RandomFonts

The first LettError project was to make a PostScript font whose lettershapes changed themselves during printing. Traditional typefaces were static copies of physical objects. Digital fonts are programs and therefore dynamic.

It is not clear whose idea it was in the first place. In the only issue of LettError magazine (1989) we proposed the idea of RandomFonts, type programmed to change in the printer so that each character would be unique. After simple experiments with a square, we applied the idea to a font. This became Beowolf.

There was much discussion about the name — we felt that RandomFont was the category. Erik Spiekermann proposed Times New Random, but it wasn't Times and Beowolf just sounded gnarly.

Years later, in an article in Frieze magazine, Emily King drew a nice parallel between the typeface and the nature of the Beowulf story (the first known story to be written in English). The story would have existed in many forms until one was written down. Beowolf the typeface exists in an infinite number of possible shapes, but only the printed one will remembered.