Spooky Action

Spooky Action is now available for purchase as a variable-weight Open Type font from the Apogee online store. (More details available below.)

A peculiar grid

I first sketched Spooky Action during my artist residency at Yale University’s Quantum Institute while designing our site-specific public art piece, “Beneath the Green, the Quantum”, exhibited on the New Haven Green for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Our artwork interleaved the inviting strangeness of quantum computing with the eerie history of the Green itself. (This Green-inspired typeface was one of several smaller, satellite pursuits of my residency.)

While choosing which section of the Green to exhibit our artwork on, we began to narrow in on the Lower Green’s southern quadrant—and noticed that its walkways, when combined with the flagpole, created an imperfect pentagram—a symbol that can convey several curious meanings. Spooky Action began as an impromptu game of sorts: Could a full alphabet be constructed using only the walkway segments within this quadrant of the Green? Numerals as well? The idea had a stickiness while lacking any sort of purposefulness.

Bewitched forms

The constraints of this glyph-creation game were uncompromising. For example, a lack of centered horizontal or vertical strokes within the footpaths makes the representation of characters such as ‘H’ or ‘I’ rather challenging. After sketching a few rounds of forms per character, principles began to emerge. Glyph forms ought to introduce the least amount of surprise to the reader. (Our limited grid already yields odd-looking glyphs; best that we keep the curveballs to a minimum. Some examples of useful, yet less-familiar shapes do remain in the font in the form of alternate glyphs; more information below.) Our strange game composed of the Green’s footpaths was taking shape—literally.

I realized that for the default set of majuscules, I ought to keep the forms as bulky and rigid as sensible; to define and express the exterior of the grid’s frame. But some majuscule forms, such as B or E, benefited from an inclined stem rather than a hard vertical; allowing for more familiar-looking intersections for segments meant to connect with the left vertical at the x-height. (What a puzzle.) This alternating temperament yielded a set of majuscules that is mostly squared, but peppered with a slight dynamism from seemingly oblique characters.

Unique shapes

Further complicating the effort, I felt each glyph ought to be unique among the set. (For example, a majuscule ‘O’, minuscule ‘o’, and zero must each have their own unique shapes—no duplicates.) I was particularly vexed when attempting uniqueness between majuscules and minuscules for W, X, and Y. After much consternation I found the most subtle (but valid) differentiator: overshoots. If you inspect closely, the majuscules have their upper overshoots in accordance with their segment line weights, while the minuscules are abruptly chopped at the anchor point. Subtle, but realistically I doubt the masses will protest.

While Spooky Action’s majuscules seek to occupy and define space, the minuscules tend to hug the core interior triangle. Meanwhile, the numerals are even daintier and “curvier” in order to better express the interior angles of the grid. When presented with a choice between using diagonal strokes in either direction, I also aimed for contrast between letter and numeral. For alphabetic glyphs I preferred diagonal strokes in the bend sinister direction—for the viewer, the stroke begins in the lower-left (dexter) corner and extends upward to the upper-right (sinister) corner. (This is a bastard of a typeface, after all.) Meanwhile, for numerals I preferred bend dexter diagonals where possible. (See also, Dexter Sinister.)

Multiple weights

When considering face weights, I opted to match the Regular (400) weight’s stroke thickness proportionally to the interior walkways of the Green. The Medium (500) weight follows the proportions of the perimeter walkways. Bold (700) is inspired by the street measure. Light (100) and Black (900) weights cap either extreme of the exercise. Because Spooky Action is a variable weight typeface, all five weights are available within one single font file.

Alternate glyphs

Sometimes the bare minimum is not enough. Spooky Action features alternate glyphs for some specific characters. While the default glyphs were chosen carefully, these alternate glyphs provide additional expression and may create more cohesive results in certain contexts.

