Type News: EOL
No intro — let’s go!
Type
Best. Five. Ever. Clement Numbers is Pablo Impallari’s revival of some handsomely expressive, 19th century “French” numerals originally produced by the Fonderie Clement. This tidy handful of digits won’t leave you hanging — basic puncutation and math symbols are also included.
For such an aggressively named face, the latest release from Berlin’s Type Department sports a sedate charm. Crocodile Brokenscript combines multiple historical influences and typographic elements into a modernized, handwritten blackletter. Adding to this face’s distinctiveness — and versatility — are the inclusion of old style figures and small caps.
The newest confection from Fenotype is Emil Karl Bertell’s Bonbon — a tasty, condensed script in three weights. Deliciously flexible, each style provides at least four glyph variations for each primary character, including swash and titling alternates, plus a set of bouncy small caps.
We’ll admit that we love the optic dazzle of “neon” typefaces. And why settle for a geometric triline when Stereotypes’ Prism pulls off some seriously sexy, four-lane action inspired by Prisma — Rudolf Koch’s inline display version of Kabel. For graphic impact and colour, each of the ten weights in the range — from extra light through black — share the same proportions and widths.
Ramiro Espinoza’s Medusa pays homage to the masterful work of 19th century Spanish calligrapher, Ramón Stirling. Drawn with sensitivity to the source, the swash capitals are wonderfully ornate, but delicately balanced. The face avoids the common “artificial” practice of connecting roundhand forms in the middle of each glyph, instead creating a more realistic baseline flow. An unexpected set of serif’d small caps is also included, along with numerous “modular” swashes and cartouches. Summing up what makes Medusa work so well, Nick Shinn expounds, “It’s good to see [Espinoza’s] own historically informed penmanship expressed in these letters and flourishes, providing a rare degree of authenticity.” We’d have to agree.
In the midst of relocating their massive working museum in the middle of a Wisconsin winter, the Hamilton Wood Type Foundry is still managing to crank out an impressive number of revivals. The first of three new releases is HWT Arabesque, an eccentrically organic (and arguably groovy) Art Nouveau headliner.
Next out of the Hamilton chute is a mid-century script originally designed for the Morgan Sign Machine Company. HWT Bon Air features exaggerated contrast, playfully odd forms, and a somewhat “exotic” feel. A number of alternates and ligatures supply just enough variation (and personable quirkiness) to simulate a signpainter’s whimsy.
“Words to punctuate wood type inspired layouts.” That’s how the folks at Hamilton describe the decorative typographic add-ons in their HWT Catchwords collection. This eclectic set of preformatted words, phrases, and abbreviations sports a variety of 19th and early 20th century vernacular styles and treatments.
News
Say good-bye to some time; several of this week’s links are truly engrossing.
- If our weekly round-up of new typefaces isn’t satisfying on its own, you might want to check out Sean Mitchell’s new “This Week in Fonts,” over at I Love Typography.
- Mark Simonson has a lovely new website.
- David Sudweeks continues his quest to justify type; be sure to read the lively discussion in the comments.
- Enjoy a random Font Bureau glyph each day, courtesy David Jonathan Ross.
- Linotype is now Monotype.
- Jessica Hische shares how to create quotes, dashes, and accents on a Mac.
- Learn “how emoji conquered the world.”
- Do you wonder about Unicode private-use characters, noncharacters, and sentinels? You’re apparently not alone!
- Use Fontastic and Processing to create fonts.
- Faythe Levine and Sam Macon have released a trailer for the Sign Painters documentary.
- Tampa Press has published Richard Hopkins’ Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype: The Origin of Digital Typesetting.
- Who knew that an interrobang could be so delicious‽
- Thanks to signs with the wrong typeface, thousands of speeding convictions may be overturned.
- The folks at Typofonderie review several recent books that amplify their content.
- Stephen Coles has updated his list of typography as furniture.
- It looks like the Vatican sent Pope Benedict XVI out in style.
Headings
Deadlines approach. Command?
- View this year’s Film Design Awards finalists, which will also be screened on March 11 at South by Southwest.
- March 15 is the deadline for programming submissions for TypeCon2013: Portl&.
- Head to São Paulo, March 19–25, for TPC10.
- Get tickets for Ampersand NYC, which takes place November 2.
Are fun
Another week blew by. See you again before we know it!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for bringing us this week in fonts. ;)
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