Type News: Dry Transfer
Ahoy! We’ve charted a course and are heading straight for a week’s worth of new type.
When we covered the first release of Travis Kochel’s Chartwell back in March of last year, we were gobsmacked by its clever use of stylistic alternates to dynamically visualize chunks of numerical data. Now that FontFont has taken the face under its wing, FF Chartwell has been pumped up (and to the right) with additional chart styles and more flexible OpenType-powered formatting. The original Pies, Lines, and Bars are now joined by new “Polar Series” styles, including Rose, Rings, and Radar — as well as a vertical bar variation.
But that’s not the only FaceFace from the FontFont FolkFolk. There’s also a natty pair of sans families to show off this week. The first to surface is Felix Braden’s FF Scuba — an “offline companion” to Matthew Carter’s ubiquitous Verdana. Braden has created a balanced, yet dynamic sans with a tighter set stance and wide range of weights that still manages to blend with its screen-biased contemporary. Try it out for yourself — the regular weights of FF Scuba OT and FF Scuba Web are available free for a limited time.
In one last bit of FontFont news, the much anticipated unslab’d sister of Mitja Miklavčič’s FF Tisa has finally arrived. FF Tisa Sans sports the same range of weights and typographic features as its serif counterpart, but with specifically “fine-tuned” traits — such as reduced ink traps, adjusted colour density, and a softening of the family’s distinctive stroke endings.
To celebrate its third birthday, Dušan Jelesijević’s Tour de Force foundry invited the cheerful Refren to the party. This simple, single weight monoline features a casual, handwritten vibe and a stylish set of alternate initial caps.
The term ‘bulo’ is Catalan for ‘hoax’ — but Jordi Embodas’ Bulo isn’t trying to pull something over on us. This lightly condensed sans is about as straightforward as they come — although Embodas does describe the structure as “a mechanical force with a little humanist fragrance”. Compact ascenders and descenders, prominent x-height, and a pleasant tonality make for a very readable five weight face.
Another week, another extensive text family from Latinotype. Daniel Hernández’s Magallanes is a gently extended, “neo humanist” sans with subtle calligraphic hooks and lines. The eight weights cover a lot of water, but only vary a little bit in width while sailing from ultra light through black.
Something sweet is behind the counter of the Tart Workshop this week. Crystal Kluge’s handlettering artistry and Stuart Sandler’s technical chops have prepared a double batch of Sugarplum — a playfully rough and tumble hand-drawn headliner. Two weights, an extra bouncy baseline, and just enough alternates to keep the type dancing in your head.
Ramiro Espinoza’s Krul has a long and winding heritage. From the 17th century Dutch calligraphy that inspired the often overlooked Amsterdamse Krulletter — or “curly letter” style — to mid-century drinking establishment signage and the meticulous lettering of Jan Willem Joseph Visser. Espinoza gives Krul a unique revivalist spin — painstakingly recreating the complexity, contrast, and flourish of this historical face.
It had to happen sooner or later. Under the watchful eye of master Adrian Frutiger, Linotype’s Akira Kobayashi and Sandra Winter have taken the sans serif belt sander to one of the foundry’s most beloved text faces. Avenir Next Rounded extends the family with four weights of softened, understated “contemporary variants”.
And now for the rest of the happenings this week:
- Fonts In Use touches on the elegant label design of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and issues a challenge to redesign the typographically epic label.
- What would a future without typography be like? Delve Withrington shares a few thoughts on a conversation between Culture File Pod and Oded Ezer.
- Our friend Allen Tan interviews Kai Brach on I Love Typography.
- Bill Moran — artistic director of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum — chats about his pride and joy for Design Observer.
- In the inaugural episode of typesetting.tv, Elisabeth Kopf shares a bit about her start with type, her work and her wonderful “little orchestra.”
- Reign of Art features artist duo Stefan Guzy and Björn as they give an exclusive insight into their process.
- A subtle, animated interpretation of the Baskerville typeface by Tien-Min Liao.
- A copywriter shares her depression and distain for headlines.
- With a fresh design of his site, Elliot Jay Stocks explains a bit about using ligatures on the web.
- Github swaps icon images for “Octicons.”
- Florian Hardwig writes about a new series of Swedish postage stamps that feature typefaces. (German)
- Type designer Sebastian Nagel sits down for a chat with Ralf Herrmann on Opentype.info.
- Think your town touts the title for font capital of the world? Stephen Coles takes us a global tour of type.
- New York artist Hong Seon Jang designs cityscapes with metal type.
- Khoi Vinh reminds us of a time when when letraset was king.
- Typofonderie writes about the process of type design and growing a foundry.
- Marcos Kirsch has created handy font size bookmarklets for the iOS flavour of Safari.
- The New Yorker is still dealing with the curse of the diaeresis.
- The Type Detective is on the case of the Bush memos.
- The first TYPO SF was a success!
- Yves Peters of FontShop is on the hunt for images of letterpress script faces.
- Some useful details about Adobe Creative Suite CS6 fonts.
- Jaap Harskamp writes a bit about the private press movement on I Love Typography
- Mega murdered the alphabet.
- Thomas Phinney wants to revive the Columbus typeface and is enlisting the help of Kickstarter to make Cristoforo happen.
- Letterology explores a signmaker’s textbook.
- Looking for some vintage packagine typography? Look no further than Robert Michael’s collection on typografie.info.
- Try navigating a typographic literary map of San Francisco, in a puzzle.
- There was a talk on Mongolian typefaces in Paris.
- Interested in Spiro curves? Ben Mitchell throws down.
The sun is shining in Brooklyn, so that’s all for this week!
Big ups to Grant Hutchinson for ripping another week’s worth of type.
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