daidala: words on letters, july 2002

...................................................................

go figure

Sooner or later, you’ll want to (or have to) make a graph. Many software programs can do this, and many books tell you how. But if you really care about the appearance of your graph, and perhaps more importantly, about the clear communication of the information contained therein, there is relatively little software flexible enough to give you ideal control of the parameters, and there are only a few guidebooks worth reading.

I’ll cover graphing software in more detail in another entry, and I’ll focus primarily on two programs – called SigmaPlot and S-Plus (available, unfortunately, only to users of Microsoft Windows; a freeware program called R, however, shares many of the features of S-Plus) – that enable the easy creation of publication-quality graphs of many kinds. Here, I’ll focus on a few of the guidelines or rules to follow when making graphs, and I'll illustrate these rules using only one kind of plot – the scatterplot. In addition, I’ll pair bad examples with good ones, and I’ll explain why the rules work.

These rules aren’t mine; they have been formulated and put into practice by many researchers before me. But the person who has perhaps done the most and best work to understand the theory and practice of statistical graphs, and to consolidate and illustrate these rules, is William Cleveland. His book, The Elements of Graphing Data, is to graph-makers and statisticians what Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style is to typographers. It is a how-to compendium of graph-making, and is indispensable to those of us who plot data on a routine basis.

Cleveland's overarching message is: Draw the eye to the data; treat the data fairly and carefully. Six of what I consider Cleveland's most important rules are:

(1) Use a pair of scale lines for each variable. Cleveland makes a strong argument for table look-up here – that "judging the scale value of a point by judging its position along a scale line...is easier and more accurate as the distance of the point from the scale line decreases." Compare figures 1a and 1b (made-up data set), and notice how much easier table look-up is when two scale lines are used for each variable, rather than just one.

(2) Make the data rectangle slightly smaller than the scale-line rectangle. In figure 2a, the data rectangle and the scale-line rectangle are coincident; some data points therefore fall on the scale lines and are difficult to see. A "padding" of 5% is added to the data rectangle in figure 2b; all data points are contained within the scale-line rectangle and are easily visualized.

(3) Use outward-pointing tick marks. Inward-pointing ticks, as shown in figure 3a, simply add clutter to the interior of the graph, and in my opinion, make table look-up more difficult. Compare to figure 3b.

(4) Avoid slavishly including zero on the axes. Cleveland here refers to the widely-read book by Darrell Huff – How to Lie with Statistics – wherein Huff says that a graph without a zero line is dishonest. Cleveland argues that to include zero, however, may result in a waste of space, and more importantly, may interfere with our judgment of the data (figure 4a). Therefore, fill the scale-line rectangle with the data (figure 4b). Cleveland emphasizes: "Assume the viewer will look at the tick mark labels and understand them."

(5) Use open rather than filled symbols to mark the data points. Invariably, some of the data will fall on or close to the same coordinates; see the points that lie roughly at (26, 7) in figures 5a and 5b. They are hard to distinguish in 5a, in which filled circles are used to denote the data, but the overlap can clearly be seen in 5b.

(6) If summarizing the data or drawing the eye to them with a line, use the line that best fits them. It is tempting to superimpose a straight-line regression fit to the data – this is the easiest (or only) option in some graphing programs – but it may not be fair to the data or to the reader. The data set used here has some curvature, and the straight-line fit shown in figure 6a does not adequately represent it. A technique called locally-weighted regression (loess for short) draws a smooth curve to the data by connecting locally fitted regions of data (figure 6b).

A review of The Elements of Graphing Data in Meteorological Magazine states, "Ideally, everyone interested in getting the most out of their data or presenting data clearly and concisely should have a copy handy." My recommendation is no less enthusiastic. Buy, read, and digest ($52.95US); the quality of your graphs will improve, and the clarity of the information you convey will increase dramatically.
23-July 2002

...................................................................

syntax: 7 of 20

Syntax was designed by Hans Eduard Meier in the late 1960s and expanded (download pdf) in the year 2000 to include two additional weights as well as small caps and text figures. The canonical humanist sans-serif; inspired by Sabon. And perhaps the best deal in type – only $119US for the full set on hard media. See Sumner Stone's excellent article in Fine Print on Type.
07-18-2002

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celeste: 6 of 20

By Christopher Burke, type designer and scholar. Celeste was introduced in 1994 and sold via FontFont; Greek and small text versions have more recently become available, making this one of the most versatile faces available.
07-18-2002

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typophile contest...

