FontFont Beowolf

When a character has a rough edge it is implied that some imperfect production technique has been used: cutting the letter from wood, reproducing it badly, typewriter stuff. When such a shape is vectorised and put into a font the following happens: when the letter is typed, and several of the same letter end up in a row, it is shown that there is also the capability to reproduce that letter exactly, copying every single bit of dirt and roughness. That is a paradox. A certain roughness or varying unevenness is quite pleasing to the eye. The only reason we have grown accustomed to non-varying type is because of the way people have been making type: take one form and copy it over and over. It was easy to make letters that way. But for reading this sameness is not necessary: we can read handwritten text, type superimposed on flickering TV images. The sameness of type seems an arbitrary thing that we can do away with in certain cases.

PostScript allows the designer to build a font program that modifies, changes or switches letterforms. Beowolf is the first font (1989) we build with a randomisation routine. All points on the contour of a (fairly) normal typeface are given a space in which they can freely move. So instead of each letter having one fixed form, the shapes move and wobble. Every single letter this typeface will print will be unique. If characters are repeated in a text they will have different shapes.

About the name: it's Beowolf, obviously our ignorance showing through but there it is. After naming and publishing the typeface we found out that the English Beowulf is spelled differently.