Type News: All of the Monotypes
The frantic run-up to TypeCon next week means everything slips, I guess — but here’s a goodly round of type and news to keep you going through the lean times.
New Type
When Kris Sowersby releases a new typeface — or anything at all, really — ears perk up, eyes widen, and heart rates increase. (Ok, maybe that’s just us.) The latest item on the shelves of the Klim Type Foundry is Domaine — his largest family to date. Described as “contemporary, curvaceous Latin detailing on a Scotch skeleton”, this expansive collection of faces is split into Display, Display Narrow, Display Condensed, and Text varieties — 46 styles in all. As expected, Sowersby’s exhaustive design notes are sure to sate any font nerd’s appetite for tasty typographic minutiæ.
In the first of two revivals for Wordshape, Ian Lynam takes Oz Cooper's inclined companion to Cooper Oldstyle just a little bit further than the master himself. Cooper Italic Pro updates the idiosyncratic and Caslon-channeling cursive by including all of the original ligatures (previously available only in metal), plus a lively set of swash capitals — designed by Cooper years after the italic, but never released.
Also from Lynam is what he calls “the definitive version” of another long lost face from the wiz of Oz. Cooper Fullface Italic Pro is a delightfully plump “caricature of a Didone” — carefully redrawn, refreshed, and updated with a smattering of alternates, ornaments, and “fancy” characters.
The voluminous Benton Sans family was already the largest kid on the Font Bureau block. With the addition of Benton Sans Wide, this workhorse American sans now covers 80 styles across five widths and eight weights. Skillfully extended by Cyrus Highsmith, the entire superfamily has also been accessorized with a complete set of OpenType niceties, including small caps, tabular figures, and newfangled language support.
News
Voluminous? You could apply that adjective to this week’s links (though I probably wouldn’t if I hadn’t already implied it).
- Dress yourself in your favorite public domain book.
- Dan Mall explains the art of selecting a typeface.
- Yves Peters takes a closer look at Type Only.
- Celebrate the Saguache Crescent, which still runs on a Linotype machine.
- Rita Catinella Orrell writes up the Hamilton’s relocation.
- See how FontStruct is a teaching tool.
- The Compulsive Bodoni Project previews Parmigiano Sans and interviews Irene Vlachou about Parmigiano Greek.
- Andrew Robertson reviews Steven Heller and Louise Fili’s Shadow Type
- Jason Cranford Teague offers up some simple typography tips.
- Hanzi Smatter documents the misuse of Chinese characters. So good.
- If you love type and enjoy helping people, consider applying to be a customer service specialist for Process Type.
- Cormac McCarthy’s punctuation rules are refreshingly spare.
- See also Peter Kispert’s “Field Guide to Uncommon Punctuation.”
- UNIQLO now carries clothing from House Industries.
- Aegir Hallmundur uncovers a great alphabet app for iOS.
- Czech type design is the centerpiece of the first digital edition of 2+3D.
- What if typefaces were food? You’d have to keep your type beard especially clean.
- Get early access to desktop font synchronization on Adobe Creative Cloud.
- Let your inner Kiwi provide filler text with Kiwipsum.
- Prescriptive linguists, rejoice and cringe: grammar correction is coming to autocorrect. (How is this a good thing?)
- India has lost 220 languages in 50 years. :(
- “Typefaces preserve language and language preserves culture.”
- Indra Kupferschmid’s video of a Monotype composition casting machine is mesmerizing and soothing.
- Sponsor Tim Brown’s modularscale.com.
- Ralf Herrmann guides us through the Haas Type Foundry in 1950.
- You can do something similar with the Caslon Letter Foundry.
- Jay J. Nelson tours the world of low-cost type, some of which is truly terrible. Remember, kids: you almost always get what you pay for.
- Niels Meulman’s graffiti is inspired by medieval scribes.
- David Sudweeks explains the benefits of using the OpenType “All Caps” feature.
- Jamie Clarke shares how to get started in typeface design.
- Xerox is still trying to fix its copier problem.
- I feel pretty confident we already linked to this Space Alphabet poster, but it’s good enough that I’m willing to risk a re-link.
- What can layer fonts do?
- Be sure to check out Type Hunting.
Events
We already mentioned TypeCon, but that’s not the only thing happening soon-ish:
- August 16 (!) is the deadline to submit office-inspired typefaces to Uppercase magazine.
- Dan Rhatigan and guests expound on “Letraset, zines & other typographic obsessions” at the St. Bride Foundation on September 10.
- Ampersand is coming to New York on November 2.
Next?
Next week we’ll have a short sampler. So feel free to take your time working your way through all of this.
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for this week’s lovely new type!
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