Type Design Practice
Bitmap Typeface
This design exercise comes from the book Thinking with Type: A critical guide for designers, writers, editors, & students (2nd edition) by Ellen Lupton in 2010, which is the first book I read on typography. It requires students to “create a prototype for a bitmap typeface by designing letters on a grid of squares or a grid of dots. Substitute the curves and diagonals of traditional letterforms with gridded and rectilinear elements. Avoid making detailed ‘staircases,’ which are just curves and diagonals in disguise.”
In this practice, however, I put the legibility above the adherence to the rules. Especially when it comes to the letterforms of ‘Q’ and ‘Z’, a little bit “staircases” are just inevitable.
