Applications like Indesign and fonts in Open Type format provide tools for making great stuff that older generations of typographically interested designers could have only dreamed about.
As we all know and can witness every day, these tools, however, are no guarantee for great design – not even for good craft. I find it even more gratifying and pleasant to behold when I see someone pulling all the stops to achieve typographic detail even when those tools are not all available.
The van for this company that sells grilled chickens and other goodies on San Francisco’s Farmers’ Market has been carefully lettered, even though those letters may be a little worn by now. The designer had to use Frutiger for reasons I don’t know. But that didn’t prevent him or her from wanting to apply old style figures which are not available for that particular typeface. The simple solution for this problem is to simply move ordinary figures down below the baseline to achieve the effect. The 1 can just be cut off at the bottom as long as it doesn’t have a serif to lose. Figures 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 look almost like the real thing when shifted down. The only problem is presented by the 2, as that should be redrawn to the size of the x-height and have no ascender.
As seen in Bodoni’s Manuale Tipografico, the master took liberties when it came to designing his old style figures. He does draw a short 2, but doesn’t give descenders to 3, 4, 5 or 7.
Conventions are not necessarily rules, just habits.
Interesting post – I have recently rediscovered the art of old style figures and have started to use that as a pre-requisite when choosing new faces for my work.
Seems to be a good revival in the use of this style, like you say, perhaps driven by the flexibility of the DTP applications that are currently available.