'Chess Montreal' & 'Handy Symmato' fonts

All Things Chess
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It is amuzing to see the Chess Montreal diagram font icons, for King and Queen, adorning each post here on UsChess.org new forums.

For more information about Chess Montreal, see…
http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm#MONTREAL

The goal of C.M. is to make each chess diagram equally viewable from Black’s perspective.
The means used by C.M. is to re-design each icon so each has 180 degree rotational symmetry. Gary Katch’s insight was to draw the icons to match how the real wood pieces look when they are viewed from directly above the board.
I find C.M. interesting, but…

The attribute of 180 degree rotational symmetry inherently tends to bring with it a lot of circularness or roundness; which tends to make the each icon type look a bit like the other types (all round-ish).

Another strategy that aims for the goal of making diagrams equally viewable from Black’s perspective is to – Design icons that shine their defining characteristic just as brightly in both of the 180 degree opposite orientations (or put in sloppy misleading terms, when both right-side-up and upside-down).

From that strategy I designed the Handy Symmato chess font. For anyone curious, here is a link to a discussion of Handy Symmato…

http://www.castlelong.com/essay/Essay_HSym_fd47b_Doc_Prn.PDF

Thanks.

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As a typographer and graphic designer (note my USCF handle), it is amusing to see that typographic experimentation extends all the way out to that fringe specialty: the chess dingbat font.

I get your point about the symmetry problem. I have a harder time than most looking at white-side-biased diagrams from the black point of view. Gives you all sorts of insights into biases, doesn’t it? :wink:

Still, the typographer in me positively rebels when I see chess pieces that don’t look like, well, chess pieces.

One of the basic principles of type design is that we learn from a very young age what our alphabet looks like. Mess with that, and you impair legibility. Just TRY selling a client on a font with an odd ampersand or uppercase Q.

The same goes for any kind of symbol, and that includes chess pieces. People hold onto familiar symbols for dear life. You just don’t mess with a stop sign, no matter how hard it is to cut out a perfect octagon.

If you think about it, the standard Staunton chess set is pretty weird. Why does the king have a cross? Isn’t he the King of India, where chess began? And what if I’m not a Christian? Why is the Knight the only piece with a face?

The answer, of course, is: everybody grew up with a standard.
We’re so used to our ABCs–and our chess pieces–that we can probably read them upside down pretty easily, and probably more easily than we could read an unfamiliar, but symmetrical, chess dingbat font.

While I admire the spirit of experimentation, none of these “flip-able” (I won’t say “flipping” lest I offend) fonts works for me. So far, the best solution is diagrams that are online, and can be flipped at the whim of the person viewing them.

Anyway, thanks to Gene M. for being a font of knowledge.