GrammarType

Tiago Martins / Sérgio Rebelo

Designing a modular typeface typically involves the creation of geometric relationships between shapes that are repeated in the same letter and/or among different letters. One can see these relationships as workflows that follow a logic of input, processing, and output of shapes.

Therefore, the design of typeface can follow a step-by-step set of operations, or instructions, that enables the designer to create a typeface from a concept in an algorithmic way.

This way, we developed grammar-type, a system that allows anyone to design modular typefaces. The system allows the user to design a typeface by formalising a “recipe” that transforms a set of input shapes into glyphs throughout a node-based approach.

The user can, therefore, input a set of shapes that through a set of geometric operations are transformed and recombined. There are three types of operation nodes: move, rotate, and scale.

The relationships between the nodes are established by the links between themselves. The output of one node is passed as an input to another creating a flow of shapes from node to node.

This way, any modification in a node is immediately propagated to the following nodes and consequently to the final glyphs. In the end, the user can export the glyphs designed has a typeface and/or vector files.

Tiago Martins is a cross-media designer who works at the convergence of design and computer science. The focus of his work lies in the development of custom tools to computationally evolve novel designs.

After completing his Master in Design and Multimedia in the University of Coimbra, he enrolled in a PhD in Information Science and Technology at the same institution. He is researching and working on his thesis project Design through Automatic Evolution in the Computational and…

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