How does it feel as your eyes traverse the text block from left to right and hit upon the left edges of each majuscule glyph? Is it an abrupt and aloof slam against a brick wall? An optimistic nudge upward from the baseline? Or a trap that pins your eyes into an angular dead end? Left edges became a special area of consideration for me and resulted in specific majuscule alternate glyphs. (Spooky Action contains several more alternates in addition to those above, waiting to be unearthed.)

The glyphs panel

How does one access Spooky Action’s alternate glyphs? Does your typesetting tool of choice support selecting alternates? (For examples of some that do, see Adobe’s suite of products.) If so, you’re in luck. A “Glyphs Panel” not only provides an overview of all glyphs within a font, it facilitates easy selection of available alternate glyphs for a given character.

In Adobe’s Glyphs Panel, characters that contain alternate glyphs show a tiny triangle in the bottom-right corner of the character’s cell within the panel. For the screen capture below, we have created a small text block and set the character ‘A’ within it. Note that this is the default glyph for our ‘A’ character. We then opened the Glyphs Panel. (In Adobe Illustrator this is done by selecting Type → Glyphs from the application menu bar. For Adobe Photoshop, select Type → Panels → Glyphs Panel. In Adobe InDesign, select Type → Glyphs.)

Now we click on the cell containing the majuscule ‘A’ within the Glyphs Panel, hold down the pointer until the submenu of alternate glyphs appears, hover over the desired glyph, and release. The result is our original majuscule ‘A’ followed by an alternate glyph for the same character.

Alternates for selection

In Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign, glyphs can be selected and replaced without using the Glyphs Panel: Highlight a single character inside your text block. If an alternate glyph is available for your selected character, a submenu will appear below and to the right of your selection. You can then click on an alternate glyph to replace the highlighted one. A similar feature exists in Adobe Photoshop, but requires a right click on the selected character, which will then open a submenu containing a “Show Alternates for Selection” option.

From monospace to proportional

I’ve designed Spooky Action as a monospace typeface, meaning that all of its characters have the exact same widths. (Think typewriters, source code representation, or other typefaces like IBM’s Courier.) During the development of Spooky Action, I frequently compared the resulting glyphs to the original overhead map reference in order to ensure that the glyphs continued to line up with the paths; to catch my own human error when it entered the process. Having a monospace font, where every glyph could be plotted and centered in the same way, made this process frictionless. It also allows you, the end user, to follow along and place the characters onto the source map yourself. Once you’ve scaled and aligned one character, any of the remaining ones could be substituted without further adjustment.

Modern text layout tools make it easy to “switch” Spooky Action from a monospace mode to a proportional one by switching the text selection’s kerning from its default setting (respecting the font’s existing character width metrics) to an optical setting which attempts to space the characters apart based on the forms of the glyphs themselves. While this sort of thing can be rather useful in particular situations—such as this one—it is generally frowned upon. (Highly skilled type designers, far more qualified than myself, spend an enormous amount of concentration on crafting specific character widths—and the distances between various character combinations. Overriding these design decisions is considered poor taste.)

You may wish to adjust the kerning further beyond what the automatic optical kerning algorithm is capable of. Kerning is a subtle art form and while there’s no exact correct answer, there are infinitely many wrong ones. (It’s a minefield, for sure.) Manual kerning can be done entirely by keyboard—without having to click on the Kerning field in the Character Panel to enter specific values. Just place your cursor between the characters you would like to kern and tap Option + Left arrow to tighten the kerning or Option + Right arrow to expand it. This is truly the art of between spaces; the Intertopia of it all.)

Keming

Side note: Kerning refers to the space between two adjacent characters at a specific position within the text, while tracking refers to the overall metric for adding or subtracting space between any number of characters across a block of text. They are separate and independent methods of adjustment. If you’re in need of a way to remember the difference between the two, refer to old internet-friend, David Friedman, and his coinage of the term “keming” back in 2008. “Keming” (improper kerning) is the result of the glyphs for ‘r’ and ‘n’ in the word “kerning” crashing into each other to visually resemble an ‘m’ character. Had it been bad tracking instead of bad kerning, all of the letters would have collided together, rather than just the two. Spooky Action is by nature a painful lesson in keming.

