Forget design templates. Touch Type is an extraordinarily fun way to create your own typography

用一根手指，我将一封信点在屏幕上。用两个手指，我可以将其更大或更小。用三个手指，我可以像旋转手机一样旋转整个字母。用四个手指，我将字母张开。有五个，我加重了它的线，使其成为强大的大胆。

This is触摸类型。这是一个免费的字母设计工具，您可以在德国设计工作室开发的浏览器中尝试一下Schultzschultz。

消费者友好的平台Canvademocratize good design by letting anyone create simple visual projects via templates, while pro-friendly platforms like Adobe’s Creative Cloud assist more studied designers in creating more complicated media. Touch Type is what the design world lacks at the moment: bespoke, artisan-level creation tools. While such quirky, one-off pieces of software might be difficult to master, they may also take creatives down roads that are too narrow for Photoshop.

触摸类型isn’t a commercial product; it’s a free demo you can try and use for any purpose you like. However, Touch Type’s creation did stem fromSchultzschultz’sown realization that, in working with their own clients, the creative software of today is amazing, but also limiting. Their own creativity was being shaped by the tools they used.

Studio的创意总监MarcSchütz说，这不是新现象。作为类型的设计师，他指出，即使是字母的设计也被绘制它们的工具长了。书面中文的流动形式是用油漆刷绘制它们的结果，就像中世纪欧洲的哥特式写作是由the downward strokes的broad pointed,浸入墨水和其他写作用具受到了抄写了那个时代书籍的僧侣的青睐。数百甚至数千年后，这些基于工具的创意决策仍然与我们同在当今的数字字体中。

“You realize the tools that you use are just as important to the final result as the person who uses these tools,” says Schütz. “If you translate this to our digital tools today, people just don’t realize they are using a tool. It’s just, ‘Photoshop is everything!’ And you can do a lot [in Photoshop], but it still sets some boundaries.”

At the studio, they began experimenting with scripting their own little experimental tools, just for fun, and as a way to break out of their own creative ruts. They’ve written code to design with PlayStation controllers instead of mice and keyboards, and they’ve built all sorts of pixel-editing scripts that never even see the light of day. It’s an approach they’ve taken since founding the studio in 2007.

“We like to come up with our own very basic visual ideas, and often something is not possible using common tools like Photoshop or Illustrator,” says Schütz. “If you are able to create your own tools, you really feel more free.”

This development work isn’t wasted for Schultzschultz. By building bespoke tools, they have ideas ready to go on the shelf. And those ideas can create unique work for their clients down the line. This is work that literally can’t be produced anywhere else, and for Schultzschultz, it’s more than mere theory. A recent mural the firm produced for Mastercard was based ona color smearing tool they’ve since made public。I can’t say I look at this mural and know that it wasn’t created in Photoshop; but I can say that I’ve never seen anything quite like it—which is exactly what drives Schütz.

至于触摸类型，这是一个整洁的玩具，可以为社交媒体或您自己创建小型海报。但是，使用它的经验也很有价值，因为界面以明亮的图形认可手指的触摸 - 一系列的圆圈，线条和数字可能有些多余，至少对未经启发性的休闲用户而言。

“It’s kind of like learning how to ride a bike every time you create a new tool,” says Schütz. “You have to learn to use it. And it feels really great learning how to use a new tool. Likean instrument, at first it’s awkward, then you learn you can do beautiful stuff with it.”

确实，触摸类型的一部分是绝对是其背后的学习曲线最大主义界面这是一部科幻电影中直接的。这与Apple或Canva的简约软件形成了鲜明的对比。我想起了为Marvel电影设计的屏幕接口Marti Romances and his firm Territory Studio。或约翰·安基科夫勒（John Underkoffler）的作品built the famedMinority Report手势触摸屏。And I, alongside很多的成员的the design community, am excited at the possibility of design tools that embrace exuberant experimentation. Because no single piece of software should be a gatekeeper to our unlimited creativity.