Algorithm and typography

The code as part of the creation process of a digital font

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the creative process of the digital font TEP (translation from Portuguese’s Parameterized Experimental Typography), whose drawings were produced with the aid of algorithms, ie, programming codes. Once written - obeying some parameters and allowing the random selection of others by the computer – the algorithms, at every mouse click, presented a new solution for the characters’ shapes. This is not a typography intended to be used in texts, since the project does not focus on readability, although the identification of letters and numbers is possible. The TEP was designed so that its characters work as visual modules which, when repeated and manipulated by other algorithms, generate patterns. As methodology, added to theoretical research, the experimentation experienced in the computer lab was critical to this work.