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Face Font


脸书

Oct/2016

When sketching a face, we usually begin with identifying the face shape and using horizontal and vertical lines to locate eyebrow, eye, nose, mouse. Each face has its unique grid representation, which could be used to create different font based on its unique characteristics.

Therefore I tried different people faces to design their fonts. However, the created fonts could barely distinguish with each other as I expected. It seems all human faces create similar fonts. So I started to try fonts induced by different animals categories like mammal, insect and shellfish It’s interesting that those animals induced fonts differentiated significantly.

After that, I discovered one more thought-provoking observation that the fonts widely used today have more similarity with font induced by human facial features. A natural but interesting question came to my mind: what is the popular font (if exists) like in Age of Dinosaurs or in future if world is ruled by aliens from another planet?

当我们用素描去画一个人面部形态的时候,通常会通过横或竖的直线先去确定出 脸的大致形状以及眼睛,鼻子和嘴的位置。每一个人脸都会有他独特的面部网格,我们可以根据这些特殊的网格去设计 每一个人脸特殊的字体。

我起初试着用不同人的脸去创建不同的英文字体。然而我发现这些字体的区分并不是很大,它们从外观上都很类似。所以我开始尝试用不同的动物的脸去设计,例如 哺乳动物,昆虫,海洋生物等等。我发现 通过这些动物的脸设计的英文字体区分更明显,也更生动。

当我做完这些字体,有一个很有趣的发现。我们如今运用的英文字体其实和我用 人脸做的字体形象上很类似。也许这就印证了史迪芬·平克在他的《语言本能》书中的论断,人运用语言进行沟通是一种本能行为。所以也许表现这一种本能是来源于对自身形象的客观认知。很有趣的是, 如果世界被恐龙或外星人主宰,他们常用的字体也会像他们的脸的网格一样吗?









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