Fernand Baudin

Typography: Evolution + Revolution

The Journal of Typographic Research, Volume 1.4 (1967):
(Later changed name into "Visible Language")

https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/5010/3874

“When I read a piece of printed or written matter, intelligibility is a question of understanding or senselessly fumbling around the would-be message.”

“First: writing is more than a technology, an artistic or manual accomplishment; it is a rational method for the proper design of intellectual instruments and social links. Second: total format of any piece of writing as an object (manuscript, imprinted, or otherwise) is at least as significant as any single aspect of the document.”

“Typography took over a scriptorial tradition in full vigour. What happened in the course of the typographical evolution of writing? To put it very briefly, writing masters disappeared from the universities (perhaps there was some connection between their withdrawal and the discarding of Latin for teaching purposes?) . From the point of view of status, the liberal arts were superseded by science. The care for typography as writing - as a mental, intellectual discipline- rested more and more with printers who, on the whole, were less and less learned people (more mechanized scribes, so to speak). Finally writing as a part of learning was altogether neglected.

This is obviously an oversimplification. To be a little more precise: after Gutenberg, the transmission of the scriptorial tradition took effect through the agencies of writing masters, printers, and typefounders. Authors cared less and less. Printers gradually became immersed in industrial and managerial problems. The typefounders alone could not be expected to keep the tradition alive. They can only ensure that their types are properly designed; they cannot enforce the intelligent arrangement of text matter. This applies also to the typefounders' new competitors: the computerised composing machines.”

Reflections on the Theme: At the Edge of Meaning

Visible Language, Volume 11.2 (1977): At the Edge of Meaning

https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/5232/4096

In any changing situation, as well as in a changing world, we naturally look for a point of permanence, a constant. What is the one constant among the changing technologies? Writing. That is what the symbols and their layout have always been about, no matter if the materials are hot metal, film, pens, pencils, brushes, chisels, punches, paper, papyrus, or parchment.

By writing I mean the systematic ordering and recording of thought.

Too much attention given to letterforms distracts from the planning which is the heart of writing.

Why should authors be left incompetent, helpless, utterly unable to assist their publisher or to have control over the appearance of their work?

Typists cannot be expected to assume by themselves the burden of the full tradition of writing; nor can engineers, technologists, art schools, or design schools.

Today, with all letterforms past and present available, when even handwriting can be cheaply mass reproduced our educational institutions should assume a new responsibility in the teaching of writing in the fullest, creative sense.

Other Replies to Donald E. Knuth's article, "The Concept of a Meta-Font"

Visible Language, Volume 16.4 (1982)

https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/issue/view/360/177?page=35

I am thankful for the opportunity to welcome a major contribution not only to the pages of this journal but also to the history of written interchange.

A few years ago I was staying with a couple of journalists in Washington. Knowing my interests they showed me a press release from Stanford University announcing Donald Knuth's Meta-Font. No mathematics were needed to understand that Knuth is a mathematician grown definitely exasperated with the shortcomings of composing techniques for mathematical proceedings. Mathematics, not Latin, being the universal language for scientists today, he determined to find a mathematical yet practical solution to the problems of technical composition in general.

It is important to note that before he set out to work he first consulted the appropriate historical sources as well as a number of distinguished contemporary type designers. In due time (1979) he published a series of articles in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. The article in Visible Language is expressly intended to bring the ideas of a meta-font home to a public of generalists, if not to the general public.

The result is not pleasant to look at. Nor is it intended to please the eye. It is not a poem; it is a prosody. Not to be read, but to be studied. It is a methodic demonstration of a meta-font and the interchangeable parameters on its design. Not at all intended to set any typographic standards while pointing out the "lamentable degradation" of quality in current practice.

Again, it is important to note that in his conclusion he turns to the type designers as "the professionals who really know the subject," hoping they will begin to create meta-fonts in their own explicit language. Let the type designers and the type manufacturers speak for themselves. What I would like to say as a teacher of letterforms is the following.

Knuth's attitude may well be as significant as the results of his research. It clearly indicates that to him letterforms and letterform design are major factors, not mere variables or interchangeable parameters in the cultural system of any literate civilization today.

It would seem to me that Knuth's attitude and the resulting Meta-Font is in keeping with the developing school of systemic thought (as represented in French by E. Morin and in English by Bronowski and Laszlo, to name a few). There may be some hope that a new philosophy of education will soon emerge along the same systemic lines to meet the challenge of the steadily oncoming technologies and the resulting waves on the ocean of human history. There is also some reason then to hope that writing, in the sense of written interchange, will at long last be considered for what it has always been, namely: one continuity of related and interconnected systems co-extensive with human history and constituting the very nervous network of any future social life on this planet.

Fernand Baudin
64 rue du Village
5983 Bonlez, Belgium

The Visual Editing of Texts

Visible Language XVIII/1 (1984)

https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/5378/4242

“The idea I want to develop here can be expressed briefly as the argument for analyzing, studying, and describing text pages as configurations of columns and lines and as constellations of alphabets.”

“Given the circumstances this may prove a decisive step towards meeting, if not solving, the innumerable challenges of the Computer Age.”

“Everybody benefits by being more alert to the fact that the visual editing is not part of any medium but must be made part of any text.”

“If it is difficult, this is only one more reason why visual editing should be taught generally.”