Jared Benson asked me to pass this along:

Announcing the first annual Typophile t-shirt design contest.

Through August 30th, Typophile is holding open submissions for our first annual Typophile t-shirt design contest.

Design submissions will be posted daily to the forums for public review and critique. Tune in daily and root on your favorite design. The final design will be decided by our guest panel of judges, who will judge the shirts on overall design, originality, and feasibility.

Say hello to our guest panel of judges:
Cyrus Highsmith (Font Bureau)
Jonathan Hoefler (The Hoefler Type Foundry)
Carlos Segura (T26)
Rich Roat (House)
Erik van Blokland (Letterror).

The winning design will be printed and made available to all via Typophile. If your design is chosen, we'll send you three free shirts as thanks for your contribution, and make sure that you get proper credit for a job well done.

Once you've downloaded the EPS template, submit your finished designs to tee@typophile.com. You may enter as many times as you wish. All work submitted will be posted to the forums anonymously for fair, impartial judgement and critique by your peers.

Guidelines:
- Use the EPS template provided for download at
http://www.typophile.com/downloads/
- The word 'typophile' must appear somewhere but does not have to be the primary or the only image or message.
- Keep your design reasonable. Ideally, your design can be printed with 3 colors or less. Anything more than 4 colors won't even stand a chance.
- Consider the fabric color in your design. (Show your art on the background of your choice).
- Consider that we actually want people to wear these.
- Submit your design as Illustrator or Freehand EPS files.
- All submissions must be compressed as SIT or ZIP files.

Legal Stuff:
- By submitting a design, you grant permission to Typophile to use your design for promotional purposes.
- You pledge that your work is of your own making.
- You pledge that fonts and/or other rights-protected imagery used in your design are legitimately licensed by you or the firm you represent.

http://www.typophile.com | Typographic Collaboration
07-15-2002

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unusual ff ligature...

I recently posted the following question on
TYPO-L:

"The ff ligature in MT Pastonchi is unusual in two ways: (1) the first f is of greater height than the second, and (2) the ascender of the first leapfrogs well over much of that of the second.

"I’m looking for a precedent for this and cannot seem to find one. Was this novel form of the ff ligature a development of Francesco Pastonchi or of someone else?"

Thanks to Gerald Lange for his interesting and informative reply to the list, and for his permission to reprint it here:

"I have the original Lanston Monotype specimen book that came out with the release of Pastonchi (printed by hand at the Officina Bodoni), which gives a bit of the history and intent. I do not think you will find precedent as I believe this was an attempt to redefine previous typographic misconceptions of Renaissance letterforms. Truly a remarkable typeface. I bought a lot of the metal version for a book I did and the very day I completed printing, Monotype Typography sent me the beta version. I believe this was the last face to be issued before they mergered with Agfa. Found the digital version to be quite exacting to the original and used it for the letterpress-printed prospectus for the book!!!

"Many of the combination characters (ligatures and tied characters) are quite unique. I don't think Pastonchi proved to be much of a commercial success for Lanston or for that matter Agfa Monotype; but it is certainly one of the great neglected serious typographic investigations of the twentieth-century."
07-12-2002

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comparing typefaces 1: a tale of two sabons

The Sabons of Linotype and Monotype are quite similar, but there are some subtle differences; I've made a partial list. Compared to the Monotype version, the Linotype version:

1. Is slightly heavier

2. Has somewhat lower contrast between thin and thick strokes

3. Is larger, which is typical for a Linotype-to-Monotype comparison; to achieve equal x-height, Monotype Sabon must be enlarged by roughly 7%

4. Has a more angular lower case roman a and f; note the increased curvature of the ascender in the Monotype roman f versus the Linotype version; compare also the cross-strokes of the f

5. May have a greater axis angle in the italic; compare the g's in the example shown; notice also the differences in the teardrop terminals in this letter

6. Has that extra bit of space – almost too small to measure, yet discernable enough – after the lower case roman a. Or perhaps the spacing is a bit off overall. Or perhaps it's just my imagination...
07-11-2002

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mendoza: 5 of 20

By Jose Mendoza y Almeida and issued by ITC in 1990. Mendoza is rugged yet elegant; avoid the fi "ligature," however. See the full page sample in Bringhurst (2nd edition, p 108); see also the short article in Carter (pp 160–161).
07-08-2002

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wherefore art thou bembo...?

