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+\centerline{\bf About Face!}
+\medskip
+\noindent
+Sub-titled ``Design, Choice and use of `Type' in
+Electronic Publishing and Page Design'', this
+was {\it another} {\sc bcs-ep} meeting, this time
+held on February 11th, at the usual venue, the
+School of African and Oriental Studies in Bloomsbury.
+This was a very well attended meeting, with
+many people who were not {\sc bcs-ep} regulars
+(as well as a number of familiar faces).
+
+The first talk was from David Saunders of Monotype.
+He presented a historical account of the rise
+of typefaces, from their early, handwritten origins,
+via Trajan's column through the rise of moveable type
+to the present day. Naturally covering such a sweep
+meant that he was selective, but he was also fascinating,
+interesting, educational and thought provoking.
+
+One of his themes was the interaction between design
+and technology. This is inevitable, but often the
+constraints are not obvious after the event.
+Early typefaces were derived from calligraphy (especially
+lower case, for which there were no stone cut originals).
+But gradually the calligraphic characteristics disappear,
+to be replaced by conventions more suited to the medium.
+
+
+Saunders also noted that new letterforms arose in the
+early industrial revolution, notably sans serifs, which
+were then regarded as expressions of the new age.
+
+In comparing quality we were shown comparisons between
+various laser printed and `conventionally' printed
+letterforms. The key issue here was that with good quality
+paper, laser printed material could be of good quality,
+and that all conventional printing was not automatically
+good. There are (or can be) problems with all types of
+printing. A conclusion to be drawn
+was that higher resolution does not ensure higher quality.
+
+
+From looking at the way in which typefaces have evolved,
+we looked next at some of the physiological and psychological
+bases for recognising the marks on the paper.
+John Richardson of Loughborough University described
+some of the results of studies which has been done
+by psychologists in this area. Most of this work is rather
+old now. From the
+way in which the eye handles text, it would seem that
+speed of reading for type of 9--12 points is about
+the same, but that it reduces for both smaller and larger
+sizes. Not surprisingly, there is a certain amount
+of visual interference in type set solid. The eye
+has difficulty skipping to the beginning of the next line.
+In the end we would seem to have to quote Eric Gill,
+who, in 1931 wrote ``Legibility, in practise, amounts
+simply to what one is accustomed to''.
+
+John Durham, assisted by the keyboard skills of Jenny
+Hearne, described the font editing
+software which has been developed by Archetype to
+permit modification of the fonts used by the large
+high volume laser printers (Xerox 9700).
+
+Essentially the system permits bitmap editing. Durham
+argued that hand tuning of algorithmic fonts would still
+be needed, and that simply scaling of a font to another
+size could not be expected to give good results.
+In order to achieve some degree of fidelity between
+screen and page, they used a high resolution monitor
+--- 100\,dpi, and grey scale fonts. In other words, the
+monitor's pixels were not simply black and white, but
+black, white and a range of grey.
+He also touched briefly on the problem of font licensing,
+since of course some of the fonts on these laser
+printers are proprietry.
+
+This was an interesting example of a small company
+siezing on a niche which the original vendor had
+failed to fill (for whatever reason), and exploiting it
+rather thoroughly.
+
+After lunch Kathy Lang
+described some font practicalities. In most ways she
+seemed most interested in larger scale typographic
+issues, but she described the sorts of things you expect to
+get in the better known dtp packages.
+I was surprised to see letterspacing included as
+something one expected, since I had just
+finished reading in Kleper's book that
+``letterspacing should be avoided if possible''. Perhaps this
+is a feature incorporated because it is easy to do,
+regardless of its desirability (like `strike through' and
+underlining --- easy to implement, but useless).
+Lang went on to discuss the relative merits of
+`write white' and `write black' laser printers.
+One of the audience was able to reveal that the new
+Apple LaserWriter II is capable of 400\,dpi
+(although it only does 300\,dpi just now).
+
+John Miles, of Banks \& Miles
+described the employment of dtp in his design
+studio. Even if you don't realise, you
+will be familiar with some of the output of this studio.
+They designed the logos for the Post Office and British
+Telecom (among other well known corporate identifiers). The studio
+uses a couple of Macs with PageMaker and RSG!.
+But before describing what they did with the Macs,
+he stood back a little to explain what it was they
+were trying to achieve in the first place. He identified
+a necessary focussing on function. What was the intention
+of the material, how would it be used? One of the distinctions he made
+was between legibility (the property of a typeface)
+and readability (a function of the arrangement of typefaces).
+
+Most of this talk was illustrated with reference to designs
+on bits of paper, rather than a screen, but tempered by
+the knowledge that they would end up as grids on a
+dtp system. The starting point was a sheet of paper,
+not the screen.
+He noted that it was the job of the designer to
+fulfill the function expected by the client, not
+to demonstrate the versatility of the equipment.
+He also attempted to dispell the myth that there was
+anything valuable to be gained by changing typeface
+or leading etc.\ `at a stroke'. Any designer worthy of
+his hire would know these characteristics before he started
+to look at the computer.
+
+The last talk was by the type designer, Richard Southall, who, as
+many will know bears some responsibility for some bits of
+Computer Modern, and who has a considerable ability
+with \MF. But even if you didn't know that,
+you would be familiar with Richard's work. He designed
+the sub-titling font which is used by the {\sc bbc}
+for its films (also seen on Channel 4).
+
+Early in his talk Richard made the distinction between
+\item{$\bullet$}a character image --- the marks which
+a marking engine makes for readers to see. This includes
+the letters made by laser printers, dot matrix printers, or
+even those made on a vdu screen.
+\item{$\bullet$}a font --- a set of instructions to a marking
+engine to make a character image. This might be a bit map
+or an algorithm, or even a piece of type.
+\item{$\bullet$}typeface --- the sets of visual attributes for the
+characters of a script. As such a typeface has no concrete
+existence, it is an abstract object. The nearest concrete
+entity is probably the designer's original drawings.
+\smallskip
+Richard expressed the view that the changes which were
+taking place now, since the introduction of dtp in 1984
+closely paralleled those which took place between 1965
+(with the introduction of photo composition) and the virtual
+extinction of hot metal typesetting in 1971.
+ He also pointed
+out the short period which had elapsed since the introduction
+of digital photocomposition (in 1965). To an extent the old
+constraints had been removed, such that almost anyone
+can now design a typeface.
+
+He pointed out that the commercial pressures to use
+outline fonts were overwhelming, but that the
+outline was a long way distanced from the typeface it
+purported to represent. He commented too on the use of
+intelligent outlines, citing \PS, but also the more
+recently announced Bitstream, Compugraphics and Imagen
+fonts which add information to the character outlines.
+But he also said that he could not ``see how to make the
+outline intelligent enough''.
+
+However, Richard has slightly retracted from his earlier
+view that \MF\ was unusable, and he now expresses the
+view that, subject to some pretty massive constraints,
+`You can use \MF'
+
+A good set of talks which from the extent
+of interest shown and the questions asked
+met some sort of need. The next {\sc bsc-ep} meeting
+is on April 28th. Later this year there will be a meeting
+on technical typesetting.
+
+\rightline{\sl Malcolm W. Clark}
+\bigskip