The problem with research in any eld is that you dive into a subject on
such specialized and detailed level that you forget that your distance to
the language and knowledge of the normal people gets greater and
greater. It helps to step back every now and then and ask the actual user.
A classication should help them to nd, select and combine typefaces,
and not the scholar in the rst place. Or at least this is what I nd is
lacking right now. The historically savvy expert has sophisticated
language and methods to describe letterforms of the past and maybe even
present. But I, too, sometimes forget that others dont easily see those
dierences in typefaces that I can make out in seconds. I want to nd a
tool that also helps entry-level-users of type to recognize the dierences
and similarities among typefaces and nd clues about their potential
use.
My hope is to be able to combine all those dierent approach of
classication into a exible system that works on several levels of
sophistication for beginners and experts. We cannot abandon all old
systems, and even less so, all the dierent terminology established over
the years. We have to come up with a way how to integrate all this into a

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new scheme and explain it comprehensibly.

My proposal works well with most of the traditional groups of text faces
and it follows the historical order in the serif categories. At the same
time it is open to new additions to the typographic palette. One can
easily incorporate dierent levels of descriptives: form-model, main
formal features (serifs, contrast), and detailed features and associative
terms. The third level could work as a user-centric tag collection. In a
database environment all those level of descriptives would be assigned as
tags anyway, just dierently displayed in dierent user scenarios.
Because the main illusion I/we have to give up is to think that a typeface
can only be one thing either sans or serif, either Old Style or Modern.
Groups of typefaces shouldnt be pre-lled buckets anymore, but rather a
customized set of fonts at my disposal when I select serif, rational
and maybe other key words.
The challenge now is to translate a collection of tags into a versatile
visual form that can be used in teaching, talks, and publications,
displaying the dierent levels of descriptives. Maybe the exact
visualization can be dierent every time and adapted to the specic
task. But what we need is a basic understanding and common language to
know what we are talking about.


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sans serif

Some notes on the history of Akzidenz-

Grotesk

6 Kommentare

Stephan Kleinen
Erstellt am 1. April 2012 um 13:09 | Permanent-Link

Hallo Frau Indra Kupferschmid,

dies ist ein sehr interessanter Artikel zum Thema Schriftordnung.
Leider ist mir das vollstndige Vergngen ein wenig durch meine
mangelhaften Kenntnisse der englischen Fachterminologie verwehrt,
aber ich glaube die wesentlichen Aspekte verstanden zu haben.
Meine Meinung zu dem Thema ist folgende: Wie ihre Darstellung

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vergangener Ordnungssysteme sehr schn anschaulich gemacht hat,

haben alle Ordnungssysteme mehrere Probleme, die nie zur vlligen
Zufriedenheit gelst werden knnen.
Zunchst reprsentieren alle diese Systeme in erste Linie den
Vorstellungshorizont desjenigen oder der jenigen, der sie entwickelt hat.
Daher wird es nur eine mehr oder weniger groe Schnittmenge mit dem
Vorstellungshorizont anderer Menschen geben. Nur diese werden das
System verstehen, fr gut benden und anwenden.
Dann sind alle diese Systeme zu einer bestimmten Zeit oder vielleicht
besser in einer bestimmten Situation entstanden. Sie verfolgen
entsprechend eine Absicht. ndert sich die Situation oder vergeht Zeit,
verliert das Ordnungssystem seine Berechtigung.
Was vielleicht auch eine Rolle spielt, ist der Umstand, dass jeder Mensch
unterschiedlich empndet. Was fr den einen schon eine extreme
Abweichung darstellt ist fr einen anderen nur eine leichte Variation.
Aus dem vorangegangenen Darstellung ergibt sich die recht gewisse
Vermutung, dass jedes System eine Halbwertzeit hat. Die mag mal krzer
oder lnger sein, aber sie ist gewiss. Und dann wird es nur ein weiteres
Systemupdate geben. Aber niemals eine endgltige Lsung.
Fr die praktische Anwendbarkeit und Aundbarkeit von Schriften ist
es daher vielmehr wichtig ein berall und zu jederzeit aktuelles
Werkzeug zu schaen, das unabhngig von Sprache und Kassizierung
Schriften abbildet und zueinander in Beziehung setzt. Schriftsuche ist
eine Sache der Augen. Man schaut sich Muster an und sagt ja oder nein
dazu. In beiden Fllen muss ich Mglichkeiten haben, die Richtung
meiner Suche zu steuern. Vielleicht mit Reglern wie das bei den Multiple
Master Fonts geschah. Man entwirft eine virtuelle Ideal-Schrift und
schaut was das Werkzeug an vergleichbaren bereits gestalteten Schriften
ndet. So ein Werkzeug und international gltige Kriterien fr die
Erstellung von Font-Dateien wrden die Nutzbarkeit vorhandener
Schriftentwrfe deutlich weiter bringen, als jede neue
Schriftklassikation.