Dean Allen writes: "In its metal version, Bembo is my favourite thing to read; with acknowledged subjectivity, it is the most beautiful and readable text face of all." I agree with Mr Allen; I also agree with his opinion on the digital incarnation, which is indeed thin, wispy, and squat.

We can apparently blame the 8 point size in metal, for it served as the master from which the digital version was designed. Walter Tracy, in Letters of Credit, writes (pp 54–55): "When photo-composition became a reality in the 1950's the manufacturers of typesetting machines had to make an important decision: whether or not to carry forward into the new system the principle of optical compensation, when the plain and tempting fact was that the photographic part of the system was capable of producing a considerable range of type sizes from just one font. To abandon the principle altogether was to risk forfeiting a substantial part of a reputation for typographic quality." He continues, "Some [manufacturers] apparently thought that increasing the x-height of the faces would be an acceptable alternative. It is not....The Bembo face, an admirable example of optical compensation by the Monotype drawing office, demonstrates the point." Tracy here refers to a figure in which the metal version of Bembo at 24, 12, 8, and 6 pt is compared to a film version derived from the 8 pt – essentially identical to digital Bembo.

While Edward Tufte has admirably continued to use metal Bembo, what recourse is there for those of us who must work in the digital realm? One option is to use Poliphilus, a typeface constructed from tracings of letters in the Dream of Poliphilo. It has not become obsolete as quickly as Stanley Morison predicted (see A Tally of Types, pp 46–56), but its faithfulness to the original impressions limits its use.

Another alternative may be found in Jack Yan's Aetna. In fact, this face comes as close as anything I've seen to metal Bembo. In the upper half of this figure, metal Bembo and JY Aetna are shown first and second, respectively, while in the lower half, the upper and lower case letters, text figures, and ligatures are displayed at 24 pt in Aetna Roman. This face cannot be considered a digital incarnation of metal Bembo at 12 or 24 pt – there are too many subtle deviations. And not so subtle is the lower case a, in which the Aetna glyph appears to lack the modulation of stroke seen in the metal analogue, as well as in several of the other Aetna glyphs. But you can mourn the lack of a digital Bembo based on its 12 pt metal antecedent, or you can compromise. And if you're willing to compromise, Jack Yan's Aetna is perhaps your best bet.
07-05-2002


