字体如何帮助发射阿波罗
日期:2019-10-23 19:02

(单词翻译:单击)

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In 1969 in July, three Americans launched into space.
1969年7月,三位美国人被发射至太空。
Now, they went to the surface of the moon, they famously made the great leap for mankind.
他们抵达了月球的表面,完成了人类举世瞩目的一跃。
Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, they walked on the surface, they planted this flag.
巴兹·奥尔德林,尼尔·阿姆斯特朗在月表行走,他们插上了这面旗帜。
It's rightly celebrated as a moment that in America we say is a triumph.
这是一个值得全美国庆祝的胜利时刻。
We think it was this amazing accomplishment.
我们认为这是一个了不起的成就。
They didn't just leave behind this flag, though. They also left behind a plaque.
他们留下的不仅是这面旗帜。他们也留下了一块登月纪念牌。
This plaque is a beautiful object, and one that I want to talk to you a little bit about.
这个纪念牌很漂亮,我想和你们谈谈。
First, you might notice that there's two globes, representing all of earth.
首先,你可能注意到有两个球状图案,代表整个地球。
And then there's this beautiful statement: "We came in peace for all mankind."
然后是这段优美的描述:“我们为全人类的和平而来。”
Now, at first, this is just nice poetic language, but it's also set in a typeface that's perfect for this moment.
首先,这是非常富有诗意的语言,其次它的字体也非常适合那个时刻。
It seems industrial, it seems engineered.
它看起来是工业化的,经过精心设计的。
It also is the best possible name you could come up with for something on the moon: Futura.
这也是你能想到的用来描述月球上的东西的最好名字:Futura(未来)。
Now, I want to talk to you about fonts, and why this typeface is perfect for this moment.
现在,我想和你们谈谈字体,以及为什么这个字体非常适合这个时刻。
But it's actually more than just ceremonial.
这不仅仅是仪式。
Now, when all of you arrived here today, you actually had to think about fonts.
你们所有人今天来到这里时,都需要考虑字体。
You might not realize it, but you're all unconscious experts on typography.
你们可能没有意识到这点,但你们在潜意识中都是排版专家。
Typography is the study of how fonts inhabit our world, they're the visual language of the words we use.
排版是研究字体以什么方式存在于我们的世界的,他们是我们使用的文字的视觉化语言。
Here's the thing that's funny about this, though.
但这里有一件有趣的事情。
I know you're probably not like me, you're not a font nerd, maybe some of you are, but if you're not, that's alright,
我知道你们可能不像我,你们不是字体迷,可能有些人是,但如果你不是,也没关系,
because I might spend hours every day trying to pick the perfect typeface for the perfect project,
因为我可能每天都要花上几个小时去为最合适的物体挑选最合适的字体,
or I might spend thousands of dollars every year, trying to get ones with the right features.
我也可能每年要花费成千上万美元,试着找到符合我要求的字体。
But all of you actually spend hours every day, evaluating fonts.
但其实你们所有人每天都花了数个小时在评估字体。
If you don't believe me, think about how you got here.
如果你不信,想想你是如何到这儿的。
Each of you had to judge by the signs and maybe even on your phone, which signals to trust and which to ignore.
每个人都要判断标志,甚至你手机上的标志,该相信哪个符号,忽略哪个符号。
You were evaluating fonts.
这时你就是在评估字体。
Or maybe when you're just buying a new product,
或者可能当你刚买了个新产品时,
you have to think about whether something is expensive or cheap or hard to get or easy to find.
你得考虑东西是贵还是便宜,或者很难获得还是容易找到。
And the funny thing about it is, this may not seem extraordinary to you,
有趣的事情是,这在你看起来并不奇怪,
but the moment you see something out of place, you recognize it right away.
但一旦你看到的事情错位了,你立马就能认出来。
The thing I love about typography, and why I love fonts and why I love Futura,
我爱排版的一点是,以及我为什么喜欢字体,尤其是Futura字体的原因是,
is that, for me, what I study is everywhere.
对我而言,我的研究对象无处不在。
Every street that I walk down, every book that I pick up, every thing that I read is filled with the thing I love.
