FF Tisa in use
Image by FontFont
FF Tisa • A Perfect Typeface for Magazines
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Designed by Mitja Miklavčič, initially created in 2006 to fulfill the requirements for the MA in Typeface Design, University of Reading, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication. Versions released in June '08 for FSI FontShop International: Regular, Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold italic. Selected by the TDC judges to receive the Certificate of Excellence in Type Design for the year 2007.
A typeface for magazines
FF Tisa is a typeface created while studing in the MA Typeface Design course at the University of Reading. The typeface was primarily created for use in various magazines that are either printed by web-fed offset or gravure printing techniques. Nevertheless, the typeface can also be successfully used in other printed media, such as newspapers, annual reports etc.
It is rather hard to define the characteristics of a ‘conventional magazine typeface’ and how a magazine typeface differs from other groups of typefaces, particularly from newspaper typefaces. In many ways the closest relative to a magazine typeface is a newspaper typeface. The text length should be fairly close, although in magazines articles tend to be shorter and more frequently interrupted by other elements on the page, such as illustrations or photographs. On the other hand newspapers tend to look more and more like magazines.
However a magazine typeface doesn’t necessarily need the rough character of a newspaper typeface. The reason may lie in printing technology differences. Magazines are often printed on different kind of web-fed offset presses using paper of better quality and different types of printing ink. On the other hand, quite a significant number of magazines are printed with gravure printing. Gravure printing is principally used for very long print. A detailed description of this old and interesting printing technique would go beyond the subject of this showing. But one has to be familiar with the key peculiarity of gravure printing: everything, including letterforms, is ‘rasterized’.
In order to meet the technological and aesthetic requirements of magazine use a typeface with a relatively low contrast and fairly pronounced serifs was designed. From this point of view a group of typefaces usually labelled as Slab serifs or Egyptians (or sometimes Egyptiennes) was chosen as a model. Slab serifs normally have a rather solid style and somewhat simplified character. They were traditionally used in newspaper printing and were a good choice for a suitable typeface in early typewriters. Many typefaces from this group also have a relatively large x-height, which is advantageous for newspapers and magazines. The main goal of this project was to design a softer and a more dynamic version of a slab serif typeface. The idea was to create a typeface that would have good legibility in text sizes while showing interesting characteristics when used in larger sizes.
Basic characteristics
FF Tisa is a low contrast slab serif typeface. It is an attempt to create a contemporary version of the nineteenth century woodtype slab serif typefaces. Some ‘humanist’ characteristics, such as asymmetric serifs and slightly oblique stress, might make it easier to read in longer texts. Due to its low stroke contrast FF Tisa is also surprisingly legible in small sizes and works fine in demanding printing techniques, such as gravure printing or low resolution laser printing. FF Tisa has a relatively large x-height which makes it suitable for use in publications such as magazines or newspapers. Small caps are visibly taller compared to lowercase letters, and can be used effectively in emphasizing parts of text.
Italics
The italic version was not primarily created to have the role of emphasising - it is more a secondary typeface to the regular version. From this reason a fairly upright ‘hybrid’ italic was designed which is slightly lighter comparing to the regular version. However, the angle of slant is mathematically not the same in all glyphs and varies roughly from 7 to 5 degrees. In order to achieve an optically uniform angle of slant, taller and wider letters were slanted less. Small caps are comparing to lowercase less and comparing to uppercase more slanted. Another peculiarity of the italic version is that the main strokes are slightly wider on the baseline (this adjustment was more applied on lowercase letters). This characteristic gives the italic typeface some stability.
Ink traps and diagonals
In letters where a round stroke meets a straight one, such as the lowercase ‘n’ or ‘p’, or in letters where two diagonals meet, for example lowercase ‘v’ and ‘w’, a dark area results. To reduce this unwanted effect some inspirations from phototypesetting were used. Due to small openings in some parts of the letters less light penetrated in these areas when exposed to light and the inside angles had to be strongly opened. Although the process of reproduction in
digital workflow is very different a similar optical adjustment was made in a more subtle way. A similar, though much less obvious adjustment is made when a serif and a diagonal stroke meet (e.g. letter ‘w’). The diagonal stroke was thinned in a similar and even more subtle way.
Typeface in tables
One of the main characteristics of tabular features is that they all have the same width. Normally oldstyle and lining tabular figures are also designed on the same width. When designing this typeface a further step was taken in this direction: figures in all versions have the same width. All mathematical operators also share the same width while some basic punctuation for use in tables was created.
Have a closer look to FF Tisa in the entire Specimen, at the FontShop or on the FontFont Library’s Website.
Dreams From My Past
Image by Earthworm
In 1979 I decided to drop out of college and "run away" to the circus. I told my family and everyone else, who might care, of my intentions. When the circus came to San Francisco I went to ask for a job, but didn't meet the right people, so I hitched a ride to Fresno to talk to the guy hiring vendors. Selling cotton candy is the entry level position for a job with the circus. The pay off was that you got to bunk on the train dormitory style, but not if you were a girl I found out, at least not right then. The women were bunked two to a car and only performers got that much room. And to be a performer you had to audition at the winter headquarters. After a year of calling long distance trying to get a concession job with a bunk I gave it up.
Considering my disillusionment with a liberal arts education, the circus was an apt alternative. It was my dream to be the dancer sitting on top of the elephants head. Most performers actually do not live on the train. They drive live-in vans and also stayed in hotels, but vendors weren't paid enough to make that financially feasible. The Ringling Brothers had two trains. The red train did the southern route and the blue train did the northern route. Then they switched. They have the largest privately owned trains in the US.
Ironically I've never actually seen a performance of the Ringling Brothers Circus and don't reckon I will. I'm much more the Cirque de Soleil type. And yes I loved Water For Elephants.
I also went to Thailand that summer and my relatives were horrified by my plan to join the circus. They told me it would besmirch the family name, but that didn't discourage me. My father suggested I stay in Thailand, but my grandmother was such a tyrant I said no way. Had she not been I might have spent a few years in Bangkok quite possibly working for an English language newspaper. My parents were getting a divorce that year so didn't have much leverage in my decision and I no longer had to ask my father to pay for college so I didn't have to be beholden to anything he had to say in the matter. (I later got myself a job working nights as a movie projectionist.)
My transfer to U.C Berkeley (from U.C. Santa Cruz) was accepted and my family was very proud, but that still wasn't enough of a draw to justify the expense. So I came home, enrolled in the local community college and knocked around trying to find myself on my own terms until I finally found a degree I could stomach and transferred to San Jose State. My only requirement was that it not require either reading or writing. The irony of this continues to amuse me. (Math was definately out of the question also.) And that's how I came to complete a BS degree in graphic design, a process that took me 8 years all told. And it did get me a job as a paste-up artist and typesetter for 10 years. A year into the job, I decided I wanted to write my book and that's what I did to offset the boredom of it all and imbue myself with yet another dream. (I also met five people there who still figure in my life; five creative people also spinning their wheels looking for their dream—three in photography; the rest of us in the public relations department. Plus I met Catherine through a mutual friend there. So was a crucial juncture, this job.)
It really is the dreaming that sets us apart from the despairing hoipalloi, I've noted, especially in these recession years. There are feasible dreams and there are fantasy dreams. The feasible ones take work.
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