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The Mystery of the Dune Font

fontsinuse.com

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Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#21

Post by dmitriid »

dvh wrote: post #3

I have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's advice how to approach these books: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569

My personal take (having read the entire series including the tacked-on ending by the son) is:

The first Dune is the result of research and thinking. Great care went into it. Every subsequent book is more and more of "oh, here's a sequel". I can't remember anything after God Emperor which in itself was a slog bordering of abysmally bad.

So:

- Dune. Yes. It's slow, long, but ultimately very good

- Dune Messiah. Maybe

- Children of Dune. Can already be skipped

- Skip the rest of the series, they are not worth it. At all

YMMV :)

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#22

Post by Zecc »

Semaphor wrote: post #11
enriquto wrote: post #2

None of these covers shows "the" Dune font, for me. The first edition of Dune had a very stylized calligraphy that looked like arabic. I remember it vividly since my dad had this book in the living room, among others; and when I was learning to read, this was the only cover that I couldn't read at all. (It was a translation, but with the same cover.) These letters are shown on the wikipedia page about the novel: http…

> Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and effective design. For those interested: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/P/B08HPFCMLS.01._SCLZZZZZZ...

See also: Sun Microsystems' logo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun-Logo.svg

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#23

Post by Cockbrand »

Zecc wrote: post #22
Semaphor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and effective design. For those interested: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/P/B08HPFCMLS.01._SCLZZZZZZ...

See also: Sun Microsystems' logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun-Logo.svg

When I went to my first computer fair as a teenager, I saw the Sun Microsystems booth and was blown away by the fantastic logo. As I had never seen a Unix machine before, I didn’t know what to do with the computers on display, though.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#24

Post by ZeroGravitas »

xwdv wrote: post #14
dunefox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not arabic, rather just cursive.

Many children have grown up these days without learning cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts they think Arabic first.

My grandmother noticed graffiti tags, which are very ornate generally, and concluded that they were written in arabic.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#25

Post by landhar »

esrauch wrote: post #19
dunefox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not arabic, rather just cursive.

I'm old enough to have mainly used cursive in school and I definitely had the thought that it seemed like a vaguely arabic-inspired cursive when I saw it the flourishes on the D.

The flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I was taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at school. I remember (as a kid) thinking it was odd that to write a `D` one had to start by writing an `I`, but never questioned it.

But from looking at examples of cursive on google images, it seems like that form is no longer as prominent.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#27

Post by simonh »

dmitriid wrote: post #21
dvh wrote: post #3

I have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's advice how to approach these books: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569

My personal take (having read the entire series including the tacked-on ending by the son) is: The first Dune is the result of research and thinking. Great care went into it. Every subsequent book is more and more of "oh, here's a sequel". I can't remember anything after God Emperor which in itself was a slog bordering of abysmally bad. So: - Dune . Yes. It's slow, long, but ultimately very good - Dune Messiah . Mayb…

I really like Dune Messiah. Most of it was written before the original book was published, and supposedly it was going to be part of it but had to be cut or the book would be too long. It's certainly part of Herbert's original creative vision for the story. However I know a lot of people read it and find the apparent inversion of the story arc uncomfortable to the point of dislike, but for me it's an essential piece of the puzzle to understand what Paul is actually going through in the first book, and the extreme lengths he's prepared to go through and sacrifices he's prepared to make to shift the trajectory of events.

The problem is that just like the other characters the in novel, Paul's family, adherents and friends, a lot of readers just want an uncomplicated hero story for him.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#28

Post by cmrdporcupine »

mathieuh wrote: post #5
jonah-archive wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re the advice in that post -- I completely agree but I would say that if you enjoy God Emperor (I do, deeply), between that and Heretics go read _The Dune Encyclopedia_, which is a hard-to-find paperback but an easy-to-find PDF written as an in-universe encyclopedia set after God Emperor. Yes, some things in it are contradicted by the remaining two books, but it adds such a powerful structure to the extant universe i…

I've read the Frank Herbert Dune books back-to-back several times and love them all, but I've never tried his son's additions to the series because I've read a few people saying they're not worth the time. Do you agree?

They're quite bad, and I doubt very much they are based on Frank Herbert's "found notes" in any way. If they are, Brian Herbert should publish those notes, like Christopher Tolkien did.

Lower quality writing, and not thoughtful, and the story arc they take things in seems much cruder than what Frank Herbert would have had in mind.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#29

Post by wkat4242 »

BadOakOx wrote: post #17
enriquto wrote: post #2

None of these covers shows "the" Dune font, for me. The first edition of Dune had a very stylized calligraphy that looked like arabic. I remember it vividly since my dad had this book in the living room, among others; and when I was learning to read, this was the only cover that I couldn't read at all. (It was a translation, but with the same cover.) These letters are shown on the wikipedia page about the novel: http…

> Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. This is what they went with for the movie posters too: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Dune_%282021_... ...although, they cheated a bit with the E. EDIT: Here is a better resolution: https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2sxSn0jjjQoIIZfZjC6j5GZk... :)

It reminds me a bit of a visit to the optician :)

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#30

Post by prepend »

> Strangely enough, the name of this typeface is barely known even among die-hard fans.

This doesn’t seem strange to me at all. I’m a fan of many books and I don’t know the name of any of the typefaces. I think it’s funny that this author links fandom for fonts to fandom for Dune and thinks people interested in Dune are also interested in typefaces.

I like this article and was curious about the distinctive “dune font.” But not enough to Google it in the past 40 years.

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