我走过的每一条街道,我拿起的每一本书,我阅读的任何事物都充满了我热爱的东西。
Now, once you understand the history and what happens with typography,
一旦你理解了排版的演变过程,
you actually have a history of everything before you. And this is the typeface Futura.
你面前的每件事的历史都摆在了你的面前。这是Futura字体。
As previously we've discussed, this is modernism in miniature.
正如之前所讨论的,这是现代主义的缩影。
This is a way in which modernism infiltrated this country
这是现代主义渗透到这个国家的一种方式,
and became perhaps the most popular, or promiscuous typeface, of the twentieth century.
也可能是20世纪最流行的,或混杂的字体。
"Less is more," right, these are the aphorisms of modernism.
“少即是多”是现代主义的格言。
And in the visual arts, the same thing happened.
在视觉艺术领域,同样的事情也发生了。
Let's focus on the essentials, focus on the basic shapes, focus on geometry.
让我们关注本质,关注基本形状,关注几何。
So Futura actually holds this to its core.
这实际上就是Futura字体的核心。
You might notice that the shapes inherent in Futura have circles, squares, triangles.
你可能会注意到Futura字体固有的形状有圆形,正方形,三角形。
Some of the shapes are all based on circles, like the O, D and C, or others have this pointed apex of the triangle.
有些形状都是基于圆圈的,比如O、D和C,有些则带有三角形的尖顶点。
Others just look like they might have been made with a ruler or a compass.
其他的看起来就像是用尺子或圆规做的。
They feel geometric, they feel mathematic, precise.
它们看起来感觉像依照几何形状或数学公式计算过的,十分精确。
In fact, this whole system carries through with the way that the typeface was designed.
事实上,这种字体的设计方法贯穿整个系统。
To not look like it was made like other typefaces, to be something new.
要让它看起来和其他字体不同,要有新意。
Here it is in the lightweight, the medium weight and the bold weight.
这是它的细体、常规和粗体的样子。
The whole family has different things to commend to it.
整个字体家族都有不同的推崇之处。
This was a conscious break from the past, something that looked like it was made by a machine, and not by hand.
这是对过去的一次有意识的突破,是一种看起来像是由机器而不是手写生成的东西。
When I say not made by hand, this is what I mean.
我说不是手写的意思指的就是这个。
This is what we think about maybe, when you might create something with a calligraphic brush or a pen.
这是当你用毛笔或钢笔写字时有可能呈现出的字体。
That there's thicks and thins.
笔画之间会有粗和细的差别。
And even more traditional typefaces, say like a Garamond, holds vestiges of this old system
即便是更传统的字体,比如加拉蒙字体,也保留着这个旧系统的痕迹,
in which you can see the A where it get little bit thinner at the top and thicker down below,
比如在这里你可以看到A的上半部笔画划较细,而下半部分较粗,
because it's trying to look like someone had made it by hand.
因为这是在试图让它看起来像手写的。
But Futura, in contrast, is designed to look like no one had touched it at all,
但Futura字体与之相反,设计得就像跟人工全无关系,
that this was made by a machine, for a machine age, for an industrial age.
它是由机器书写的,对应着机器时代,工业时代。
There's actually a sleight of hand here that Paul Renner, the designer who made this in 1927, employed.
这里其实有1927年设计这幅画的设计师保罗·雷纳隐藏的一个花招。
If you look at the way in which the circular shape joins with the vertical shaft,
如果你观察圆与竖连接的方式,
you'll notice that it tapers just every so slightly.
你会注意到它变得稍微细了一些。
And this is one of hundreds of ways in which this typeface was designed to look geometrically perfect,
这是把字体设计得几乎在几何上完美的数百种方法之一,
even though it's mathematically not.
尽管它在数学上不完美。
And this is what typeface designers do all the time to make typefaces work, every day.
这就是字体设计师每天围绕字体所做的工作。
Now, there were other designers doing this at the same time in Europe and America.
同期在欧洲和美国也有其他设计师做类似的事。
These are a few other excellent examples from Europe,
这是来自欧洲的其他一些优秀的例子,
trying to create something new for the new age, a new moment in time.