................................................................... go figure Sooner or later, you’ll want to (or have to) make a graph. Many software programs can do this, and many books tell you how. But if you really care about the appearance of your graph, and perhaps more importantly, about the clear communication of the information contained therein, there is relatively little software flexible enough to give you ideal control of the parameters, and there are only a few guidebooks worth reading. I’ll cover graphing software in more detail in another entry, and I’ll focus primarily on two programs – called SigmaPlot and S-Plus (available, unfortunately, only to users of Microsoft Windows; a freeware program called R, however, shares many of the features of S-Plus) – that enable the easy creation of publication-quality graphs of many kinds. Here, I’ll focus on a few of the guidelines or rules to follow when making graphs, and I'll illustrate these rules using only one kind of plot – the scatterplot. In addition, I’ll pair bad examples with good ones, and I’ll explain why the rules work. These rules aren’t mine; they have been formulated and put into practice by many researchers before me. But the person who has perhaps done the most and best work to understand the theory and practice of statistical graphs, and to consolidate and illustrate these rules, is William Cleveland. His book, The Elements of Graphing Data, is to graph-makers and statisticians what Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style is to typographers. It is a how-to compendium of graph-making, and is indispensable to those of us who plot data on a routine basis. Cleveland's overarching message is: Draw the eye to the data; treat the data fairly and carefully. Six of what I consider Cleveland's most important rules are: (1) Use a pair of scale lines for each variable. Cleveland makes a strong argument for table look-up here – that "judging the scale value of a point by judging its position along a scale line...is easier and more accurate as the distance of the point from the scale line decreases." Compare figures 1a and 1b (made-up data set), and notice how much easier table look-up is when two scale lines are used for each variable, rather than just one. (2) Make the data rectangle slightly smaller than the scale-line rectangle. In figure 2a, the data rectangle and the scale-line rectangle are coincident; some data points therefore fall on the scale lines and are difficult to see. A "padding" of 5% is added to the data rectangle in figure 2b; all data points are contained within the scale-line rectangle and are easily visualized. (3) Use outward-pointing tick marks. Inward-pointing ticks, as shown in figure 3a, simply add clutter to the interior of the graph, and in my opinion, make table look-up more difficult. Compare to figure 3b. (4) Avoid slavishly including zero on the axes. Cleveland here refers to the widely-read book by Darrell Huff – How to Lie with Statistics – wherein Huff says that a graph without a zero line is dishonest. Cleveland argues that to include zero, however, may result in a waste of space, and more importantly, may interfere with our judgment of the data (figure 4a). Therefore, fill the scale-line rectangle with the data (figure 4b). Cleveland emphasizes: "Assume the viewer will look at the tick mark labels and understand them." (5) Use open rather than filled symbols to mark the data points. Invariably, some of the data will fall on or close to the same coordinates; see the points that lie roughly at (26, 7) in figures 5a and 5b. They are hard to distinguish in 5a, in which filled circles are used to denote the data, but the overlap can clearly be seen in 5b. (6) If summarizing the data or drawing the eye to them with a line, use the line that best fits them. It is tempting to superimpose a straight-line regression fit to the data – this is the easiest (or only) option in some graphing programs – but it may not be fair to the data or to the reader. The data set used here has some curvature, and the straight-line fit shown in figure 6a does not adequately represent it. A technique called locally-weighted regression (loess for short) draws a smooth curve to the data by connecting locally fitted regions of data (figure 6b). A review of The Elements of Graphing Data in Meteorological Magazine states, "Ideally, everyone interested in getting the most out of their data or presenting data clearly and concisely should have a copy handy." My recommendation is no less enthusiastic. Buy, read, and digest ($52.95US); the quality of your graphs will improve, and the clarity of the information you convey will increase dramatically. 23-July 2002 ................................................................... syntax: 7 of 20 Syntax was designed by Hans Eduard Meier in the late 1960s and expanded (download pdf) in the year 2000 to include two additional weights as well as small caps and text figures. The canonical humanist sans-serif; inspired by Sabon. And perhaps the best deal in type – only $119US for the full set on hard media. See Sumner Stone's excellent article in Fine Print on Type. 07-18-2002 ................................................................... celeste: 6 of 20 By Christopher Burke, type designer and scholar. Celeste was introduced in 1994 and sold via FontFont; Greek and small text versions have more recently become available, making this one of the most versatile faces available. 07-18-2002 ................................................................... typophile contest... Jared Benson asked me to pass this along: Announcing the first annual Typophile t-shirt design contest. Through August 30th, Typophile is holding open submissions for our first annual Typophile t-shirt design contest. Design submissions will be posted daily to the forums for public review and critique. Tune in daily and root on your favorite design. The final design will be decided by our guest panel of judges, who will judge the shirts on overall design, originality, and feasibility. Say hello to our guest panel of judges: Cyrus Highsmith (Font Bureau) Jonathan Hoefler (The Hoefler Type Foundry) Carlos Segura (T26) Rich Roat (House) Erik van Blokland (Letterror). The winning design will be printed and made available to all via Typophile. If your design is chosen, we'll send you three free shirts as thanks for your contribution, and make sure that you get proper credit for a job well done. Once you've downloaded the EPS template, submit your finished designs to tee@typophile.com. You may enter as many times as you wish. All work submitted will be posted to the forums anonymously for fair, impartial judgement and critique by your peers. Guidelines: - Use the EPS template provided