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Typography · Display & special

Bitmap & pixel

Letters constructed on a pixel grid.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under typography: what do the letters look like, and how are they set?

styles make it: 15
as a defining choice: 4
as a usual one: 2
now and then: 9
avoid it: 1

Styles defined by it 4

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)c. 1100–present · Middle East & North Africa, South AsiaSquare Kufic builds Arabic script on a square grid: straight lines and right angles only, with every stroke as wide as the gap beside it.
Bitmap & Pixel Graphics1977–1995 · North America, East AsiaGraphics and lettering built from the square pixels of low-resolution screens (arcade and console sprites, home-computer displays and the first graphical user interfaces), where every dot was placed by hand within tight limits of memory, resolution and palette.
Emigre & Early Digital Type1984–1998 · North AmericaRudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko's magazine and type foundry, launched in 1984 alongside the first Macintosh, turned the computer's low-resolution constraints into a new typographic idiom.
Demoscene Graphics (Cracktros, Demos & Text-Mode Art)1985–present · Northern Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe, North America, Global / networkedThe graphics of the demoscene, a mainly European community of coders, graphicians and musicians that grew from the intros software crackers added to pirated Commodore 64 and Amiga games in the mid-1980s.

Styles that often use it 2

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 9

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Rectilinearin 13 of 15
3D renderin 9 of 15
Technological & futuristin 10 of 15
Motion & broadcastin 8 of 15
Grain & noisein 7 of 15
Web & CSSin 7 of 15

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Hand-Painted Signage & Vernacular Lettering1800–present

Other choices in typography