Heikki Lotvonen is a graphic designer who explores forgotten and unconventional methods for typography, and creates experimental design tools based on them.
Heikki Lotvonen on graafinen suunnittelija, joka tutkii unohdettuja ja epätavanomaisia tekstin muotoilun menetelmiä, ja luo niiden pohjalta kokeellisia suunnittelutyökaluja.
On teaching a 6-week 'Experiment: Code' class and beginning work on Hypergoblet, an experimental DTP software where every tool is a plugin.
On building ASCII AUTOMATA, a cellular automata toy for visualizing textmode font connectivity, and developing a new UI approach using Hershey single-stroke vector fonts that stretch to fill any space.
On building a single-stroke vector font editor based on Hershey fonts with g-conic curves, and a live text layout panel with semi-justification and optical kerning.
On hosting a workshop for 15 Aalto students on making a collective zine without Adobe software.
On building Mr. Baby Paint, a radically simple co-op drawing app for toddlers & accidentally discovering a flood-fill cellular automata, plus developing pixel-fattening algorithms for bitmap fonts.
On building Il-Verse, a spatial writing tool where characters are dropped in cardinal directions that collide based on lettershapes.
On adding a polycentric arcTo command to the single-stroke font editor.
On hosting the Unconventional Graphic Design Tools -workshop in Basel
On making a new scriptable compass & rule drawing tool.
On hosting a one-day Il–Verse + riso workshop at If By Magic.
On giving talks at the Interfering Writing symposium, on letters as pictures and on ASCII art as a design practice, plus repurposing my Unicode Drawing Club editor around Adel's jgs font.
On making a zine entirely with my own tools: a single-stroke Hershey font, a shape-based kerning and semi-justified layout engine and an HTML/CSS-grid page editor.
On Heikki's Garden of Flowers, an archive of ~2500 pictorial typography and letterpress works spanning four centuries — the history of ASCII art before computers.
On making Polyarc Draw, a free browser-based vector drawing tool for making graphics with polycentric arcs and crazy texture fills.
On building a letterpress simulator that reverse-engineers metal type bodies from old specimen scans, and a modular vector editor where shapes snap together along growth points — including a family of 3–4–5 arc modules that stay perfectly on the grid.