Becker Large

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by gingerbeardman

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One of the fonts used on the Becker Cascade in-car satellite navigation system. This is the large font mainly used in media mode for song name display. Original font remains © Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH. Redrawn by hand/eye. I've created characters that I had reference material for and created my own variations of characters that can be deduced from the rest of the set.

15 Comments

This is the final font I can see on my Becker Sat Nav.
Comment by gingerbeardman 15th october 2009
This is very functional, legible font, with all the special characters you ever need. I'm not familiar with Becker Cascade, and I need some further information to evaluate your work: is it an adaptation of a recent font, or a revival of an old font otherwise lost for common use. How much is your contribution to the original design? The vertical stroke of "ß" (Eszett/sharfes S) should not go below the base line. What you have here is the Greek "β"(beta).
Comment by Frodo7 15th october 2009
Basically, I have a sat nav unit (made in 2001) in my car. It's not very popular in the UK as it's very expensive, so I guess not many people will have seen this font. I just think it's a cool font so I have reproduced it by hand - pixel by pixel.

I've added a handful of characters and fixed what I think are a couple of stray errors in the original. In that respect my contribution is about 5% of the original design, at a guess.

However, to get all the characters was quite a process! I created a bunch of mp3s with song titles made up of all the ISO-8859-1 character set, put them on a memory card and loaded them into the sat nav. I then took a bunch of photos as my source material. Only then was I ready to start on this fontstruct!

I'm happy to change the Eszett character, if you're sure it's the wrong character? It has the descender in fontstruct (More Latin, "Small Sharp S", Unicode: 00df). You can see the original in the photo below.

Click the photo to see it on Flickr:
Comment by gingerbeardman 15th october 2009
As I said, "Becker Large" is a very functional font with a decent character set. I like it very much. Let me not consider the possible Copyright issues for a moment, if there is any, and simply be happy for this nice and useful typeface. One of our fellow members, Goatmeal, has a mission to save long forgotten pixel fonts for the next generation. He has compiled a collection of such fonts from old games consoles, operating systems, etc., by re-creating them with FS pixel-by-pixel. I very much appreciate his noble effort, a painstaking work of saving pieces of our digital heritage. I consider your work somewhat similar, and give you 10/10.
Comment by Frodo7 15th october 2009
As I looked at your hi-res image on Flickr, I thought you could do a version with the same appearance. It's easy. Set both horizontal and vertical filters to, say, 0.95, and presto it will be the exact match of the Becker LCD.
Comment by Frodo7 15th october 2009
My goal is the same as Goatmeal - preservation rather than infringement. Thanks for the 10/10!

I've fixed the Eszett and cloned a new version that has the filtered effect. Personally, I prefer this solid version, but I appreciate others may want the original OLED vibe. Choice is a good thing.

The pixels on the original device are slightly wider than being square, but I can live with the difference.

I have done two other Becker fonts, and a reworking of my old Block Out design (which has a link to a great back story on my typophile blog). Check them out.
Comment by gingerbeardman 16th october 2009
While there is a large body of evidence to support Frodo7’s advice regarding eszett descenders, this is by no means a hard and fast rule. The generalization he draws applies in most cases to upright roman fonts. Franklin Gothic is one notable exception (even included in the above sample). Other upright examples include Aspect, Amerika, Precious Sans, Fertigo Pro, Kallos, Gilgamesh, etc.

As for italic, blackletter, and most fonts with a calligraphic bent – they very often sport eszetts with descenders. It makes sense when you consider the origin of ß as a handwritten script ligature. For legibility reasons, eszetts may even vary in construction when comparing different weights of the same typeface!

The really salient visual difference between β and ß is the closed vs. open counter of the beta vs. the eszett.
Comment by William Leverette (will.i.ૐ) 16th october 2009
Thanks for the detailed information. In that case, I will edit it back to the original. I can't help but think that the decision to have a descender was made to make it more obvious at a quick glance.

Finally, I must say that these Becker Navigation devices are second to none! Worth every penny.
Comment by gingerbeardman 16th october 2009
I guess what I meant to say with all that is I rather liked your distinctive (and apparently true to source) ß, and didn’t find it incorrect in any way, shape, or form.

In context it even makes quite a bit of sense. Viewed on a small LCD screen from driving distance, legibility for a letter sharing characteristics with so many other glyphs and glyph combinations would simply require such an exaggerated feature. Good choice on the part of the original designer, then.
Comment by William Leverette (will.i.ૐ) 16th october 2009
My sentiment exactly.
Comment by gingerbeardman 16th october 2009
Oh, haha, you already said it! If I was a bit more patient I would have simply said, “Excellent point!”

And by the way, this really is a beautiful pixel font you’ve shared with us. Thanks!
Comment by William Leverette (will.i.ૐ) 16th october 2009
Glad you guys like it!

I use the device all the time and the font family it uses really has been well thought out. I had no other choice than to share the love. :)
Comment by gingerbeardman 16th october 2009
@gingerbeardman: If you want a bit wider bricks, you can do it using the filters (again). Set to horizontal filter above 1.0 to stretch the bricks. Needless to say, it won't be a pixel font anymore.

@will.i.ૐ: There are exeptions, as always. And no rules of typeface design are carved in stone. I know, that some cursive versions have a descender, but I didn't want to complicate the picture. Becker Large was not cursive after all.

I used to have the same view about the Eszett/scharfes s, and designed a few fonts with descenders in the "ß" until I was told by a professional designer that it was not correct. Actually, I didn't invent anything, I merely followed the traditional German handwriting learned in school. But we all know, cursive letters are a different story.

For more information on this topic see the following book: Designing Type by Karen Cheng, pp. 212-213.
Comment by Frodo7 16th october 2009
Frodo7: There is a wonderful article on the subject of the multi-lingual origins and controversial history of the eszett over at Typefoundry. In conclusion, J.M. Mosely writes:
My initial suspicion is confirmed: the use and retention of ß, and consequently its belated [re]insertion into the majuscule character set, is felt in Germany to be bound up with national identity.
Did the designer who labelled your type creations incorrect perhaps speak in part from such strong place as feelings of national identity? Regardless, it remains that s/he oversimplified their case. The various cursive forms of ß are only some of the conventional examples which contain descenders.

As far as I can tell, gingerbeardman hit the nail on the head regarding the concerns addressed by his source material’s designer. Legibility, itself an evolving phenomenon, often trumps all else in professional type designs; gestalt, historical reference/revival, and juxtaposition with handwritten forms follow closely behind.

On the other hand, national identity, spelling reform, and bona fide typographic litigation – which all come into play when discussing this unique ligature - are admittedly way off my radar when it comes to consecrating the geometry of type. I can see how such considerations might lead someone to come down hard on one side of a multi-faceted design problem.

gingerbeardman: Hey, I just noticed what appears to be a forth font in the sample you posted from the Becker Cascade GUI. Do you have any way to capture and expand the “TMC” sample which is both shorter and wider relative the other three?
Comment by William Leverette (will.i.ૐ) 17th october 2009
The TMC is just an icon, no other instances of that typeface occur. I'll keep looking, there may be one more typeface in the unit.
Comment by gingerbeardman 22nd october 2009

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