Typeface Design: Dichromate.
Single item: font files for published typeface P22 Dichromate, with contextual information
- Submitting institution
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Anglia Ruskin University Higher Education Corporation
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 917
- Type
- K - Design
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2020
- URL
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https://figshare.com/s/8702d0c17f67ba73a397
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- Dichromate is a digital typeface, exploring two concepts that have preoccupied me for some time. The first was the use of
modularity in typeface design. The second was the idea of the ‘chromatic’ letter. This is a 19th century genre, and my
research confirmed that most current digital examples tend toward the self-consciously nostalgic or ‘retro’. Out of this came
the challenge of creating an explicitly 21st century digital chromatic face, free of historical references.
The project therefore addresses these research questions: How might the historic idiom of the chromatic typeface be meaningfully re-adapted to the conditions of 21st century media and user demand? What visual idioms and precedents would be most applicable to the development of a contemporary digital chromatic? What processes of development would be most appropriate to the development of a contemporary digital chromatic?
These were investigated through contextual research into current chromatic types, leading to a sustained and rigorous period of reflective practice in which multiple iterations were developed and critically reviewed using industry software (Fontlab Studio 5, Typetool). Work-in-progress was presented at a professional forum and included in a group exhibition of work by leading letter arts practitioners.
Further critical development occurred in response to comment and feedback from these events, and from the US type foundry P22 who recommended expanding the character set to include additional diacritics, and the development of a set of
analphabetic pattern glyphs.
The resulting two fonts are unique in the manner in which they articulate to form a composite. Their decorative vocabulary
is geometric and independent of genre associations.
The significance of the typeface was further affirmed when it was accepted for publication by P22, who then advised on the
final stages of production, and it was released on November 10 2020 as P22 Dichromate.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
