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The Mystery of the Dune Font

fontsinuse.com

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Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#31

Post by peepee1982 »

dunefox wrote: post #6
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…

That's not arabic, rather just cursive.

I disagree.

The wide gamut in line thickness and the orientation of it is typical for Arabic fonts, but not for cursive ones.

Personally, this kind of line reminds me of a arab dagger even.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#32

Post by narag »

prepend wrote: post #30

> 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…

Maybe he meant typography die-hard fans.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#33

Post by derbOac »

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…

Thanks for pointing that out, as I had almost forgotten about that first edition.

I was trying to remember where I had heard of Chilton, the publisher of the first edition, and realized it was automotive manuals!

The story of that first edition is interesting and somewhat sad, although maybe edifying and not alone in publishing and other forms of narrative arts.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#34

Post by radiowave »

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...

Ah, as if raked into the sand. Brilliant.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#35

Post by drivers99 »

peepee1982 wrote: post #31
dunefox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not arabic, rather just cursive.

I disagree. The wide gamut in line thickness and the orientation of it is typical for Arabic fonts, but not for cursive ones. Personally, this kind of line reminds me of a arab dagger even.

The variations in line thickness are exactly what you’d get with a calligraphy pen (and pens before ball points like fountain pens, quills) and are a function of the consistent direction of the pen and the smoothly varying direction the line is being written. So you will see it in all old pen/quill writing styles.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#36

Post by thisOtterBeGood »

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... :)

DUNC :D:D

They went for the right decision there, I wouldn't call it cheating. It's a nice to incorporate the importance/uniqueness of that planet in the dune world. They could've just went for a horizontal line/pipe and noone wouldve cared.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#37

Post by noisy_boy »

Cockbrand wrote: post #23
Zecc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The very first Unix I was exposed to was from Sun; I remember seeing the logo on their servers and thinking that those were the most beautiful computers I had seen (which isn't much because I had hardly seen any servers before that). I still remember that one of those came with a key (forgot whether to turn it on or lock the power button panel?)

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#38

Post by bena »

jonah-archive wrote: post #13
latch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the parent, but I've also read all the original 6 books a great number of times, as well as about 7 or 8 of the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune books, and I'd say they aren't worth it. They largely explain things that, as far as I'm concerned, didn't need explaining. As you probably know, they wrote a 2 book conclusion to the series. These 2 books largely tie the Frank Herbert Dune universe with the B. Herbert/K.…

I totally agree with this. One of the strengths of the original Dune series is how willing Frank Herbert is to leave things unsaid -- it's a complex universe that has lost a lot of knowledge, just like ours! It covers timespans that admit archaeology! The idea that there's an accessible succinct narrative arc that ties the story up in a neat little bow is antithetical to the strengths of the original series, in my op…

That may the difference between good world-building and what people think good world-building is.

People think that if the author doesn't know everything about the world, it's not "fleshed out". But if you look to some of the best fiction out there, the world is more suggested than built.

I think a good example of this is George Lucas. He went from good to bad by doing the thing people perceived as good. In the original Star Wars trilogy, things just are. The Clone Wars were a line. A throwaway to explain why Leia was seeking out Obi-Wan never having even seen the man. Han and all of his pre-trilogy relationships are given surface level explanations. You never go deep. What happens between A New Hope and Empire is suggested, alluded to, but never explained. And why should they be explained? All the characters know these things. There's no need to exposit these things again. You're given the impression that there exists a much larger world than the small window you've seen.

Then, in the prequel trilogy, everything is presented as backstory to some other element. Stormtroopers are the successors of the Clone Troopers who are cloned from Jango Fett who had a clone made of himself he named Boba. Of course, Jango is also a bounty hunter. Anakin is from Tatooine. Chewbacca rolled with Yoda back in the day. We know, biologically, exactly what allows people to access the Force. And on and on. Everything is given an explanation. And that, ironically, makes the world feel a lot smaller.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#39

Post by MalcolmDwyer »

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...

Some Unicode variants:

ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᑕ

ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ

⊃ ∪ ∩ ⊂

Edit to add one more...

⋻ ⋃ ⋂ ⋳

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#40

Post by SamBam »

dunefox wrote: post #6
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…

That's not arabic, rather just cursive.

But quite clearly designed to draw a connection to the Bedouin-inspired Fremen, and general North African-like setting.
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