Ari Davidow: Hebrew Typesetter Extraordinaire

Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts

2009-09-12T19:21:18Z

Copied from Robin Cover's XML Daily Newslink for 10-Sep-2009:

Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts
Richard Ishida (ed), W3C Technical Report

W3C announced the publication of a Working Group Note on "Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts." The document was produced by members of the Internationalization Core Working Group, part of the W3C Internationalization Activity.

The document provides advice for the use of HTML markup and CSS style sheets to create pages for languages that use right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Thaana, Urdu, etc. It explains how to create content in right-to-left scripts that builds on but goes beyond the Unicode bidirectional algorithm, as well as how to prepare
content for localization into right-to-left scripts.

The specification is intended for all content authors working with HTML and CSS who are working with text in a language that uses a right-to-left script, or whose content will be localized to a language that uses a right-to-left script. The term 'author' is used in the sense of a person that creates content either directly or via a script or program that generates HTML documents.

It provides guidance for developers of HTML that enables support for international deployment. Enabling international deployment is the responsibility of all content authors, not just localization groups or vendors, and is relevant from the very start of development. Ignoring the advice in this document, or relegating it to a later phase in the development process, will only add unnecessary costs and resource issues at a later date. It is assumed that readers of this document are proficient in developing HTML and XHTML pages..."

www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-bidi/

Snapshots from a portfolio - typography of Oded Ezer

2009-08-16T18:19:54Z

Intrigued by Ezra Glinter's enthusiastic, if scantily informed review of the work of Israeli typographer Oded Ezer (A Bubbling Font of Creativity: Oded Ezer and His Hebrew Designs, by Ezra Glinter), I ordered the Israeli designer's recent book, The Typographer's Guide to the Galaxy and had a delightful browse.

Although Ezer has designed several commercial typefaces that I would love to get my hands on an explore, I thought I would focus here on pieces that display his more experimental side. One project described early in the book is a font called "Bet Hillel" intended as an homage and re-imagining/reconstruction of the venerable "Ha-Tzvi" face. I should note that although Ha-Tzvi has fallen out of favor today, it is among the faces I use when I want to evoke a feeling of Israel through the Fifties, even through the Sixties. It is a wonderfully unsubtle monoline expression of "gavriut"—"manliness"—and nicely evokes Uzi ben Gibor. What struck me about Ezer's "Bet Hillel" font, however, is that while the "serifs" (Is this term really appropriate? Is it really the term used by Hebrew typographers to describe the terminating strokes attached to Hebrew letters, as used in one of the articles about Ezer's type included with his book?), anyway, while the serifs follow Ha-Tzvi, the curve and feel of the letters offers homage much more closely to Friedlander's "Hadassah." I have taken the liberty of adding, therefore, a couple of quick scans of Hadassah to a detail grabbed from the book. (Click the excerpt to see a full sample of "Bet Hillel".)

]]> I would also be remiss if I didn't include Ezer's deconstruction of Frank Rühl, the Art Deco face that can not only be said to have moved Ashkenazic Hebrew typography in the direction of readability, but which is as ubiquitous for Hebrew, Ladino, and Yiddish work as the London Times once "New Roman" (it has been replaced by the Times twice in recent decades, a subject for another blog or blog post). Here is a specimen for "Frankrühliah" (created 2001–2003):

Finally, I want to encourage everyone to get the book to read about, and to feast your eyes on the three-dimensional quality of much of Ezer's work. Here, for instance, is a picture of a piece from "Typo Mythologies" (to my left) and another from "Typoplastic Surgeries":

I also want to add one critical missing bit of information not present in the Forward article, nor in the book: You can find Ezer's work at his website, www.ezerdesign.com

more Commentary on the Koren siddur

2009-08-12T17:55:10Z

From the Jewish music "Blog in Dm": The Koren Siddur on Yedid Nefesh. According to the author, "Hasidic Musician," the version of ידיד נפש goes back to the original manuscript which eliminates some translation difficulties and makes for what he considers to be a more beautiful poem.

Check it out!

