The 8-bit arcade font, deconstructed

In his book Arcade Game Typography, type designer Toshi Omagari breaks down the evolution, design, and history of arcade game fonts.

In the video above, he guides us through this delightful 8-bit world and breaks it down pixel by pixel.

Let's talk about sources!

Finally, a few great places on the internet I discovered while researching the video:

[Vox]

Thanks so much for watching the video! I’ve listed quite a few fun things to check out in the description, including a link to archive.org’s internet arcade, which allows you to play hundreds of vintage arcade games for free online, and Toshi’s book, which will keep you occupied for hours if you’re bored at home right now! - Estelle

[franklinfeng]

finally a recommended video not related to coronavirus

[tai.scottt]

Vox could make a video about paint drying at this point and I'd watch it

[bitbybrick]

7:10 “and legends of zelda”

you killed da good vibe

[alfredrodrigo]

Something so simple yet so complicated...

[mohammedgouigah]

As a graphic designer, its always nice to learn about graphic design and typography in the old times before Photoshop and Adobe softwares launched and changed the game.

[SergiodelaVega]

00:35 "you probably recognize it when it says this" ROASTED

[CoinOpTV]

Always fun seeing those classic games in action!

1:55 Each cell actually has 8*8 possible cells which can be turned on or off, which obviously can’t be stored in 8 bits: It would need 64 bits to do that. Instead, the computer screen’s grid has one byte of data per cell which is used to index into a font table in ROM, where each glyph is 4 bytes of data (if 1-bit color is used). The indices are followed at scanout time to produce the correct glyphs in the cells.

[chris-hayes]

I've worked a little bit in PICO-8, a retro game emulator, and expressing any object in a 8x8 grid really stretches your creativity, but it's also easier to create something that feels satisfying due to its restrictions. It's like being asked to write a story about anything vs a specific prompt, sometimes restrictions help you not get overwhelmed.

[thomasschmidt]

This video is a piece of art. Looking at just some of the details, it's hard to fathom, just HOW much work must have gone into it. And it's beautiful. Good on ya!

[matthewwillox]

I have this book, it's great!

I used to make a lot of pixel fonts way back in the early 2000s when you'd use them in Flash websites. Also, the Demoscene had a lot of cool bitmap typography.

[Wasserkaktus]

Watching this made me realize how much of a pain Latin characters are with both it's ascending and descending lower case letters.



Edit: See below.

[Erik_The_Viking]

The arcade font used in Atari arcade games was also used on their computer systems. The engineers back then were EXTREMELY clever with all of their memory saving and bit-twiddling tricks. I started out with systems with 16K of memory and I have enormous respect for the skill required to pull this off. There are a couple of GDC (Game Developer Conference) talks on YouTube with Warren Robbinett (Atari Adventure) and Howard Warshaw (ET) where they discussed some of the tricks, and they're still amazing to this day.

[thromboid]

0:10 When a graphic designer is commissioned to create a meme image: uses widescreen source image, properly kerned Impact with slender drop shadows. :)

[MichaelDodge]

I love when Vox goes into typefaces, especially when you guys talk videogames!!! Keep it up Vox!

[flaviolatino]

The design videos are always interesting, its really amazing to see how humans develop the world we live right now.

[ParallelUniversity]

One thing I know about fonts is that people who are into them are REALLY into them. I knew someone who could write/draw in any font without looking at a reference, making each letter perfectly

[mythirdchannel]

I love this :D I would never have thought that such a book exists, it's awesome to hear about it. My husband and I are currently in the process of building our own DYI arcade, and I will definitely use an 8-bit font for the marquee after watching this :D

[Spencergundersenmusic]

Thank you so much for putting out more typography content. I watch every time!!