Microsoft Typography | ClearType information | Bill Hill
		Bill Hill Researcher, Microsoft Research Bill Hill was born in Glasgow, Scotland, at the close of the 1940's, in the tenement slums of the city's East End, most of which have since been bulldozed out of existence. The biggest single event in his life was learning to read at the age of 3. Shortly after that, his mother and father bought him a full set of the Children's Encyclopaedia by Arthur Mee, which must have cost a sizeable slice of their disposable income. "I started reading for several hours a day, and I've never stopped since," Hill said. "Books showed me worlds beyond my experience, the importance of knowledge and learning and how you could use that to change the path your life might otherwise take. I especially like science and technology." "My father was a steelworker, who always worked on high construction projects," Hill said. "He told me to learn to work with my head, not just my hands, and to use knowledge to make a better life for myself. It's a lesson I never forgot. One of my few regrets in life is that he died when I was 14. He never saw the results, and I never had the chance to say thanks." At the age of 11 Hill won a scholarship to Allan Glen's School in Glasgow, which in those days was one of the best schools in the city. He attended Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh for one year and left to begin a career in journalism, working over the next 18 years for a number of Scottish newspapers, including a long stint at The Scotsman, the country's quality daily. In the early 1980s, Hill became interested in computers. This led to a successful freelance career writing about the emerging personal computer technology. His interest in reading from computer screens began in 1985, when he was asked to write the documentation for Guide, the first hypertext authoring and reading application for the Apple Macintosh computer. Meanwhile, Hill had spotted a new emerging technology -- desktop publishing -- at its very early stage in 1984. Contacts with a leading United Kingdom company and with Paul Brainerd, president of the Seattle-based Aldus Corp. whose PageMaker software was the first professional desktop publishing application, led Hill to become one of the five founding employees of Aldus' European operations in 1986. The company grew from five people to 250 until the 1994 takeover of Aldus by Adobe Systems. At that time, Hill was approached by Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash., and offered the job of running the company's typography group. "I came to Microsoft because I believed it was the one company in the world that was capable of enabling the transition from reading on paper to reading on the screen. I'd read Bill Gates' famous 'Information at Your Fingertips' address at COMDEX in 1990 after Paul Brainerd sent me a copy. I still have the original, with passages I marked with a highlighter pen. I keep it pinned to the wall in my office." The typography group at Microsoft contains some of the world's experts in creating type for reading on the screen. Hill commissioned world-renowned type designer Matthew Carter to create two new typefaces exclusively for Microsoft, designed specifically for screen readability. Verdana and Georgia typefaces have become classics, especially with the growth in screen reading sparked by the Internet. In May 1998, Hill left the typography group to join a new electronic books project in Microsoft Research, run by vice president Dick Brass. Since then he has been working on screen readability, especially of type. "We needed a breakthrough," Hill said. "Type on screen today is just not readable enough. We looked hard, questioned everything, and found what we were looking for. We discovered a new technology to unlock the true resolution of the color LCD screen, which is actually three times better than anyone ever realized, because we've always assumed the pixel was the smallest unit we could effectively address. We were astonished at the quality of what could be achieved with our new technology, which we've called ClearType™." Hill is married to Tanya, an outstanding painter and watercolor artist. The couple have been married for 22 years, have two children, and live out in the woods not too far from the Microsoft campus in Redmond. ######### Microsoft and ClearType are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. this page was last updated 15 November 1998 © 1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of use. comments to the ClearType group: how to contact us
	Microsoft Typography | ClearType information | Bill Hill