> random is possible
Thank you! This answers one of my questions. But what about procedural generation — a new glyph every time, e.g. an interpolation of multiple prototypical shapes as described in that SE answer … something something eigenspace?
I know PostScript is Turing complete and thus assume a PS font can pull this off; does this extend to OpenType? Apparently yes: OpenType is pretty much a superset of PS (and TrueType, of course). Just searched the web for “opentype turing complete” and the second result led right back to HN[0]:
> OpenType is technically Turing Complete, however the usual way is to just cycle through letter form variations. — danielvf
So this answers my other question? Hold up, check this out: Another answer from that SE post you linked mentions the Beowolf [sic] font[1].
> FF Beowolf came about at the end of the dark and murky 1980s when Just van Rossum and Erik van Blokland found a way to hack PostScript fonts. When printed, each point in each letter on the page would move randomly, giving the letters a shaken, distraught appearance.
> […]
> while it worked fine (if a tad slow) through most of the 1990s, FF Beowolf was eventually barred from performing its PostScript magic: pesky things like printer drivers and operating systems learned to ignore the aberrations. FF Beowolf seemed destined to end up a mere memory. OpenType technology brought new hope, cutting new pathways in the type-tech continuum, which would eventually lead to a new generation of random fonts. Purists and typographic philosophers will be quick to point out that these OT fonts do not actually alter their shape in the printer as their forebearers did. Instead they make use of a kind of pre-programmed randomness: each glyph in each font (except R20) has ten alternate forms and a massive Faustian brain to control the mayhem.
What a rabbit hole! In this case, it seems we're back to “several variations”, but I still don't know whether full-on procedural generation is generally workable with OpenType. Does more modern technology's “ignorance” of “the aberrations” have to do with caching of glyph shapes? Is the Turing completeness curtailed to protect against DoS, decompression/logic bombs?
By the way, the type specimen on the FF Beowolf page I linked features an amusingly à propos quote:
> Im Rausch schreiben, nüchtern gegenlesen.
Write intoxicated, proofread sober.
> It would take a lot of effort, as it would n involve several glyph alternatives for each character, several variations of dozens of ligatures (joined glyphs) and randomness for selection.
Agreed, it's a silly amount of work — if you did it the brute force way. Which is exactly why I'm interested in smart procedural generation. You mentioned that such a style wouldn't be appropriate for running text, so infinite variability isn't important (and use cases where it would be important can be rather questionable).
However, even a curt headline often contains multiple Es or Ts or other Aoin Shrdlus[2]. And because the more appropriate use cases tend to involve above-average font sizes, word wrapping can conspire to place identical glyphs in close proximity. I think one wouldn't have to be a huge typography nerd to find one's suspension of disbelief in the pretense of hand lettering kind of shattered in the countenance of such a similitude. Not to mention homogeneous digraphs.
Having just a few alternate forms of each character totally solves that; no need for ligatures. But a font that gets by on just one prototype for each glyph would be even more efficient (less labour intensive).
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16376485
[1] https://www.fontshop.com/families/ff-beowolf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etaoin_shrdlu