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Hand lettered type text


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Ok, so I copy/ pasted a couple of ttf fonts in my windows/fonts folder. Shouldn't they show up as selections in the font list in VW?

Hmmm.

I just tried it on the WinXP install on my MacBookPro and it worked OK.

I added the fonts through Settings>Control Panel>Fonts.

Did you restart VW after adding the fonts?

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Workers in the field ... really love artsy plansets ... especially in the burning mid-day sun ... when it's impossible to tell whether that dimension is a 6 or an 8 or a 0 !

Font selections should be dedicated to communicating with the end user as simply & directly as possible. Architecturally gorgeous plans viewed over steaming lattes in the confines of the environmentally controlled conference room may be utterly useless to those half-blind professionals who's job it is to construct the darn thing.

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i do not mean to start a big arguement about this subject, it just seems somewhat odd to me that text used for drawing produced on a computer should have a 'hand lettered' appearance. the Griffins work is quite striking and beautiful and i would be proud to say i could do the same. but what truly does make there drawings so wonderful is that they were produced by hand. while we architects should strive for beuaty in our presentation drawings (and clarity in our construction drawings), attempting to make them have a hand drawn appearance i find, in my humble opinion, somewhat false. an analogy could be that if we build a masonry structure without expressing the lintels over wall openings, etc. i find hand fonts have their own aesthetic, and i am a fan of Ching books too, but fonts such as futura and helvetica have their own aethetic that seems to be a better fit with computer drawings...

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Fonts! you've got to love fonts; what a wonderfull subject for discussion!

No big arguments from me Jim, just latte sipping banter in this corner. ;-)

Your point goes right to the heart of the old Traditional/Modernist/Post Modernist thing doesn't it? The poor old Bauhaus boys and girls would be spinning in their geometrically pure sarcophigi at the plague of CNC cut polystyrene mouldings gooped onto the outside of the "Neo Georgian" and "Classically Inspired" architectural travesties that have been spawned around here in the last 20 years.

Since watzisname plonked the broken pediment on the top of tha AT&T building it's been ok to 'Reference' (as long as one pretends one is not serious), but possibly not to 'decorate'. Although: the Modernists' great failing was to not realise that humans like to decorate things; the vast majority of the history of world design is that of decoration. In this perspective the early C20th is a mere blip in a glorious, universal tradition of appliqu? and embroidery -Architectural or otherwise.

So: is it "false" to get a computer to make text look like it was done by hand?

Hell yes.

Does it 'matter'?

Probably not.

This line of reasoning is reminiscent of the philosopher Hume, who in the in the 'Age of Reason' established (with impeccable logic that has not been refuted to my imprecise knowledge), that the notion of Causality is logically unsupportable. That is to say; we have no way of 'proving' that one action causes another; all we can say is that the 2 things were co-incident (as against coincidence), and we can possible expect that if one action has repeatedly, in the past, been co-incident with another, then we might predict that it might again be co-incident in the future. But proof?, No, there is no proof.

This sort of undermines the entire basis of Science, but for Hume that didn't matter. What he said was that even though he had de-bunked the underpinnings of 'life as we know it', it wasn't going to change the way he lived his life, and he would continue to exist as though it was, in fact, leaving the slice of bread too close to the fire that burnt his toast. :-)

I do seem to be drifting don't I....

Can you tell I'm writing lesson plans for the next semesters Contemporary Design Studies classes? :-)

So getting back to the topic, I generally agree with you about the Aesthetics of fonts, ....but I don't care whether the use of a particular font is 'false' or not.

What I care about is;

1/communicating my intent and,

2/entertaining myself ;-).

The first point is the relevant one here.

I use hand lettered fonts in the same way as (and together with) the Sketch function in presenting Draft Concepts (very sketchy with Ashley font) and Concepts (less sketchy, with Architext, or Bradley Hand).

The "looseness" of these is efficient and effective in conveying to the clients that the drawing they are looking at is conceptual and is open to interperetation and change.

The use of the fonts here is an Aesthetic judgement that may be False, but is carefully considered and with very specific visual and proffesional intent.

When it comes to working drawings; Sketch is off and Fonts are Arial

You know; despite it's drawbacks, I miss hand drafting.

Oh well, I've gone on enough, it must be time to go for another Latte. :-D

cheers,

N.

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It's funny. I want a hand lettered font for my VW drawings. I can't seem to find another font that looks as true to my ACAD font I use. All I'm able to find looks like simulated versions that aren't quite right. So at the very least, I am very particular about my computer generated hand lettering.

Edited by kellhammer
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... we have no way of 'proving' that one action causes another; all we can say is that the 2 things were co-incident ...
That reminds me of the story of the cat door that a friend built to allow his cat access to the house while he's away. Not wanting to give other cats access, he made it open electrically whenever a sensor detects the presence of his cat, via a device on its collar. To conserve the battery, the signal is sent out at intervals. So the cat has to go to the door and wait a short time, and then it opens. The cat always goes through the same series of motions (rubbing against the door, turning around, scratching, etc.), always in the same order, while waiting for the door to open. One wonders whether the cat thinks that ritual causes the door to open.
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