Type News: But Tell It Slant
This week’s type news has fewer em-dashes — and is lengthier — than an Emily Dickinson poem — not to mention less fragmented. So let’s get right to it.
We begin with a carriage-full of webfonts news. Ben Goodyear has created Typekit Love, “an attempt to gather real world examples … [that] push the boundaries of typography on the web.” One of the more difficult challenges with webfonts is the creation of the perfect font stack for when @font-face fails. The Ffffallback bookmarklet can help. One of the masters of web typography, Richard Rutter, is the guest on this week’s Big Web Show, and he and hosts Dan Benjamin and Jeffrey Zeldman discuss webfonts and Fontdeck, among other things. Meanwhile, Jon Tan answers questions about webfonts posed by readers of .net magazine. Do you feel left out of the conversation? Head to the White Rabbit in New York City on Wednesday, April 27, and join Nick Sherman, Jeff Veen, Jason Santa Maria, Christian Schwartz, and a bunch of other fine folks for a webfonts roundtable.
Why wait until Wednesday to talk type, though, when you can check out this week’s new type now? We begin a pair of Emigre updates.
Zuzana Licko expanded her already voluminous Mr. Eaves with a trio of new, lighter weights. Thin, light, and book variations for both the sans and XL sans families include italics, small caps, and alternate cuts.
Has it really been that long? Twenty years after its initial release, Emigre has also spruced up Jonathan Barnbrook’s neoprimitive Exocet with a new medium weight, pulling together the existing light and heavy.
Not so much an extension to the family as a variation on the theme. Quattrocento Sans is Pablo Impallari’s clean-shaven companion to his “elegant and sober” Quattrocento Roman. As with all of Pablo’s typefaces, Quattrocento Sans is available as open source through the Google Web Fonts directory.
Clark Hairline is a subtle, monolinear sans with just a touch of calligraphic detail. It’s the first face of a much larger type system still being developed by designer Santiago Orozco.
What do you get when you combine monolinear, monospaced, and a dash of stencil? Greg Ponchak’s ARGN contains echoes of Isonorm along with some of Greg’s other spare, linear work such as Berque and Ayvian.
Typedia pal Stephen Coles describes Rian Hughes’ DF Korolev as a “Russian DIN” with “distinctively Hughesian” lowercase. He’s getting no argument from us. This hefty sans family is based on the lettering produced by an anonymous Soviet designer back in 1937. Korolev comes packed with five weights each of standard, italic, compressed, and condensed styles.
Jeremy Dooley’s Cavole Slab is solid serif with calligraphic leanings. The angular slabs soften the bulk of the heavier styles, while the lighter weights provide plenty of versatility and contrast.
Taking inspiration from the fantastic poster designs of polish artist Leszek Żebrowski, the two weights of Polygraph provide an animated and unexpectedly playful face. With plenty of OpenType mojo under the hood, Polygraph programmatically randomizes the four contextual alternates available for each character.
We’ve seen the future and the present, but how did we get here? Maybe this fancy “typography” timeline will come in handy. And in a case of the past becoming the future, Matt Braun and Matt Griffin want to convert rare wood type into new digital fonts. You can help their dream become reality over at Kickstarter.
And now for the rest of this week’s news:
- Robert Bringhurst is the guest on the latest episode of Typeradio.
- Fonts in Use explores the type and branding for IBM’s Watson.
- They’re not type — and they’re not exactly lettering — but they’re lovely nonetheless: check out these beadcraft “Story Vases.”
- Ed Nacional has created some impressive tie-pography.
- Jessica Hische has created a poster in memory of Doyald Young. The proceeds will help fund a type scholarship in his name.
- Learn a little bit about the origins of the “Peace” symbol.
- Nick Sherman explains leading and line-spacing.
- Do you want distinctive, high quality type but have a limited budget? Get a load of Linotype’s Nice Price Collection.
- Paul Shaw takes issue with the glossary that accompanies the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition of its recent type acquisitions. (Speaking of Mr. Shaw, he has a new website.)
- In Salon, August Heffner discusses typographic illustration and the nature of art.
Finally, a few things for your schedules:
- There’s an embarrassment of riches when it comes to type conferences. Nick Cox picks some of his favorites.
- One of those conferences is TypeCon — and registration begins next week! In the meantime, you might want to consider becoming a sponsor.
- Veronika Burian and Jose Scaglione are running a workshop on type design and Fontlab at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, July 13–16.
- Visit the Posters of Fortune at the Type Directors Club, on display until May 12.
- Starting the second half of next week, Codex will be open for pre-orders. If you want to know exactly when, be sure to sign up for email notification.
That’s it for this week. Did we miss anything? Get anything wrong? Don’t be shy, let us know in the comments.
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for covering this week’s new type.
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