Israeli Typographer, Oded Ezer, profiled in The Forward

2009-08-09T17:06:58Z

There is an interesting article about Israeli type designer and artist Oded Ezer in a recent edition of The Forward. Although the author does not appear greatly knowledgeable about Hebrew typography, Glinter is to be commended for writing about the subject, and for conveying the idea that fonts are fascinating.

A Bubbling Font of Creativity: Oded Ezer and His Hebrew Designs
By Ezra Glinter
Published July 22, 2009, issue of July 31, 2009.

New "Koren Siddur" features new face, elegant design

2009-08-09T16:57:56Z

Here is a very good article about the new Koren Siddur, which I now have in hand. It is a beautiful book, and will surely take it's place alongside my treasured Jerusalem TaNaKh.

Prayer Type
How Eliyahu Koren used typography to encourage a new way to pray
BY JOSHUA J. FRIEDMAN

It will come as no surprise that the new siddur was set by Jerusalem typographer Raphael Freeman. It is also one of the rare siddurim not to put English and Hebrew in "dueling" position—instead, the two languages work together, reading out from a common spine.

Many thanks to Josh Friedman for noticing the book and writing about it with some knowledge and depth.

Open Type—a gigantic breakthrough in Hebrew typography

2008-07-28T14:18:58Z

Hebrew typography got an encouraging boost in the arm with the advent of Adone InDesign ME Creative Suite, known as "CS" (Adobe is up to CS3 already) and MicroSoft/Adobe OpenType font format. Now, the sky is the limit for excellent Hebrew Typography.

OpenType replaces all the strengths and advantages of Adobe PostScript and Apple/MicroSoft TrueType, plus adds many new and powerful aspects never realized before in typesetting.

This is because OpenType features powerful contextual analysis and replacement routines, making it a step above the flat two-dimensional typeface software of the past.

Just like mathematical vector-based outline typeface was light years ahead of the now defunct bitmap font technology (so much so that Adobe won a landmark ruling in US Federal Court to legally protect its PostScript fonts, which the US Copyright Office refused to apply to bitmap font technology, which was considered as "merely typeface data describing letter forms"),

so, too, OpenType typeface software technology is a quantum leap ahead compared to the limited Adobe PostScript and Apple/MicroSoft TrueType typeface software technology.

(I recall that I had a lengthy correspondence with the head of the US Copyright Office, spanning two years, from 1989 until 1991, regarding whether my applications to the Library of Congress' US Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., for various sets of Adobe PostScript fonts were acceptable or not. The US Copyright Office wanted me to add a disclaimer to my applications, because without such a disclaimer, this would set a major precedence and imply typeface software was in deed subject to US Copyright, if it was in the outline software format.

I refused to add the disclaimers, and argued that a typeface software program was similar to telling a story. Two people can tell the same story, but one person can choose slightly different words, with different intonations. Similarly, two typeface software programs can describe or render the same typeface design, but one program can contain differently placed bezier or vector control points. Hence, these two typeface software programs are not the same, and are subject to US Copyright laws, just as books containing words are "intellectual expressions", and subject to US Copyright laws.)

Until know, a Hebrew typeface contained Hebrew character glyphs, dagesh points, nikud vowel symbols, taamim cantorial marks, meteg accent marks, and other diacritic elements to indicated certain grammatical rules. OpenType paved the way to remove the skilled craftsmanship from the joint efforts of the operating system, the application program, and the knowledgeable Hebrew typesetter to the very font itself. From now on, a well-crafted OpenType Biblical Hebrew font would contain all this skilled craftsmanship, and be the result of the talented type designer.

In deed, this is a gigantic breakthrough in Hebrew typography.

new blogger - Israel Seldowitz

2008-07-28T14:06:15Z

Back a couple of decades, when Hebrew on computers was still a messy subject, I met Israel Seldowitz virtually. He had studied with Henri Friedlander, the great Israeli calligrapher and font designer (most famously, Hadassah), and come back to the States to start up a company to market fonts and font software. Here we are some two decades later, and that company, FontWorld, has been the sponsor of the Hebrew Type blog. Now we have captured Israel as a blogger. I will be moving this blog to a new design soooooooon (as I've been saying since I wiped out most of the customized design in an accident a couple of years ago), but not so soon that it made sense to wait any further before letting Israel start writing. His first post follows.