大家在努力为新时代,新阶段创造一些新的东西。
These are some other ones in Germany that in some ways look very similar to Futura,
这是德国的其他一些看起来非常类似Futura的字体,
maybe with higher waist or lower waist or different proportions.
可能只有高腰或低腰或不同比例之别。
Then why did Futura take over the world?
那为什么Futura会风靡世界呢?
In this case, if you can read the titles there, some of these names don't quite roll off the tongue:
在这个案例中,如果你能看清一些字体的名字,其中有些不是很能脱口而出:
Erbar, Kabel Light, Berthold-Grotesk, Elegant-Grotesk.
Erbar,Kabel Light,Berthold-Grotesk,Elegant-Grotesk。
These aren't exactly household names, are they?
这些都不是家喻户晓的名字,对吧?
And so when you compare that to Futura, you realize that this was a really good choice by the marketing team.
所以当你将它们跟Futura做下对比,就会意识到这是营销团队做出的一个很好的选择。
What's amazing about this name
这个名字最妙的地方在于,
you know, what's in this name is that this is a name that actually invokes hope and an idea about the future.
这个名字的含义实际上唤起了人们对未来的希望和想法。
And this isn't actually the word for future in German, it wasn't a German name,
这个词在德语中并不是未来的意思,它不是一个德语词,
they actually picked something that would speak to a wider, larger audience, a universal audience.
他们其实上选择了一些能够面向更广泛、更庞大,全球性的观众群体的东西。
And when you compare it to what was being done in America
当你比较同时期的美国字体时,
these are the typefaces from the same period in the United States in the 1920s, bold, brash, braggadocios.
这些是美国20世纪20年代,也就是同时代的字体,粗旷、傲慢、浮夸。
You almost think of this as exactly like what the stock market looked like when they were all going nuts in the 1920s.
你几乎可以把这想象成20世纪20年代股市疯狂时的样子。
And you realize that Futura is doing something revolutionary.
于是你意识到Futura在做的是革命性的事情。
I want to step back and talk about an example of the typeface in use.
我想退一步谈谈字体的使用用例。
So this is a magazine that we all probably know today, "Vanity Fair."
这是一本我们今天可能都知道的杂志,《名利场》。
This is what it looked like in 1929, in the summer.
这是它1929年夏季的一个版面。
And in many ways, there's nothing wrong with this design.
在很多方面,这个设计都没有问题。
This is absolutely typical of the 1920s.
这绝对是20世纪20年代的典型设计。
There's a photograph of an important person, in this case Franklin Roosevelt, then-governor of New York.
这是张重要人物的照片,也就是富兰克林·罗斯福,当时的纽约州州长。
Everything seems centered, everything seems symmetrical.
居中排版,左右对称。
There's still a little bit of ornamentation,
这里仍然有一些装饰,
so this is still maybe having some vestiges of the painted lady and not fully modernistic.
所以这可能仍然有些艺术修饰的痕迹,不完全是现代主义的。
But everything seems kid of solid.
但一切似乎都很合理。
There's even drop caps to help you get into the text.
甚至还有下拉大写字母来引导你进入文本区域。
But this all changed very quickly and in October of 1929, a Berlin-based designer came and redesigned "Vanity Fair."
但这些变化得非常之快,在1929年10月,一位来自柏林的设计师重新设计了《名利场》。
And this is what it looks like with Futura.
这是用Futura字体印刷的样子。
Instead of the governor now we have a photograph of an abstract, beautiful setting, in this case, the ocean.
这次不是州长,现在我们有了一张抽象的、美丽的背景照片,在这个例子中,是海洋。
Instead of drop caps, there's nothing at all.
除了首字母下沉外,并没有什么特别之处。
And replaced with a centered layout is now asymmetry.
取代中心布局的是不对称。
And it gets even more radical the further you enter the magazine.
你越仔细翻阅这本杂志,你会发现这种变化越明显、越激进。
In this case, even more dramatic asymmetry.
在这个例子中,甚至有更明显的不对称。
In this case, illustrations by Pablo Picasso, moving across the page and breaking the gutter of the two pages.
其中毕加索的插图横跨过页面,打破了两页的沟槽。
And there's something even more radical.
还有更激进的东西。
If you look closely at the Futura, you might notice something.