A field of forgotten dead

According to “Chronicles of New Haven Green” (1898, p.255), and cited by Wikipedia: The Green served as the main burial grounds for the residents of New Haven during its first 150 years, but by 1821 the practice was abolished and many of the headstones were moved to the nearby Grove Street Cemetery. However, the dead were not moved, and thus still remain beneath the surface of the Green. It is conservatively estimated that between 4,000 and 5,000 residents remain entombed and unmarked within the soil of this public park.

Furthermore, several buildings of the time—and in particular Yale’s adjacent South Middle College (now known as Connecticut Hall)—are partially composed of Green headstones, pilfered for use as hearthstones and backs of fireplaces. “The slate tombstones were said to be exceedingly convenient, and the bread of a certain baker was always known by the trademark of a cherub’s head or fragment of an epitaph on the bottoms of the loaves.” (Again, see “Chronicles of New Haven Green”, page 255.) Imagine for a moment: biting into a freshly baked New Haven sourdough as your thumbs register the underside and its partial engraving of an angel that once adorned the final resting place of a peer’s great-grandparent.

What’s in a name?

In ascribing a moniker to this typeface, I broke a cardinal rule among quantum practitioners with more knowledge and refinement than I’ll achieve: Never utter the word “spooky.” Albert Einstein’s one-time withering description of quantum physics as “spooky action at a distance” continues to haunt the field through its misinterpretation, and frequent deployment in poorly researched pop-science pulp. Einstein’s phrase began as a jibe between friends:

In a letter to Max Born in 1947 Einstein said of the statistical approach to quantum mechanics, which he attributed to Born, “I cannot seriously believe in it because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance.” The actual phrase used by Einstein was German, “spukhafte Fernwirkung.” “Spooky”, or “ghostly”, is a reasonable translation, although “spooky” was not in common usage in English in 1947. (From “Light after Dark II: The Large and the Small, Volume 1”, page 100.)

According to physicists like Sabine Hossenfelder—and contrary to many Internet sources like Wikipedia—Einstein was not referring to the quantum mechanics property of entanglement itself, but to the overall instantaneous collapse of quantum probabilities into a single observable reality. (“It happens at the same time everywhere, seemingly faster than the speed of light.”) Perhaps because probability wave collapse and entanglement are so closely related, the focus of Einstein’s quote is often confused—but debate amongst yourselves, Dear Readers.

What’s not confusing is the unnerving sense that New Haven’s Green is spooky, the fact that my physical presence on the Green—and this particular quadrant of it—was entirely due to an art collaboration with the good folks of Yale University’s Quantum Institute, and that the observation of this pentagram grid is only properly made from a distance above (in this case, via Google Maps’ satellite imagery). If ever there were cause for a pun… I don’t claim that “Spooky Action” is a terribly good name for a typeface—or that I even enjoy it as a name at all. But I didn’t choose it. It chose itself.

Available for purchase

More than a full harvest season later, I’ve revisited this narrowly legible curiosity by re-crafting it for distribution as a variable-weight, monospaced, Open Type font. All five weights are included within this single file. Rather than a useful typeface, Spooky Action exists as an artful documentation of my time as an Artist in Residence at the Yale Quantum Institute.

However, in keeping with the practice of typeface design, it is indeed available for purchase and use from the Apogee online store. Do have a look.

Parting thoughts

After centuries of digesting its faithful, does the New Haven Green possess a consciousness of its own? Might it watch you as you traverse its measure at night? Do you imagine its mist moistening the inner folds of your lungs as your hastened pace begins to demand ever-deeper breaths? Has its soil clung to the plantars of your shoes long after you’ve escaped? Sleep peacefully.