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atombender 1 days ago [-]
I thought this was going to be about the typeface used for the main text.
If anyone is curious, as I was, there is some academic research on this, although not a lot. The most in-depth "palaeotypographical" analysis I have found was this [1] paper, which also seems to correct a long-standing assumption about the printing:
"Visual and historical evidence have led me to suggest that the font is the second pica roman of the Huguenot punchcutter Pierre Haultin [...] cast for Jaggard’s use probably around 1603 or 1608 by an unknown typefounder who likely inherited the matrices from Pierre’s nephew Jerome Haultin. The font was old and in poor condition when it was used to print the Folio, which supports the view that Jaggard and his pressmen did not see the Folio as an unusually important book."
Very interesting. Sometimes classics (speaking of the well-used font) are dusted off because they are beloved. Perhaps this was not printed at the greatest expense, but that says little about respect paid to the works. Relatedly, the Bible is sometimes printed using very inexpensive means, even by those who consider it important, because it is considered too important to not distribute.
dekhn 4 hours ago [-]
With a little AI (mostly Gemini Argon, then the rest using Qwen 3.8-Flash-Next on my 5090 I was able to extract the font from the image in the article, generating a TTF which I can use with my laser engraver to make wonderful looking wood engravings. Total time from starting to finishing was about 2 hours, mostly clicking "OK" or giving small bits of advice on how to improve the results. I'm not going to share the code, as I think it violates the spirit of the creators.
I think with a bit more effort, i could engrave a wood block of each letter and use that to do block printing.
Argon did a good job getting things started, doing most of the heavy lifting to generate the TTF (using potrace/fontforge) and then Qwen did lots of refinement. By the end I had it generate diffs between the original image and my recreation of it and reduce the overall differences (the actions it took were quite interesting- watching Argon single-shot some things while Qwen had to run large experiments to search font space) and there are many remaining details in the original font that are missing in my clone. But either way, we live in amazing times. To do this by hand would have required me to learn how to design fonts and then manually recreate each letter by scratch.
bryanrasmussen 5 days ago [-]
original title: Shakespeare’s Globe unveils typeface using intricate designs from playwright’s First Folio
Why do they make it so damn hard to download for instance?
yorwba 1 days ago [-]
It's a custom design for the Globe theater. Of course they aren't going to let you download their unique branding, that would defeat the point.
jszymborski 1 days ago [-]
Companies regularly release their custom-made branding fonts under SIL / open licenses.
RobotToaster 1 days ago [-]
If someone with a claude subscription could turn this into a font it would be great.
wvbdmp 1 days ago [-]
Presumably you’ll be able to leech it from the Globe’s website instead of reverse-engineering it, if they use it as a webfont.
kuhaku22 23 hours ago [-]
I like how you're advocating for theft, but can't even prompt an LLM yourself and want someone else to do it.
mock-possum 6 hours ago [-]
Wow the cookies dialog is insane, hundreds of cookies and that’s including “30 Unclassified cookies … that we are in the process of classifying, together with the providers of individual cookies.”
It’s your site, and you don’t know??
mieses 1 days ago [-]
this is not even typography.
kuhaku22 23 hours ago [-]
The history of typography is full of decorative elements like fleurons and elaborate drop initials.
If anyone is curious, as I was, there is some academic research on this, although not a lot. The most in-depth "palaeotypographical" analysis I have found was this [1] paper, which also seems to correct a long-standing assumption about the printing:
"Visual and historical evidence have led me to suggest that the font is the second pica roman of the Huguenot punchcutter Pierre Haultin [...] cast for Jaggard’s use probably around 1603 or 1608 by an unknown typefounder who likely inherited the matrices from Pierre’s nephew Jerome Haultin. The font was old and in poor condition when it was used to print the Folio, which supports the view that Jaggard and his pressmen did not see the Folio as an unusually important book."
[1] http://reedreibstein.com/assets/reibstein-first-folio.pdf
I think with a bit more effort, i could engrave a wood block of each letter and use that to do block printing.
Argon did a good job getting things started, doing most of the heavy lifting to generate the TTF (using potrace/fontforge) and then Qwen did lots of refinement. By the end I had it generate diffs between the original image and my recreation of it and reduce the overall differences (the actions it took were quite interesting- watching Argon single-shot some things while Qwen had to run large experiments to search font space) and there are many remaining details in the original font that are missing in my clone. But either way, we live in amazing times. To do this by hand would have required me to learn how to design fonts and then manually recreate each letter by scratch.
It’s your site, and you don’t know??