如果你仔细观察Futura,你可能注意到一些东西。
You might not pick it up at first, but there are no capital letters in the title or the captions on this page.
你可能一开始没有注意到,但是这一页的标题和说明中没有大写字母。
You might not think that's very radical, but pick up any magazine, any book or go to any website,
你可能不会觉得这个有多激进,但随手拿起任何杂志,图书或打开任何网站,
and I guarantee, you are not going to find it very easily.
我保证,想找到同样的设计并不容易。
This is still a radical idea. And why is that radical?
这仍然是个很激进的主意。为什么说它是激进的?

字体如何帮助发射阿波罗

When we think about what capital letters denote, they denote something important, whether it's our names, or our titles.
思考一下大写字母代表什么,它们表示的都是重要的东西,不管是我们的名字还是职位。
Or maybe even just the name of our corporations, or maybe our trademarks.
或者可能只是我们公司的名字,或者我们的商标。
Actually, in some ways, America's the home of capitalization.
事实上,在某些方面,美国是资本主义的发源地。
We love putting capitals in everything.
我们喜欢在每件事情上都注入资本。
But think about how radical this would be to introduce a magazine where you're taking away all the capital letters.
但想想,如果你推出一本去掉所有大写字母的杂志,这是多么激进的做法。
This has maybe had the same political force that we now argue over things like pronouns in our society today.
这可能和我们今天在社会上争论发音一样具有政治影响力。
In the 1920s, this is just shortly after Soviet Russia had a communist revolution.
在20世纪20年代,这样的事就发生在苏联发生共产主义革命后不久。
And for them, this actually represented a socialist infiltration into America.
对他们来说,这实际上代表了社会主义对美国的渗透。
All lowercase letters meant that this was an egalitarian, complete lowering of everything into one equal playing field.
所有的小写字母代表了一种平均主义,把所有的东西都放到一个平等的竞争环境中。
Now this is still kind of a radical idea.
今天这仍然是一个很激进的想法。
Think about how often you do capitalize something to have more power or prestige to it.
想想你是否经常使用大写来让某段文字体现更大的权力和声望。
So for them to do this was a way in which Futura was using this idea.
所以对他们来说,这是运用Futura的一种方式。
Now, other designers were doing other things with Futura.
其他设计者也在用Futura字体做其他事情。
Others brought other ideas of modernism with it,
他们带来了现代主义的其他想法,
whether it was interesting new illustration styles, or interesting new collage types of illustration.
无论是有趣的新插画风格,还是有趣的新拼贴类型的插图。
Or even just new book covers, whether they were from Europe. But here's the funny thing.
或者只是新书的封面,无论它们是否来自欧洲。但这里有个有趣的事情。
In the 1920s, if you wanted to use a new typeface, you couldn't just go download it onto your computer.
在20世纪20年代,如果你想要使用新的字体,你无法直接把它下载到你的电脑中。
You actually had to have pieces of lead.
你必须有刻有这种字体的铅块。
So for Americans who wanted to adopt this and make it part of their own system,
所以对于想要采纳这种字体,并且想要将其作为他们系统的一部分的人,
something they could use in everyday typography, whether in ads or anything else, they actually had to have metal type.
一种他们每天排版时都可以使用的东西,不管在广告或者其他地方,他们必须使用金属字体。
So being good American capitalists, what did we do? We made all sorts of copies.
所以作为优秀的美国资本家,我们到底是怎么做的?我们制作各种各样的字体副本。
Ones that had nothing to do with the name Futura, but looked identical to it, whether it was Spartan or Tempo.
这些字体和Futura这个名字没有任何关系,但是看起来是一样的,无论是Spartan字体还是Tempo字体。
And in fact, by the time that World War II started, American corporations were actually trying to boycott Nazi goods.
事实上,到第二次世界大战开始时,美国公司一直在抵制纳粹的东西。
But they said, "Go ahead and use our copies.
但他们说,“去用我们的复制品吧。
Use 20th Century, use Spartan, use Vogue, use Tempo. These are identical to Futura."
用20世纪的东西,使用Spartan,Vogue,Tempo字体。这些和Futura是一样的。”
And in fact, for most people, they didn't even learn the new names, they just still called it all Futura.
