specimen
Hershey-ArkDes
[17-26-40]
Luuse
→ 6 --- Genesis - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 → 14 --- Hershey-ArkDes - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 → 28 --- Mechanism - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 → 38 --- Inventory - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42.
specimen Hershey-AD
--- from Hershey-Noailles
to Hershey-ArkDes
→ Chronology →
→ 1967 Allen Vincent Hershey writes “Calligraphy for computers”, published by U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory. → Link
→ 1976 A contribution to computer typesetting techniques: Tables of coordinates for Hershey's repertory of occidental type fonts and graphic symbols is published by The National Bureau of Standards. → Link
→→ 2011 Windell Oskay releases Hershey Text, an Inkscape extension for rendering text with engraving fonts. → Link
→ 2014 Techninja publishes Hersheytextjs, a port of the EMSL Hershey engraving font data from the Hershey Text Inkscape Plugin to JSON, capable of being rendered quickly via JavaScript & SVG. → Link
Hershey-ArkDes
40-20-17
→ 2017 Luuse releases Hershey-Noailles from a webtool that generates fonts file from Techninja’s hersheytextjs datas. Over 85 font are generated and first used for Villa Noailles art center based in France. → Link
→ 2024 AM-Stockholm Studio asked Luuse to recalibrate the typeface Futural-mono-14-2.5-handles on a grid system and to produce two other versions with a progressive reduction of the same grid. Three new fonts were created for the new visual identity of ArkDes Museum in Stockholm (Sweden).
specimen Hershey-AD
--- Typeface & variations
ArkDes-17
ArkDes-17
ArkDes-26
ArkDes-40
→
→
26
→
40
←
17
←
26
ArkDes → 17-26-40
→
40
→
26
→
17
←
17
←
26
←
40
specimen Hershey-AD
--- Process & operation
Hershey-ArkDes had to be recalibrated to fit on three specific grids, from 40 unit height to 17. according to the visual identity developped by AM-Stockholm, meaning each vector points had to match on a intersection point of the grid.
In order to make the font more systematic and to avoid extra work, we decided to cut out the letters on a set of modules. For example, we redesigned a stem on the grid and used it for letters b, d, h, k, l, p, q... or a shoulder for the h, n, m. Thanks to this method, we designed 87 modules used for a set of 171 letters multiplied by 3 for a total of 513 glyphs.
Then, we developped a small program called Modulmaskinen written in Python allowing us to build the letters using yaml files. Each letter was build by calling the corresponding modules and by declaring its position. For example, the letter "a" looks like this:
97:
name: 'a'
modules:
- panse: [2, 0, 'rotation=0']
- fut-x: [6, 0]
specimen Hershey-AD
--- Typeface modules
ArkDes-17
Hershey-ArkDes-17
Hershey-ArkDes-26
Hershey-ArkDes-40
ArkDes-26
ArkDes-40
