Type News: Cathode Ray
Ambition and deception almost derailed this week’s Type News. But here we are, ready to deliver a trove of incredible things!
New Type
Embracing all manner of parameter, Typonine’s Audree doesn’t suffer from multiple personalities — it embodies them. With the help of Marko Hrastovec, designer Nikola Djurek has produced a bogglingly flexible type system consisting of no less than fifteen serif styles, two “construction models”, high and low contrast forms, plus user-selectable options for stencil and inline variations. Using Typonine’s Audree App, you’re able to adjust and tweak to your heart’s content — producing just the right permutation. And how can you possibly go wrong with vintage blinkenlights, toggleswitchings, and clickybuttons promoting your absurdly configurable typeface? You can’t.
Rolling out yet another digital update from it’s seemingly endless inventory, the Hamilton Wood Type Foundry has just released HWT Republic Gothic — one the last original wood type designs to be manufactured in Two Rivers. This modified sans serif, with brush-lettering bones and signpainterly naïveté, sports solid and (rather beefy) outline styles designed to be used as a two-colour chromatic set.
Accompanying the aforementioned headline face is Hamilton’s HWT Star Ornaments — a font that pretty much describes exactly what it is. Nearly 100 variations on the five point motif, a smattering of other stylistically suitable symbols, and two sets of configurable border elements — with updated “connection options” — provide plenty of peripheral possibilities.
The nicely balanced Quant in the latest from Dieter Hofrichter’s eponymous Hoftype foundry. Contrasted and clean across a quartet of weights, Quant is classically structured without feeling stuffy. Graceful italics, sensible small caps, multiple figure sets, and extended language support are all part of the package. By the way, the light weight is free.
We completely understand the tendancy to scoff at deliberately labelled discount products. But every once in a while we stumble across a low-cost gem that deserves some attention. Claus Grünstäudl’s Tau is a deceptively simple, two weight sans that contains some attractive details that belie its Ten Dollar Fonts home. Yes, the character sets are minimal and the metrics could use some love, but it’s things like Grünstäudl’s intriguing lowercase-only, hybrid italic “serif” style that have us looking forward to more.
João Henrique Lopes refers to Lucca as “a lovely humanist sans” … and it’s hard to argue with such a forthright assertion. Regular, bold, and italic styles are enriched with classic Italian Renaissance flavours. Each is accompanied by small cap versions, a handful of tasteful alternates, and thorough pan-European language support.
It’s always a treat when a new typeface appears in the Emigre quiver and this week provided a very tasty morsel. Zuzana Licko’s Program is billed as the “type designer's typeface” … featuring elements that are close to the heart of designers and typographers alike. Rounded elements and ink trap allusions remind us of the deteriorative effects of traditional printing and production techniques, whereas brush-influenced details bring out a humanist and craftsman-worthy warmth.
To wrap up this week’s new type, Typofonderie presents Mislab — Xavier Dupré’s continuing exploration of his “slab crush”. This time around, Dupré has produced a clearly slab family that features a number of sans (or “missing” serif) attributes throughout its voluminous range. Covering 32 styles and three widths, Mislab combines strength with a bright legibility.
News
No fooling: we have a metric ton of links for you this week.
- Tina Essmaker interviews Louise Fili for The Great Discontent.
- Dan Reynolds and Christoph Koeberlin share the rescue of Axel Bertram’s Videtur.
- “There is hope in a comma.”
- Vicente Lamónaca’s Tipografía Latinoamericana features a collection of of forty Latin American designers, typographers, researchers, and educators narrating their experiences, reflections, process, and results. (This is a big deal.)
- Neenah Paper has launched “The Beauty of Letterpress,” whose goal should be self-evident — but the site is also a way to support the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum.
- Rembert Browne laments the demise of the sitcom logos of the 1990s.
- Nick Sherman asserts that responsive typography should be a physical discipline.
- Conor Muirhead reveals how to combine icon font characters on the web to create some impressive complex icons.
- Justin Knopp shows off some type specimens from the Vincent Figgins Type Foundry.
- Enjoy part two of LetterCult’s best custom letters of 2012.
- And congratulations to this year’s TDC Typeface Design winners!
- Watch out for these over-the-top letters.
- David Sudweeks shows off the pairing of Malabar and Versa Sans.
- Ponder some “serendipitous poetry from The New York Times.” (And then find out how it works.)
- Happy fifth birthday to FontStruct!
- It sounds like the Adobe workshop at Typofonderie was a success.
- Glory goes to Elena for winning this year’s “March Madness” competition.
- Best wishes to André Mora on his next adventure.
- If you like hinting and have some free time, get in touch with James Puckett of Dunwich Type.
- Take a gander at the changing faces of David Bowie.
- Monotype has released a series of eText fonts to “provide quality e-reading experiences.” eGoody!
- Caitlin Dempsey looks at the typography of National Geographic maps.
- Many Indian scripts are fading away thanks to poorly designed digital versions.
- Even Sam Clemens enjoyed type.
- TypographyShop has announced the George Lois Poster Project and unveiled the first poster, “Work Is Worship,” by Massimo Vignelli.
- If I used a skateboard, I’d probably want one of these.
- I also kinda covet Helveticat. So cute!
- What could be better than Ed Benguiat and Pam Grier?
- Adobe has released some impressive new type specimens (that are unfortunately only available as PDFs).
- Nick Sherman traveled to São Paulo for the Tipocracia conference — and took some fine photos.
- If you have some cash lying around and know Swedish, you might want this signed first edition specimen of Berling Antikva.
- See what happens when code and type converge.
- Create erasures on the web using the erase_mark bookmarklet.
Fake News
So, April 1 happened this week, too. Some clever folks in the type world participated:
- David Sudweeks showed how to add flair to Word documents.
- Neil Summerour released Hobo Grunge.
- P22 announced that it will only be releasing typefaces in two formats.
- FontShop published a very special newsletter and announced that Frederic Goudy would speak at TYPO San Francisco.
- Yves Peters had fun with his “My Type of Music” series.
- This unicorn typeface is all too real.
Events
From the fake back to the real — and in some cases, the really soon:
- If you can, try to catch The National Poster Retrospectus, on tour now.
- Join José Scaglione as he discusses how to understand and analyze type on April 11 in Barcelona.
- Yves Peters has additional information on the TYPO SF Type Track on April 12.
- Apply for Open Set 2013, an intensive series of workshops August 19–31 in Breda, The Netherlands. The application deadline is June 15.
- Design Werkstatt has a new workshop on Tactile Systems with Lupi Asensio and Martin Lorenz — May 13–15 in Berlin. (There’s a discount if you’re going to be at TYPO Berlin.)
That’s it for this week.
Did we miss anything incredible (or incredibly silly)? Let us know in the comments.
We’ll leave you with this decidedly not safe for work Russian erotic alphabet book. Have a great week!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for making this week’s new type plausible, er, possible.
Comments are closed on this entry.
1.
Auré Apr 08, 2013
Wow, huge list of news, thanks !
2.
Arthus Apr 11, 2013
Hah, thanks for mentioning my Unicorns! I must add that there has been an improvement! Although only in images for now, an .otf might follow soon!
3.
Grant Hutchinson Apr 11, 2013
You’re both quite welcome.
4.
typographyshop Apr 18, 2013
Thanks for the mention about the George Lois poster project, Grant.