{"id":741,"date":"2025-05-20T21:07:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T21:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/?p=741"},"modified":"2025-08-15T09:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T09:49:10","slug":"issue-59-1-digital-type-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-digital-type-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Type Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"sitecontainer\">\n<div class=\"pagecontainer\">\n<article class=\"vj-article\">\n<div class=\"articlesidebar\">\n<h5>Issue 59.1<\/h5>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-in-with-the-new\">Editorial \u2014 In With the New!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-making-design-research-visible\">Making Design Research Visible<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-a-shifting-practice-paradigm-meets-a-persistent-curriculum-paradigm\">A Shifting Practice Paradigm Meets a Persistent Curriculum Paradigm<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-digital-type-challenges\">Digital Type Challenges<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-towards-interdisciplinary-juggling-similarities-and-differences\">Towards Interdisiplinary: Juggling Similarities and Differences<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-nineteen-questions-to-evaluate-typographic-research-chaff-and-wheat\">Nineteen Questions to Evaluate Typographic Practice: Chaff and Wheat<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-visible-language-evolves\">Visible Language Evolves<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-1\/Visible-Language-59-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Download Issue 59.1 \u27a4<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"articlecontent\">\n<h1>Digital Type Challenges<\/h1>\n<h3>Charles Bigelow<sup>a<\/sup> and Kris Holmes<sup>b<\/sup><\/h3>\n<h4 style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">a: Cary Graphic Arts Collection, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA; b Bigelow &#038; Holmes Inc.<br \/>b: Corresponding author: Charles Bigelow (chuck.bigelow[at]gmail.com)<\/h4>\n<div class=\"abstractbox\">\n<p><span class=\"smallblueheading\">Abstract:<\/span> Second only to the invention of typography itself, digital typography has been the most transformative of the technological changes that have taken the hand setting of hand-cast and hand-printed type \u2014 the standard for 450 years \u2014 to worldwide ubiquity on the glowing screens of billions of smart phones and personal computers. Like its predecessor font technologies, digital typesetting began as a way to set text faster, but it has posed several challenges, of which the first and overarching one is resolution. Technical, perceptual, and economic in its aspects, resolution is the consequence of rendering traditionally analog forms as digital information, from pen, to punch, to photo, to pixel. Since 1980, we have designed digital type during its hegemonic advance toward world domination of literacy. That sounds scary, but the numbers seem benign: more people can now read more languages in more writing systems in more countries on more devices than ever before. The task of the type designer is to face the challenges of digital type and create the fundamental forms of what are often called fonts. We present many of the challenges we have confronted, and how we met them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"keywordsbox\">\n<p><span class=\"smallblueheading\">Keywords:<\/span> design history; digital typesetting; font technology; handwriting; icons; Latin scripts; non-Latin scripts; traditional typefaces<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"viewarticlebtn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-1\/digital-type-challenges.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Download PDF<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"articlepdfviewer\">\n<object data=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-1\/digital-type-challenges.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-1\/digital-type-challenges.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" style=\"border: none;\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/object>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"authorbox\">\n<p><span class=\"smallblueheading\">Author<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Charles Bigelow<\/strong> is a typographer, educator, MacArthur Prize Fellow, and RIT Goudy Award recipient, who has taught at Stanford, RIT, and RISD. He organized pioneering conferences on digital typography and reading science, and co-designed the Lucida typeface family. A former president of ATypI\u2019s Committee on Letterform Research, he holds degrees from Reed College and UCLA and studied with Lloyd Reynolds, Hermann Zapf, and Jack Stauffacher. He has consulted for Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe, among others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kris Holmes<\/strong> is a type designer, calligrapher, and animator known for co-creating the Lucida typeface family. She has designed over 300 typefaces, including Apple Chancery and Wingdings, and her work appears in <em>Scientific American<\/em> and in widely available Unicode fonts. A Goudy Award recipient, she studied with Hermann Zapf, Lloyd Reynolds, Robert Palladino, Edward Catich, and Ed Benguiat, and holds degrees from Harvard and UCLA. Her calligraphy is held in the Klingspor Museum and RIT\u2019s Cary Collection. She has taught at RISD, RIT, and University of the Arts, and she created the award-winning animated film <em>La Bloomba<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"viewarticlebtn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/Issue-59-1\/digital-type-challenges.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Download PDF<\/a><br \/>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"articlecitebox\">\n<div>\n<p class=\"blueurllink\">DOI being generated<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cite this article:<\/strong><br \/>Bigelow, C., &#038; Holmes, K. (2025). Digital type challenges. <em>Visible Language<\/em>, 59(1), 23\u201354. https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-digital-type-challenges<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>First published online April 27, 2025. \u00a9 2025 Visible Language \u2014 this article is open access, published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.<\/p>\n<p><pre>https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"vlconsortiumheading\"><strong>Visible Language Consortium:<\/strong><\/span><br \/>University of Leeds (UK)<br \/>University of Cincinnati (USA)<br \/>North Carolina State University (USA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Issue 59.1 Editorial \u2014 In With the New! Making Design Research Visible A Shifting Practice Paradigm Meets a Persistent Curriculum Paradigm Digital Type Challenges Towards Interdisiplinary: Juggling Similarities and Differences Nineteen Questions to Evaluate Typographic Practice: Chaff and Wheat Visible Language Evolves Download Issue 59.1 \u27a4 Digital Type Challenges Charles Bigelowa and Kris Holmesb a: &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/issue-59-1-digital-type-challenges\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Digital Type Challenges&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invited-article","category-issue-59-1","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visible-language.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}