Four Tones by
Sophie Eckhardt

Emojis are a popular method of sticking feelings like a stamp on a text which typeface can then be so sterile that it wouldn't not fit any content. But the spoken word does not outsource feelings to the face, they stay in the voice, too, make it tremble or scream. More technically, emotions in the voice can be described by parameters such as the distribution of energy over different frequency ranges, monotony, articulation, speech rate and volume. This font tries to translate such descriptions into known properties of a typeface such as letter spacing, contrast, weight, width and uniformity of letterforms. Starting from a basic style, four different font styles can be approached and mixed with each other.

Since the first personal computer came into this world in the 1980s, there have already been three generations of the World Wide Web. Web standards have continuously evolved, and graphical user interfaces surround us everywhere on various devices. Most human computer interactions and the resulting interfaces are not designed with a cultural mission in mind, but defined by the five largest, most dominant, and most prestigious companies in the information technology industry. By studying visual and structural constraints that we are facing through predefined interaction surfaces, and the standards, norms, influences and styles that have been established, each student designed a typeface and its habitat on this website.

Participating students

Niklas Weisenbach ↘ HMT John Weber ↘ Anomalie Juhee Han ↘ White Forest Michele Sablone ↘ Hypersonic Emre Kızıldelioğlu ↘ Sync Moritz Schneider ↘ What Do You Recognize? Joel Luca Sequeira Ferreira ↘ Modern Balance Sophie Eckhardt ↘ Four Tones Saara Kuum ↘ Mildewy Tizian Repp ↘ Wetlands Felix Harr ↘ Reditus

This website was programmed by Simon Knebl.

The Habitat of a Typeface Today was a seminar at the Communication Department of Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in the summer semester of 2022 supervised by Katharina Köhler.

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