“Digital Type” by Robin Kinross

Abstract

This paper offers a new reading of the article titled “Digital type” by Robin Kinross, published in Eye magazine in 1992. The period between the late 1980s and the early 1990s was particularly important for the evolution of digital typeface design. The article by Robin Kinross was written at the culmination of the process of evolution of digital editing techniques and software: it was at this time that certain technological and commercial issues arose that would characterize the decades to come, and in particular: the publication of the Unicode encoding standard, the Multiple Master format, the rise of independent foundries and typeface design firms, the development of a market system that anticipated electronic commerce. This article highlights these milestones through an analysis of the developments and the impact that some of these factors would have in years to come, from commercial issues to education, from the evolution of software to the different approaches to design.