其实,对大部分人而言,他们甚至都记不住这些新名字,只是简单的将所有这些字体叫做Futura。
So America took this typeface in, conquered it and made it its own.
所以美国采用了这种字体,并将它吸纳成自己的字体。
So by the time World War II finishes, Americans are using this on everything,
到第二次世界大战结束时,这种字体开始在美国变得无处不在,
whether it be catalogs, or atlases, or encyclopedias or charts and graphs, or calendars, or even political material.
无论是目录还是地图册,或是百科全书,图表和图片,或者日历,甚至政治材料都在用。
And even the logo for a new expansion football team.
连一个正在扩张的足球队队徽都用到了这种字体。
And in fact, it was used even on some of the most important advertising of the 20th century.
事实上,它甚至被用在20世纪最重要的一些广告中。
So it's in this context that when the US government was picking a typeface to use after World War II for new maps and new projects, they picked Futura.
所以在这种情况下,当美国政府在二战后为新的地图和新的项目挑选字体时,他们选了Futura字体。
It wasn't an astounding choice, it wasn't a radical choice, it didn't have anything to do with communism.
这不是一个令人震惊的选择,也不是一个激进的选择,它跟共产主义没有任何关系。
But in this case, it was used on some of the most important maps,
但在这个例子中,它被用于一些最重要的地图,
so this one, an air force map in 1962, or used for the maps in Vietnam in '66.
比如这张1962年的空军地图,或者1966年的越南地图。
And so it wasn't a surprise that when astronauts first started the Mercury program,
所以当宇航员第一次开展水星计划时,
such as John Glenn orbiting the earth, that charts and maps that he was using were in Futura.
比如约翰·格伦绕地球航行,他所使用的图表和地图使用了Futura字体并不奇怪。
And in fact, by the time Mercury morphed into Apollo, it started getting used more and more for more things.
事实上,当水星变成阿波罗计划时,在越来越多的物件上都能见到Futura。
So in this case for a safety plan, or even starting to get used on instrument panels, or navigational aids.
比如在一个安全计划书中,甚至开始在仪表盘上,或助航设备上使用。
Or even on diagrams to show how the whole system worked.
整个系统的工作原理图表上也会用到。
But here's the amazing thing, it didn't just get used for papers that they handed out to people.
但这就是神奇之处,它不只限于人们彼此传阅的出版物上。
It started to get used for an interface, for an entire system that helped the astronauts know how to use the machine.
还开始被用于帮助宇航员了解如何操作机器的整个系统界面。
NASA wasn't just one big corporation making everything.
NASA(美国宇航局)并不是一切设备的制造者。
There was hundreds of contractors -- Boeing, IBM, McDonnell Douglas -- all making different machines.
这些设备来自数百家承包商--波音,IBM,麦道--他们制造的是不同的机器。
Now imagine if astronauts had to use different typefaces and different systems for each component they had in the space shuttles.
想象一下如果宇航员不得不在航天飞机上的每一个部件中使用不同的字体和系统会怎样。
This would have been impossible to navigate
这可能根本没法导航,
and there would have been a cognitive overload every time they had to open up a new system.
并且会在他们每次启动一个新系统时,造成认知超载。
So in this case, Futura being used on the interface helped them navigate complexity and make it more clear.
所以在这个案例中,被用于交互界面的Futura字体能够帮助他们应对复杂的系统并使流程更加清晰。
And it wasn't just used on buttons, it was used on labels,
它不仅是用于标记按钮,还被用于物件的标签,
and it was used on their food rations, and it was used on their tool kits.
宇航员的食物配给和工具包上。
It was used on knobs and levers to tell them what to do.
Futura还被用于旋钮和杠杆上的指导性标语。
In fact, maybe even some of the places where they needed to have things that were complex be more simple to them,
事实上,也许还会被用于某些只能容纳少量文字的地方,
instructions were printed entirely in Futura, so that they could know what to do with that one moment.
这里的文字说明完全是用Futura字体打印的,这样操作说明就变得一目了然。
They didn't have to remember everything in their head, they could have it out there in the world to see and refer to.