The Hebrew Typography pages are sponsored by FontWorld, featuring Middle Eastern editions of Adobe-ME software, including InDesign-ME, PhotoShop-ME, Acrobat Pro-ME, and the NEW Adobe Illustrator-ME. www.fontworld.com/arabic/adobeme.html.

the town of Soncino, today

2008-02-11T12:09:17Z

Budapest-based klezmer Bob Cohen blogs about unkosher food, mostly, but today he managed to combine that activity with a mention of the family museum in Soncino, Italy, where the first Jewish Torah was printed by the family whose name is still synonymous with Jewish printing. One measly photo.

Some reader of this blog should go and do a more extensive photoshoot and writeup of the museum, nu?

PDF of Simon Prais' thesis now available

2007-11-29T01:53:25Z

Well, this has actually been available for over a year—I am the dilatory one. British typographer Simon Prais did his thesis some 20 years ago about typesetting Hebrew and Latin alphabets together. I happily talk about it on my Hebrew typography bibliography page. He has created a new website devoted to Hebrew/Latin typography, and the first entry is this thesis:. Check out www.hebrewtypography.me.uk He writes that "I recently gave a presentation from which my talk has been combined with the slides and put into a quick-time movie. I will soon also have this available to download form the same site." Do encourage him to be more speedy in this endeavor than I have been in letting you know of the treasure now online.

Apologies for destruction wrought by upgrade ;-).

2007-11-29T01:40:55Z

Over a year ago, I upgraded this blog to the latest version of Moveable Type. Many things broke during the upgrade, and I haven't had time to fix them. Hoping to go from fire to frying pan, I upgraded again about two weeks ago. Needless to say, more things are now broken. But, I am slowly fixing the code. I try to decide whether it is less time-consuming to start over with new software, which I want to learn, or dig into Moveable Type, which at one time served me very well, and could probably do so again. In the meantime, what I really need to do is to fix the templates so that people can access the goodies that used to be accessible (and still are, if you look at the static pages, like the Hebrew keyboards page). Several of those static entries need updating as well. It will come. I also have a year's worth of entries that want to go up on the blog. With luck, it will be a good Hanukah ;-). Bear with me.

Exhibit on "The Business of the Jewish Book" in US

2006-11-09T14:26:29Z

This was suggested by Lori Cahan-Simon to the Jewish-Music list of all fortunate digressions, who writes:

There is a marvelous online (and previously real-world) exhibit on the history of the Jewish Book Trade that I thought may interest many of our community.

The exhibit, entitled "Printer, Publisher, Peddler: The Business of the Jewish Book," was produced by the University of Pennsylvania and curated by Arthur Kiron and can be viewed at www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/cajs/PrinterPublisherPeddler.

Website with early Hebrew newspapers

2006-10-11T12:00:24Z

Judy Pinnolis forwarded this link to me months ago, for an Israeli site with information on early Hebrew newspapers. It's a wonderful browse! עיתונות עברית היסטורית Early Hebrew Newspapers. Note that instead of utf-8, the hebrew is encoded with windows-1252, so if you aren't using a windows machine, the hebrew may not be readable.

Lovely "Book of Customs" by Kosofsky

2005-11-14T03:04:02Z

I haven't had time to post for months, but I felt a need to extend some props to Scott-Martin Kosofsky, whose lecture on his recent "Book of Customs" I caught today, to my great delight.

What Kosofsky did was to go back over the rich literature of Jewish handbooks from the Middle Ages: "The bestselling guide to Jewish life for more than three centures" on how to live a Jewish year, and put together a lovely amalgam, in English, and including a wealth of woodcut illustrations. This edition is inspired by the Yiddish language "Minhogimbukh", published in Venice, 1593.

As designer, author/translator, and typesetter, Kosofsky was able to create the sort of book that is a pleasure to hold and to look at, even before you begin to sink into the content. For Hebrew, he has chosen Vilna, a font that is truer to the type commonly used in these books, although not one that represents, in my mind, the best of Hebrew typography, then or now. I think we are past due for some revival faces based on those early Italian Hebrew fonts, or even the face, contemporaneous to the "Minhogimbukh" (but not used in it) by Le Bé, the French type designer who did, if I remember correctly, some early faces for Dutch and French printers.