Indra Kupferschmid
Erstellt am 1. April 2012 um 16:51 | Permanent-Link

Ich stimme Ihnen voll und ganz zu und ein solches System, oder eher
back-end, fnde ich sehr wnschenswert (und es existieren auch
Versuche dazu). Jedoch gibt es immer wieder auch den Fall, in dem man
abstrakt, un-interaktiv, ber die Unterschiede und Variablen von
Schriften sprechen mchte. Auch die Benutzer eines von Ihnen
beschriebenen Systems mssen dieses erst erlernen. Verwendet man als
Suchbegrie Wrter, die allgemein verstndlich sind, wie etwa
elegant, mnnlich oder steif, nden Laien vielleicht leichter
den Einstieg. Und wie gesagt funktioniert das Verknpfen und die Suche
nach einer Schrift mit Schlagworten nur in einer Datenbankumgebung.
Meine bersicht (ich bin noch nicht dazugekommen sie zu posten) ist
somit nur eine Darstellung fr einen von vielen mutmalichen Zwecken:
vor allem die Verwandtschaft von Schriften aufzuzeigen, ber die
oensichtlichen Unterschiede wie Serifen und Kontrast hinaus. Das ist

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das, was ich Formprinzip, oder in Englisch form model nenne. Andere
Klassikationen, die ich auf Basis dieser Idee erarbeitet habe sehen
anders aus.
Ideal wre, wenn wir Schriften mit Schlagworten fr die von mir
vorgeschlagenen drei Schichten versehen knnten, also z.B. mit
Serifen, Kontrast, statisch, Kehlung, tropenfrmige Strichenden.
Dann knnten man nicht nur jeweils eine passende Liste, sondern auch
einfach die passende Klassikation fr den jeweiligen Fall ausgeben.
Fr Laien vielleicht nur eine Unterteilung in Serifen, Serifenlos,
Serifenbetont usw., fr die Fachleute kann das Formprinzip dazu und
man kombiniert dies eventuell mit einer Schlagwortliste, die sowohl
spezielle Fachbegrie enthalten kann wie monospaced, , als auch
Details beschreibt, oder eben tags enthlt wie Sommer, hardcore
oder Hochzeit. Everything is miscellaneous.
Bleibt fr mich immer noch die Frage, welche Sprache wir verwenden
sollen. Machen wir uns ein deutsches Schlagwortsystem und die
Franzosen machen ihres und beide verstehen das der Amerikaner
eventuell nicht und umgekehrt? Leider ist dieses kleine Fachgebiet der
Typograe doch inzwischen sehr international.

Carina Marano
Erstellt am 4. April 2012 um 02:23 | Permanent-Link

I very much like your idea of breaking down classication of typefaces

into tiers of descriptions. Catherine Dixon, I believe, poses a similar
idea, though with variation. Her formal attributes category, seems
related to your second category, yet her other categories, inuence and
patterns, are more historical in reference. (http://ow.ly/a42Qk)
In addition to incorporating structure elements into the classication
scheme, I would also advocate for having a larger, more comprehensive
glossary of descriptive terms, such as wedge serif, bracketed serif,
teardrop terminal, ball terminal, etc. This way we, as students, could
study and reference all of the dierent variations in letterform and
become more familiar each in kind. This, I believe is similar to what you
describe in your second tier. Yet, I nd this information, at a detailed
level, very hard to come by. Perhaps, like you say, it is because of conict
in terminology.
I would also agree with your suggestion to separate out levels of
descriptive tags. I like the idea of separating structural descriptions
from connotative ones. Connotative tags, though useful for those looking
for a fun, friendly typefaces, are changeable whereas structural
descriptions are less volatile and less subjective. Structural tags could
be established by designers or moderators of the database, where as
connotative tags could be more user generated.