他们不需要记住所有事情,只需要在必要的时候找地方查看。
In this case, Futura helped make that system, which was already a very difficult and complex system, a little less complex.
在这个案例中,Futura使得一个本身非常复杂的系统简化了很多。
In fact, the very first or last thing an astronaut might have seen
事实上,当宇航员进出太空船时,
when they were entering or exiting the spacecraft would have been in Futura.
看到的第一个或者最后一个东西可能也使用了Futura字体。
One of my favorite examples of how Futura worked in this way is actually this camera.
我最喜欢的一个关于Futura在这方面应用的例子其实是这台相机。
This is a Hasselblad that was made by the Swedish company.
这是一家瑞典公司生产的哈苏相机。
It's a perfectly good camera, some of you might have used one, it's prized by photographers as a really great camera.
这是一台非常棒的相机,你们有些人可能用过,它被摄影师们誉为一台伟大的相机。
And you might notice, if you know anything about cameras, that there's some modifications made to it.
如果你多少对相机有些了解,可能已经注意到,这台相机做了改装。
In this case, there are stickers placed all over the film canisters, or other parts of the camera here.
用贴纸贴满了胶卷筒,或者相机的其他部分。
What this enabled NASA to do, was make something really great out of the astronauts.
NASA这样做能让宇航员们拍一些令人惊叹的照片。
They're not photographers, they're not experts in art.
他们不是摄影师,也不是艺术家。
But they could ensure that they would know how to use this camera because of the labels placed there in Futura.
但贴在相机上的Futura标签可以确保他们知道如何使用这台相机。
So in this case, Futura acquired and made sure that they had legitimacy with the things they were using.
这样一来,Futura就取得并确保了他们能够掌控所使用的东西。
In this case to not take off the film before it would expose.
这个标签说的是在需要曝光之前不要把胶片取下来。
Which, in this case, we would have never had some of the amazing photos we had without this label.
也就是说如果没有这个标签,我们可能就见不到那些壮观的照片了。
When we see something as decorative as this, a ceremonial patch, or something like this plaque on the moon,
当我们看到像这样装饰性的东西,比如一块仪式性的肩章,或者像月球上的这块纪念牌,
we realize that Futura was more than just something ceremonial,
我们意识到Futura不仅仅是一种仪式性的东西,
something more than something that had just been picked for its design.
不仅仅是因它的设计而被挑选。
In fact, Futura had authority, had legitimacy and had power because of this choice.
实际上,Futura代表着权威,因为这个选择而拥有合法性和权威。
There's one other thing I want to talk about in closing.
我想用另一件事结束我的演讲。
And that is that Futura tells a story.
那就是Futura讲述了一个故事。
And this is what I love about typefaces, is that all of them tell stories.
我爱字体的原因是它们都在讲故事。
And in this case, this typeface tells a very powerful story about assimilation,
在这个例子中,这个字体讲了一个关于同化,
about something being taken into America and being made part of its culture.
关于被美国吸收而成为其文化一部分的强大的故事。
And that's one of the best and worst things America does,
这是美国做的最好和最坏的事情,
is we take things into our culture and we spit them out back again and claim them our own.
我们把东西带进我们的文化,然后再把它们吐出来,并声称它们是我们自己的。
And in this case, Futura mirrors exactly what happened with the technology undergirding the whole system.
在这种情况下,Futura准确地体现了支撑整个系统的技术演变。
Futura was a German typeface, taken in, made into an American commodity.
Futura是一种德国字体,被吸收后成为了一种美国商品。
And so were the technologies: the rockets, the scientists all came from Germany as well.
技术也是如此:火箭,所有的科学家都来自德国。
So in some ways, this German typeface on an American plaque perfectly mirrors what happened with the technology.
所以在某种程度上,美国纪念牌上的德国字体完美地体现了这项技术。
And in this case, when you think about this story,
在这个例子中,当你想到这个故事时,
you realize that typography on the moon represents legitimacy, represents authority,
你会意识到月球上的排版代表着合法性,代表着权威,
and this gave them, the astronauts, the power to get to the moon. Thank you.
并给予了宇航员登上月球的力量。谢谢。

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