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Comment by sdsrgdrtgh | Hacker News Reader

There is something vaguely solipsistic about this project—the creator apparently didn't try to contact TfL to ask if the designer of these displays was still around. Meanwhile Tfl put a lot of effort into memorializing their typographic tradition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAxVW-9fRo

Without meaning to sneer, I can't help noticing this project represents a really trivial engagement with typography (dot matrix characters are really simply to copy). There's no craft involved, obviously, and not necessarily any taste either. Typography and graphic design in general are full of those things. Maybe the designers of the signage would have been able to shed some light on those aspects...

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What exactly were you expecting, a thesis project or documentary or something? As far as I can tell, petykowski just wanted to recreate the typefaces used on the Underground's digital signage. That's fine. Not everything has to be some magnum opus.

I'm speaking as a graphic designer who's been obsessed with typography for decades. Craft and taste are qualities I ordinarily pay a lot of attention to, and if petykowski had talked to anyone affiliated with these typefaces, I'm sure it would have been fascinating. But it's also important to remember that these faces are not in the same category as a high-end serif or something. They serve a bluntly functional purpose. The medium for which they're designed is entirely different. Of course they're simple and easy to copy; that's the point.

So I'm not sure how you are defining "craft" or "taste" here. These designs are crisp and legible. Your comment feels a little like somebody looking at an icon of Clarus the Dogcow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow) and saying "Ah, but where's the dimensionality? Where's the realism? Can this truly be considered a rendering of an animal? How lazy."

I personally love pixel/dot-matrix typefaces. I hadn't known about this project, so I'm grateful that somebody went to the trouble of doing this.

What is the point of this reply? This is a set of font files, not an oral history project. The creator is not claiming that this is evidence of their craft or taste.

Makes me think of...

In my experience, there are primarily two kinds of graphical designers. (I don't have direct experience working with font designers, but I imagine they are kind of similar.)

1. Those who are great at it. They also tend to be humble and understand that often excruciating and boring iteration is critical in producing something great. When you find someone like this, hold on to them, whatever the cost.

2. Those who really want to be great at it but kinda aren't. They tend to develop a smug asshole attitude, perhaps as a defense mechanism. They often think their first iteration is a masterpiece that cannot be improved upon.

And there's a much larger superset/variant of the last kind that essentially consists of smug assholes who define themselves as being able to appreciate "good design", which invariably is defined as Apple's style of design.

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