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by pram 18 days ago
They look really good. I really enjoy looking at midcentury engineering charts/diagrams and stuff like jeppesen charts. NASA has a lot of good ones. The way the text looks, the line economy, the general aesthetic. Well worth the effort imo!
1 comments

I'm glad I'm not the only who seemingly has a taste for "older" diagrams from that period. It makes me think of the same aesthetic roots of what's now called "cassette futurism" or "NASA-punk". Older engineering charts really feel like there was more care and thought put into each line or facet, even though I'm sure it's a trick of time.
I was a big fan of two fonts (Draft Paper and Parts List) by Beth Matthews [0] that call back to this era, you might enjoy them as well.

[0]: https://www.bethmathews.com/shop/partslistdraftpaperfontbund...

Certainly reminds me of the fonts produced by the vintage lettering kits.

What if for digital fonts, there was a way to write the same letter 2 or more different ways? Adding slight variations to the same letter would mimic the effect of using hand tools.

I think OpenType allows for this! Most font designers don’t take advantage though, since even two variants per glyph means 2x the design work and 2x the file size. It would be cool to see it done more though.