for download at http://www.typophile.com/downloads/ - The word 'typophile' must appear somewhere but does not have to be the primary or the only image or message. - Keep your design reasonable. Ideally, your design can be printed with 3 colors or less. Anything more than 4 colors won't even stand a chance. - Consider the fabric color in your design. (Show your art on the background of your choice). - Consider that we actually want people to wear these. - Submit your design as Illustrator or Freehand EPS files. - All submissions must be compressed as SIT or ZIP files. Legal Stuff: - By submitting a design, you grant permission to Typophile to use your design for promotional purposes. - You pledge that your work is of your own making. - You pledge that fonts and/or other rights-protected imagery used in your design are legitimately licensed by you or the firm you represent. http://www.typophile.com \| Typographic Collaboration 07-15-2002 ................................................................... unusual ff ligature... I recently posted the following question on TYPO-L: "The ff ligature in MT Pastonchi is unusual in two ways: (1) the first f is of greater height than the second, and (2) the ascender of the first leapfrogs well over much of that of the second. "I’m looking for a precedent for this and cannot seem to find one. Was this novel form of the ff ligature a development of Francesco Pastonchi or of someone else?" Thanks to Gerald Lange for his interesting and informative reply to the list, and for his permission to reprint it here: "I have the original Lanston Monotype specimen book that came out with the release of Pastonchi (printed by hand at the Officina Bodoni), which gives a bit of the history and intent. I do not think you will find precedent as I believe this was an attempt to redefine previous typographic misconceptions of Renaissance letterforms. Truly a remarkable typeface. I bought a lot of the metal version for a book I did and the very day I completed printing, Monotype Typography sent me the beta version. I believe this was the last face to be issued before they mergered with Agfa. Found the digital version to be quite exacting to the original and used it for the letterpress-printed prospectus for the book!!! "Many of the combination characters (ligatures and tied characters) are quite unique. I don't think Pastonchi proved to be much of a commercial success for Lanston or for that matter Agfa Monotype; but it is certainly one of the great neglected serious typographic investigations of the twentieth-century." 07-12-2002 ................................................................... comparing typefaces 1: a tale of two sabons The Sabons of Linotype and Monotype are quite similar, but there are some subtle differences; I've made a partial list. Compared to the Monotype version, the Linotype version: 1. Is slightly heavier 2. Has somewhat lower contrast between thin and thick strokes 3. Is larger, which is typical for a Linotype-to-Monotype comparison; to achieve equal x-height, Monotype Sabon must be enlarged by roughly 7% 4. Has a more angular lower case roman a and f; note the increased curvature of the ascender in the Monotype roman f versus the Linotype version; compare also the cross-strokes of the f 5. May have a greater axis angle in the italic; compare the g's in the example shown; notice also the differences in the teardrop terminals in this letter 6. Has that extra bit of space – almost too small to measure, yet discernable enough – after the lower case roman a. Or perhaps the spacing is a bit off overall. Or perhaps it's just my imagination... 07-11-2002 ................................................................... mendoza: 5 of 20 By Jose Mendoza y Almeida and issued by ITC in 1990. Mendoza is rugged yet elegant; avoid the fi "ligature," however. See the full page sample in Bringhurst (2nd edition, p 108); see also the short article in Carter (pp 160–161). 07-08-2002 ................................................................... wherefore art thou bembo...? Dean Allen writes: "In its metal version, Bembo is my favourite thing to read; with acknowledged subjectivity, it is the most beautiful and readable text face of all." I agree with Mr Allen; I also agree with his opinion on the digital incarnation, which is indeed thin, wispy, and squat. We can apparently blame the 8 point size in metal, for it served as the master from which the digital version was designed. Walter Tracy, in Letters of Credit, writes (pp 54–55): "When photo-composition became a reality in the 1950's the manufacturers of typesetting machines had to make an important decision: whether or not to carry forward into the new system the principle of optical compensation, when the plain and tempting fact was that the photographic part of the system was capable of producing a considerable range of type sizes from just one font. To abandon the principle altogether was to risk forfeiting a substantial part of a reputation for typographic quality." He continues, "Some [manufacturers] apparently thought that increasing the x-height of the faces would be an acceptable alternative. It is not....The Bembo face, an admirable example of optical compensation by the Monotype drawing office, demonstrates the point." Tracy here refers to a figure in which the metal version of Bembo at 24, 12, 8, and 6 pt is compared to a film version derived from the 8 pt – essentially identical to digital Bembo. While Edward Tufte has admirably continued to use metal Bembo, what recourse is there for those of us who must work in the digital realm? One option is to use Poliphilus, a typeface constructed from tracings of letters in the Dream of Poliphilo. It has not become obsolete as quickly as Stanley Morison predicted (see A Tally of Types, pp 46–56), but its faithfulness to the original impressions limits its use. Another alternative may be found in Jack Yan's Aetna. In fact, this face comes as close as anything I've seen to metal Bembo. In the upper half of this figure, metal Bembo and JY Aetna are shown first and second, respectively, while in the lower half, the upper and lower case letters, text figures, and ligatures are displayed at 24 pt in Aetna Roman. This face cannot be considered a digital incarnation of metal Bembo at 12 or 24 pt – there are too many subtle deviations. And not so subtle is the lower case a, in which the Aetna glyph appears to lack the modulation of stroke seen in the metal analogue, as well as in several of the other Aetna glyphs. But you can mourn the lack of a digital Bembo based on its 12 pt metal antecedent, or you can compromise. And if you're willing to compromise, Jack Yan's Aetna is perhaps your best bet. 07-05-2002		............................