TYPETR Upgrade | Usage

Upgrade usage

Usage in various media

Book covers

First public sighting February 2018: Boekhandel De Drvkkery, Middelburg, The Netherlands. Design: Huug Schipper, Studio Tint, The Hague. Cover typeface Upgrade.

View the PDF document by clicking the cover page. The left cover shows, from top to bottom: Upgrade Hairline, Thin, ExtraLight, Light, and Book, used to compensate for the difference in point size. The right cover uses Upgrade’s tabular figures, superimposed on one another in a random pattern.

Typographic book pages

Obviously, showing type as a PNG is far from ideal. You can download the PDF document by clicking here or on the pages.

Magazines

View the PDF document here or by clicking the cover page. Shown, from top to bottom: Upgrade Medium, Book, price in Upgrade Thin, stacked block contains Book, Light, and Extra Light.

View the PDF document by clicking the cover page. Fashion photos by Wil Schipper.

View the PDF document by clicking the cover page. From top to bottom: Upgrade Bold, Light, and the year in outline Black Italic.

View the PDF document by clicking the cover page. Shown here, from top to bottom: Upgrade Medium, Book, and the month in Light Italic.

View the PDF document by clicking the cover page, which shows most of the Upgrade weights. Bier! cover photos by Wil Schipper.

View the PDF document by clicking here or on the cover page. From top to bottom: Upgrade Hairline, Semibold, Light, and Light Italic.

View the PDF document by clicking here or on the cover page. From top to bottom: Upgrade Hairline, Semibold, Light, and Light Italic.

View the PDF document by clicking the cover page. Shown here, from top to bottom: Upgrade Medium, Book, and the month in Light Italic.

Upgrade documents

Business cards

As part of a larger identity—or even as a standalone item—business-card typography can benefit from Upgrade’s wealth of typographic options. Click on the image to view the cards as a PDF document.
How these cards were made

A DrawBot/PageBot script created the documents and saved them as PNG and PDF files. In pseudocode, this works as follows:

[1] Start a script in DrawBot + PageBot and create a page that is standard business-card size for the intended country.
[2] Accept name, function, and additional address information directly from code, from a file or from a database source.
[3] Create styles with their typographic values for each of the different text functions on the card.
[4] Combine the information with its related style.
[5] Select a random weight from the TYPETR Upgrade family for the logo. (In a real-world scenario, this would be defined by branding instructions.)
[6] Then calculate the point size and the tracking needed to make the line fit on the width of the card.
[7] Repeat this sequence for all input names.
[8] Save as PDF and PNG
files.

Design workshops

Do you want to learn how to program covers, like the ones shown on this page—especially using Upgrade, with lessons directly from the makers? Consider the workshops below:
Programming typography (Oct 1–8, 2018)
In this intensive weeklong online workshop, you will select a typographic project and then ask yourself how the design and production could have been automated, using your own scripts. And how many more alternatives you could have visualized. Read more...
Python scripting for graphic designers (May 7–June 4, 2018)

Or, if you have more time and want to dive deeper into the subject of typographic algorithms, consider applying for this monthlong course: A group of graphic designers learn how to script micro and macro tasks from scratch in their design process. In a series of short, specific assignments, the designers learn to recognize patterns that can be automated, breaking them down into functions that can be coded. Read more...
Generally speaking, Design Design Space encourages students to study the design of their process, independent of context, domain, or purpose of the designs.

Learn more

Scripting with PageBot

For users with some scripting experience: all examples on this site are generated by PageBot, an Open Source scripting library based on DrawBot and Python. Upon request, these scripts are available as part of an Upgrade license.

Ordering TYPETR Upgrade

Various types of Upgrade licenses are available from Type Network.