Here is also a link to the NPR interview with Mr. Kosofsky from about a year ago (Sep 29, 2004) by Karen Grigsby Bates. It begins with an intro to Sukkoth.

Metal Hebrew type sought

2005-09-06T05:04:19Z

I have an e-mail from Harold Jacubowitz:

My name is Harold Jacubowitz and as a ceramic artist I'm looking for Hebrew metal types that I could use to impress into clay.

Could you help me find some ?

I'm not going to put his e-mail address online for the spambots to glom onto, but if you know of sources for Harold, post them here (that would be fantastic, because then everyone with the same question would get an answer), or e-mail me and I'll pass it on.

A Yiddish-English-Russian newsletter @ KlezKamp

2005-09-01T01:16:47Z

Just a short notice of a week of solid fun up at KlezKanada, a week-long annual gathering of Yiddish culture buffs at Camp Bnai Brith, about an hour north of Montreal.

First, I borrowed a set of huge wooden type letters from the National Yiddish Book Center. Big, major fun.

]]> The letters were actually used in artwork created by the Visual Arts program. That program featured Emily Socolov, Vera Sokolow, and the Montreal calligrapher Jamie Shear. I was supposed to be part of it, but other than giving a slide show about Hebrew typography, I was totally distracted by the newsletter.

The big fun was the newsletter. In format, it tried to be a sort of Junior High School paper—lots of loud type and graphics, lots of articles written by KlezKanada participants, and especially, a chance to present English, Russian, French, Spanish, and Yiddish with ease. I especially wanted people to see lots and lots of Hebrew that wasn't Frank Rühl or those horrible late 19th century van Dijk-influenced fonts that we grew up with. That was the special part.

What made it all work was the combination of Word and InDesign ME. People would type their material on their own computers using whatever (most often Word, but I saw everything from AppleWorks to unknown). So long as Word could recognize the encoding—and in this instance, it always did—it could convert everyone's files to its native Unicode format. Once saved, I could easily place the files in InDesign ME. Layout was a breeze. If you pay attention to the KlezmerShack over the next days you'll see the newsletters go online and you'll find everything from song lyrics in three columns (Yiddish - transliteration - English, per my preferred style) to MadLibs and wild stuff. InDesign didn't care. I have never had to pay less attention to the tool while doing layout. Every day I had from after breakfast (about 9am) until about 11:30 to get all of the material copied, edited, the photos edited, and the whole thing laid out. As the week went on and we went from four pages to six to eight, that schedule got bent, but I never failed to finish the newsletter in time for printing and delivery that afternoon, at worst. (I did realize early on that the laptop computer on which all of this work was done could not handle InDesign and Word and Photoshop using the dread Windows XP with a mere 256MB of RAM. Don't even think of doing this to yourself at home. That machine will shortly contain over 1GB RAM and will finally be "functional").

The biggest deal didn't actually involve Yiddish. KlezKanada brought over a dozen scholarship students from the former Soviet Union. They wrote several pages of thank yous "what I got out of KlezKanada" in Russian and English. To my shock, I was able to copy the file from the Russian computer, read it into Word, and everything was perfect. Tell me Unicode isn't the coolest thing since the square Hebrew letters became popular!

When I think of all the years I spent typing Hebrew and Yiddish backwards and kerning characters into place—not to mention the need to create the special Yiddish rafe characters, or the tzvey-yud pasakh, I could jump for joy. It's all so easy now. In fact, since no one had a Yiddish-enabled computer at camp, I typed the Yiddish directly into InDesign (far less buggy for that purpose than Word).

The American distributor of InDesign ME (Middle East—the localized version of ID that does the RtoL Yiddish and Hebrew with ease), I should mention, is this weblog sponsor, FontWorld. Give them some props. And if you click the small excerpted graphic, above, you can see a whole page of the newsletter in all of its cacophonous, joyous, multilingual beauty. This is a great time to be working with lots of fonts.