1. A method of constructing a set of characters to be displayed in gray scale, wherein each character comprises one or more strokes/glyphs and each stroke/glyph is defined in silhouette-oriented representation, comprising: (a) displaying a set of characters to be displayed in gray scale, each of the set of characters comprising one or more strokes/glyphs, all of the strokes/glyphs being represented by a set of basic strokes/glyphs, each basic stroke/glyph topographically representing a set of similarly-shaped strokes/glyphs; (b) defining each of the set of basic strokes/glyphs in silhouette-oriented representation; (c) defining each of the one or more strokes/glyphs that are topographically represented by the set of basic strokes/glyphs, in silhouette-oriented representation; (d) rendering the set of characters in gray scale; (e) verifying the appearance of the set of characters; (f) if the appearance of the set of characters is not satisfactory, returning to step (b); and (g) repeating steps (a) through (f) above until the appearance of the set of characters is verified.