For example, when I draw I solve the form of one part of a scene where others will describe that part in a line or two inside many others. My drawing will sit, centred and small, on a blank page when others roughly fill the page right to every edge. When I write I assemble vignettes and hints together but rarely scenes. When working on a logo I might resolve the curves on a single letterform on a logo that is not the solution to the job.

Its hard to know if this is a disability or an advantage. We are all drawn to bigger works but love smaller parts. We will sit and watch Spartacus enthusiastically but will also remember only lines Happy Gilmore.

“I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast”

“You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?”

…but this was Dublin in the 1980s. It wasn’t strictly a recession. It just was.

I went to school through streets filled with gaps but my mind was far away.

Type sketches

As of yet this is not strictly speaking a lost cause. It is still in (almost) development.

The idea is to reduce ink and paper use by creating a lingua franca of fonts, to be supplied on all computers. It may be ugly, but the idea is the key. It is for in-house proofs and prints where beauty is not called for, just efficiency. Since I first began work on this, others have had the same idea, and got the job done, most notably John Maeda and Spranq. Where this differs is in discarding parts of the font itself, including shaving off curves, condensing, cutting some horizontals and even some verticals. It is harshly geometric and could be used to save paint on naval inscriptions down to tiny legal notices. As I said though, its not beautiful.

Ships and boats really get me going. Long and elegant from one angle, squat and robust from another; they represent a nostalgic way to travel where instead of being cosseted away one’s senses are assaulted by the journey. The travel is about taking time away from everything and seeing the world at a remove. These mechanical Jonah’s whales battle their way though the seas to deliver those in their bellies.

Mid twentieth century ships particularly excite me with their proud bows vertically rising from the point where they obtusely cleave the water apart. They make no concession to ergonomic theory or streamlining. Everything is upright and proper.

Cows Lane Identity

My two favourite parts of it were that the N, S, E & W were all together like a jumbled compass and that it kind of read like it said “any fashion market” (N E Fashion Market)

Since then I have been irked by this piece. It is only legible when used as a titling face and is strictly incoherent and unreadable in any form even nearly approaching body copy. I began to wonder could a font be created that is entirely logical in its construction? It would need to be usable in all sizes and in any situation. FF DIN is about as close to this idea as I could find. Yet it still has its “illogical” idiosyncracies that help it retain some humanity.

I now want to design a font that reflects our concerns as a race going into the future – it needs to be entirely logical, can appear in print from small print to poster headlines, on the side of children’s bicycles to the side of a space fleet that travels the galaxy. Most importantly it needs to be economically minded in its use of resources, which is to say it must have as few lines as possible so as to use as little ink as possible. Where to start? Well, by trying to figure out what the essence of our alphabet is. How much and what bits can a letter afford to lose?