Haiku Monkey

In my misspent youth, I dabbled in graffiti, and it turns out that despite the whole vandalism thing (a line which let’s just say for the sake of argument I never crossed) it was the best typographic education I ever had that I never realized I had. The unlikeliest things can be the most educational in the long term, and sometimes one’s path through the fabled 10,000 hours towards expertise takes unexpected detours.

What Graffiti Taught Me About Ligatures

What is a ligature? You can get a quick refresher on the subject over at ilovetypography.com, but basically a ligature is two letterforms joined together to create a single form.

There are really two types of ligatures in fonts: standard, and discretionary. An example of a standard ligature is the “f-i” pairing. In many fonts, the dot of the “i” trespasses dangerously close to the top of the “f”, impedes readability, and is just generally aesthetically unappealing. So font designers often create a single combined “f-i” glyph that sits in for the “f-i” pair of glyphs (when you’re using software that’s smart enough to make the proper substitution) — and generally, the “f-i” standard ligature drops the dot of the “i” and moves the base of the “i” under the protective hood of the “f”.

A discretionary ligature is a combined set of glyphs that is not strictly necessary, but is aesthetically interesting. A usual suspect in professional fonts is the “s-t” ligature. As you can see from the above graphic, there is nothing inherent in the geometry of the “s-t” combination that screams out “create a ligature here! shapes are crashing into one another!”, but there is a neat way to connect the two letters that adds visual interest and gives a unique flavor to the font that can be used in special circumstances. Generally, the wisdom is that you’ll always use a standard ligature when typesetting a document, but you’ll only occasionally use a discretionary ligature, as something that adds spice to your typography here and there. (Using the “s-t” ligature everywhere in a dense block of text would probably be quite distracting to the reader; but using it in one place on a, say, wedding invitation might add flare and uniqueness.)

Standard Ligatures in Graffiti

Graffiti taught me (without the proper terminology, of course) the difference between standard and discretionary ligatures, by way of lessons in geometry and flair. Standard ligatures are creations of geometrical necessity; discretionary ligatures are creations of artistic flair.

Here’s a standard (geometrically necessary) ligature in a lovely piece spelling out the word “SHOCK”:

The way the letters are spaced in this work, there’s no way the “C” and the “K” aren’t going to run into each other. So as a designer, it’d be irresponsible not to make sure this connection goes smoothly. Here’s what it might have looked like spacing the “C” and the “K” so that there’s no connection at all between them:

We can bring the letters closer together with the help of negative spacing, and still leave them unconnected. Here’s what that might look like:

Clearly, these two renditions (even as hackneyed and hypothetical as they are) don’t hold a candle to the original typography of the piece. The “C-K” ligature here is necessary to the integrity of the design.

Discretionary Ligatures in Graffiti

Discretionary ligatures, remember, are connections between letters that are not necessitated by geometry. Here is a wonderful discretionary ligature of the “A-U” combination of a piece that spells out the word “AUSTIN”:

There’s no immediate design consideration that says “you had better connect the crossbar of that ‘A’ to that ‘U’!”. But it is a lovely choice, above and beyond necessity’s demands.

More and more commercial fonts are coming with sets of standard and discretionary ligatures. Here are some of my favorite discretionary ligatures from recent font releases. Note the connections (top to bottom) from the “e” to the “l”, the “d” to the “e”, and the “d” to the “i”. Each one is geometrically unnecessary, but aesthetically amazing.

Coming soon: Part 2 of the series: “What Graffiti Taught Me About Kerning”.