Type News: El Cuervo Vuela
It’s a winding line to this week’s news, beginning with all this new type:
The uniquely independent typographic flavour of the No Bodoni foundry is evident in George Everet Thompson’s latest effort. Crowbird Pro is a singularly bold display face with “assertive serifs” and intriguingly pinched transitions, giving it a pseudo-stencil feel. One weight, as the crow flies.
A2-Type’s Regular is a new sans family inspired by classic, hot metal fonts — with a modern nudge. There are structural inklings in the tradition of Stempel’s Memphis and Renner’s Futura throughout the seven weights — but keep an eye on the details. There are more than a few not so “regular” inktraps, gaspipes, and teardrops tossed into the mix.
Dave Rowland’s Schizotype has released Vulpa, a comfortably tidy serif “informed by the proportions” of Plantin. Lively “foxtail” terminals in the roman, bold, and italic styles take some cues from Rowland’s own Gelato Script. Additional features include italic swash capitals, a smart assortment of ligatures, multiple figure sets, engraved display caps, plus historically appropriate ornaments and fleurons.
Once you get past the charming name-play of Emily Lime Design’s Jacques & Gilles you’ll find an equally charming handwritten face. There are two contrasting — yet utterly compatible — “personas” evident in this casual display script. A bouncy lowercase and stoically upright capitals are mixed together with plenty of alternates, optional unconnected forms, and two sets of layerable ornaments.
While we’re on the topic of split personalities, let’s take a peek at the typographic three-way of YWFT Clairemy. Starting off several years ago as a set of original drawings by Blake E. Marquis, YouWorkForThem’s OpenType-pimped display face boasts a triple treat of glyphs in one trim package. The burly uppercase characters, spindly lowercase forms, and an unexpected set of hairline alternates all share a loose, hand-set style.
East London design studio Oscar & Ewan reached deep into their analogue arts toolbox for Leroy, the latest release from Colophon. Based on the infamous Keuffel & Esser technical lettering kits, the regular and “backslant” styles evoke the precise, monoline sans of their template-based namesake.
Typonine’s Balkan Sans provides a clever solution for representing and transliterating Latin and Cyrillic languages. Four double-decker character styles — in regular and stencil variations — “attempt to identify the features” which are commonly shared between South Slavic languages and alphabets.
OurType’s brand-spanking new “Stencil Fonts Series” was released to accompany the Between Writing & Type: The Stencil Letter exhibition at Antwerp’s Catapult Gallery. The series of three designs includes Maurice Göldner’s calligraphic and “modestly decorative” Standing Type, the minimalist geometry of Pierre Pané-Farré’s Orly Stencil, and Fred Smeijers’ Puncho — packed with slabby goodness. This trio of crafty cutouts is also available as a free download from the OurType site — but only for a limited time.
You might want to download those stencils now: the rest of your weekend may be consumed by all of these type-related links and news items:
- Congratulations to Niko Skourtis on winning the 2012 SOTA Catalyst Award!
- Catherine Dixon interviews Nadine Chahine.
- Brand New covers “Hebrew Literal Typographic Translations.”
- Carolyn Knight and Jessica Glaser write about a topic close to my heart, the rhetoric of typography.
- Be sure to explore the Abecedarium.
- Linotype: The Film recently played at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois. See a lovely promotional poster and brief interview with Doug Wilson at Smile Politely.
- Kevin Chong asks, “What fonts do writers use?” The answers may (or may not) surprise you.
- Happy 12th anniversary, Typophile.
- My name is Erik Vorhes, and I am a Typoholic.
- Gareth Hague writes about creating Alias.
- Extensis has released Suitcase Fusion 4. (You’re welcome?)
- Chank Diesel and P22 created a custom typeface for the Hunger Games trilogy.
- Have fun exploring the developer preview of Hipertipo’s grid font navigator.
- Grain Edit profiles letterer James Edmondson.
- Whether Digi Grotesk was “the first computer font” is probably open for debate, but John Herrman’s article on it is still interesting.
- John Berry checks in after having attended TYPO San Francisco.
- A few weeks back we covered the release of Ralf Herrmann’s Wayfinding Sans. Learn more about its creation over at I Love Typography.
- Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am so tired of your experimental sans.
Tempus fugit! Maybe you can clip its wings by keeping track of the following time-sensitive events:
- The submission deadline for ATypI Hong Kong has been extended to April 30.
- Get your submission in early, so that you can enjoy a stroll through Queens, New York, with Paul Shaw on April 29.
- Registration for Type Camp: Templeton is open! Camp runs June 3–8.
- In cased you missed it amid all of this week’s new type, Between Writing and Type: The Stencil Letter runs until June 29 at Catapult in Antwerp, Belgium. Yves Peters has plenty to say about the exhibit.
- More TypeCon2012: MKE SHIFT news! There will be a special presentation by The Heads of State. There is also a program preview available to entice you to Milwaukee. And if those things weren’t enough, there will be letterpress workshops at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. Take it all in, from July 31 until August 5.
Finally, we are saddened to note that Hillman Curtis has died. Liz Danzico and Brendan Dawes have shared beautiful remembrances.
See you next week.
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for having all of this week’s new type flown in, express.
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Schizotype Apr 22, 2012
To anyone who’s interested, Vulpa is on offer at 30% off until April 27th using voucher code Vulpa30 at MyFonts.