Type News: *
What a week! Let’s start with the fine print …
New Type
Born of the lettering found on New York City’s innovative Lever House, Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ Landmark takes a fresh and thoughtful look at geometric architectural type. Four striking variations on the clean sans theme include inline, shadow, and dimensional styles. Pay particular attention to sweat-stained details such as perceptual shading and dynamic capitals.
The cats at Canada Type have given Martin Wilke’s “underrated, yet influential” Wilke Kursiv a welcome multi-weight overhaul. Blending a calligraphic hand with subtly geometric forms, Wilke’s italicized script now sports two additional weights, a full complement of swash and small caps, and an array of figure sets.
Galen Lawson’s Hoban seems comfortable channeling its split personality. Consisting of two sexy, display-savvy serifs — one is lithe and sinewy, while the other bold and ballsy. Both are meant to be set big as you please and are packed plenty of alternate swashiness and ornamental character.
The aptly named Stately is the first of a pair of special purpose fonts making an appearance this week. Pitched as a “simple map font,” this is actually a surprisingly sophisticated cartographic visualization tool. Glyphs representing each of the 50 states (and the District of Columbia, natch) can be independently styled using nothing more than some reasonably straightforward HTML and CSS. Creator Ben Markowitz has even included some clever discretionary ligature action — typing a standard state abbreviation will substitute the appropriate image.
Tired of lorem ipsum-ing placeholder text in your wireframes? Blokk is the new kid on the text block. Developed using Rob Meek’s incredible Fontstruct tool, this utterly simple idea provides unobtrusive chunks of “text” to generically simulate headlines and paragraphs.
On the heels of last year’s heavy duty Valuco, Aesthetic Apparatus have busted the sophomore blues with the release of Brass Rule Script. Solid, geometric, and upright — this semi-connected display script is reminiscent of mid-century chrome, meticulously drafted blueprints, and industrial vernacular lettering.
Skol is the second release from Michael Cina’s recently launched Associated Typographics foundry. This robustly constructed, stenciled sans spans eight widths — rather than weights — providing a flexible range of headline styles. Also included are “a number of extra treats”, including small capitals, alternate forms, and numeric variations.
Although the matrices for the original metal design were destroyed years ago, a series of original drawings unearthed by historian Rich Hopkins helped bring Lanston Type Company’s LTC Athena back to life. The rediscovery and subsequent digital rebirth of this “lost” face is a curious tale, nearly as fascinating as the design itself. A tall drink of “deco-flavoured” water, Athena features an ultra-narrow stance and curious lack of straight lines.
News
Let’s be clear — there’s no fine print or subtext — we have some links to share.
- Asterisks kick off our linkfest. Read John Gruber’s “Rise of Bounding Asterisks in Lieu of Italicization for Styling Text” and Ben Zimmer’s great follow-up, “The cyberpragmatics of bounding asterisks.” Gruber responds by wondering whether type designers need to revisit the asterisk.
- Brent Jackson is “sick* of your tiny, tiny type.”
- Watch Tim Brown’s talk from Ready to Inspire 2012, “Universal Typography.”
- Maurice Meilleur reviews the fourth edition of The Elements of Typographic Style.
- Yves** is back with a brand new edition … of ScreenFonts.
- Congratulations to Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones for winning the 2013 AIGA Medal!
- Paul Shaw discusses the second issue of Codex.
- The Typo Talks blog interviews Travis Kochel.
- Get your fill*** of “Best of 2012” type lists.
- Toby Hancock has an impressive collection of Hollywood signs.
- Matt Malinoski reviews changes in lettering on Boston Red Sox jerseys.
- Dalton Maag is looking to add new Font Engineers to its London office.
- Kickstart Touch, the Vista Sans Wood Type Project book.
- Check out this illustrated archive of French type design from the Lyon printing museum.****
- Typekit has improved its JavaScript font events.
- Get yourself some love in block form, courtesy House Industries. ♥!
- Pantone chips + music: why not?
- Cory Say designs some lovely, text-heavy posters.
- Need some jargon? Justin Feinstein and Visakh Menon are here to help.
- MyFonts is***** on Tumblr.
* Figuratively sick. I hope.
** Yves Peters, if there were any doubt.
*** Is that even possible?
**** Thanks, Jean-Baptiste Levée!
***** “Are”?
Deadlines
- You have until February 14 to get in on this year’s Valentype contest. If you’re the jealous type, you can even scope out the competition.
- Type by Hand returns to Sydney, February 16 and 17.
- Help the Hamilton Wood Type & Print Museum move each weekend in February. If you can’t make it to Two Rivers, consider sending some cash their way.
- The Fine Press Book Association has announced its latest Student Type Design Competition. Entries are due March 15.
- Typofonderie is hosting an Adobe Font Development Kit workshop, March 26–28 at their offices in Clamart, France.
Notes
That’s it for this week — no more surprises until next week. See you then!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for bringing us another tremendous round of typefaces!
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