premise: that the majority of multilingual typographic design problems are categorical, and that good enough solutions rely on analysis of past practice and genre to a degree that knowledge of the language is secondary

1. document genre
2. spread structure
   • parallel and embedded setting (what density?)
3. complexitiy of editorial structure
   • levels of hierarchy in the text
   • parallel subtexts / layered texts
   • enumeration and sequence
   • cross-reference apparatus
4. paragraph-level issues
   • sentense length
   • word length spread and hyphenation options
   • casing, secondary style options
   • alignment zones in the text line
   • density of white space
   • word shapes within the editorial apparatus
   • counter shapes
   • main stroke proportions and patterns
   • secondary (tertiary?) stroke proportions and patterns
   • script direction

1. technology of typeseting
   • past conditions echoed currently
   • present conditions
2. technology of typemaking
   • fidelity of intended character shapes and encoded objects
   • scaling limitations
   • glyph-richness conditions
3. rendering limitations
   • output resolution
   • substrate
   • deterioration or variability of rendering
4. fundamental sources
   • access to comparable material
   • local use examples in a range of conditions, and validity of
   • non-local use examples in a range of conditions, and validity of
   • transparency of quality parameters
   • place of document in the local typography narrative
   • place of document in the global typography narrative
   • response to “Colonialist/Orientalist” critique