Indra Kupferschmid
Erstellt am 4. April 2012 um 14:30 | Permanent-Link

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Yes, a comprehensive resource about terminology would be desirable. I

am in regular communication with Nick Sherman about that, e.g. we did
a session together about classication and terminology at the ATypI
conference in Reykjavk. He is deeply absorbed in terminology and is
working on a resource, a book or whatever form it might get in the end.
I was preparing an overview about the groups and connections I see and
the kind of level of descriptives I have in mind. Hope to be able to post
this later this week. I know Catherines work and regard it very
interesting. It is more focussing on the particular application, the
lettering record, and like you said, the historical connection, though.
Maybe it is impossible to create a scheme that is easy to understand for
beginners and helpful to professionals at the same time. For the average
use of the typeface it is not so crucial whether it has teardrop or straight
terminals on the a. But the form model determines the general feel of the
typeface, and whether it is legible under dicult circumstances.

Jan
Erstellt am 10. Juni 2012 um 14:53 | Permanent-Link

Ich wei nicht, ob Ihnen diese Studien schon bekannt sind, aber ich
dachte ich steuere mal etwas aus meinen Recherchen bei:
Ein Zitat aus einer wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Anne Rose
Knig:
Ovinks Versuchspersonen wurden gebeten, einer groen Anzahl von
Druckschriften bestimmte Adjektive zuzuordnen. Er kam zu dem
Ergebnis, dass sich die Atmosphren der getesteten Druckschriften grob
in drei Kategorien einteilen lieen: luxury- refinement, economy-
precision, strength. Besonders betont wird bei dieser Untersuchung die
Bedeutung der korrekten Zuordnung einer Schrift mit einem spezifischen
Atmosphrenwert zum Inhalt des Gedruckten,59 da die emotionalen
Reaktionen des Lesers groen Einfluss auf die individuelle Lesbarkeit
des Textes, insbesondere auf die Lesegeschwindigkeit haben knnen.
PDF: http://www.alles-buch.uni-erlangen.de/Koenig.pdf
Die Studie auf die sich Knig bezieht ist folgende: Ovink, G. W. Legibility,
Atmosphere-Value and Forms of Printing Types. Leiden 1938.
Eine umfassende und aktuellere Umfrage zur Einschtzung der Leser von
Schriften (leider nur Standardschriften des Web) ndet sich auch noch
bei Martin Liebig: http://www.designtagebuch.de/die-gefuehlte-
lesbarkeit/2/
Interessant aber ist durchaus, dass die ernsten Themenkomplexe
Politik und Kultur anscheinend immer noch sehr stark mit klassisch
geschnittener Typografie in Verbindung gebracht werden auf
Konsumentenseite bei keiner anderen Frage belegten serifentragende
Schriftarten alle drei Stockerl-Pltze.
Vielleicht liee sich also das tagging-System nach vorangehenden,
greren Datenerhebungen auf einige Begrie beschrnken, oder gar wie
bei Ovink und Liebig noch in zustzliche Kategorien einteilen, die sich

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Type classifications are useful, but the common ones are not

http://kupferschrift.de/cms/2012/03/on-classifications/

auf den Kontext / Konnotationen beziehen. Wobei hier ja immer das

Problem besteht, dass diese ganzen sthetischen Kategorien sehr
schwammig sind. Wie sie schon geschrieben haben ist es eben notwendig
die Tags auf verschiedene hierarchische Ebenen zu verteilen. Nicht jeder
wird eine Schrift als journalistisch einschtzen (irgendwie
absurd). Ein anderes Problem ist eben, dass sich die sthetische
Einschtzung von Schriften ndert msste man diese Erhebungen alle
Jahre wiederholen?
Zum sprachlichen Problem: das lsst sich doch bequem ber
Datenbanken lsen, vergleichbar mit Umrechnungstabellen, damit wie
bei Antique keine Verwechslungen auftreten.

Jan
Erstellt am 10. Juni 2012 um 18:34 | Permanent-Link

Eine weitere Leserbefragung ndet sich noch bei Shaik, 2009

durchgefhrt: http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/112/typeface.asp
This article presents results from a study investigating the personality
of typefaces. Participants were asked to rate 40 typefaces (from serif,
sans serif, display, and handwriting classes) using semantic
differential scales. Responses are shown by typeface class and
individual typeface using scaled scores.

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