Type News: Handy Dandy
It’s Saturday! Grab yourself a tall boy and put on an album by that one band that only you’ve heard of — and join us for a tour through this week’s type-related coolness.
We were into this new type before it was cool
Huey Lewis and the News were wrong, kids. It’s not “hip to be square,” it’s hip to be script. With a tip of his typographic topper, Alejandro Paul breaks out some seriously casual attitude with Hipster Script — a fresh take on the spontaneous brush lettering style. Lower in contrast and less formalized than his similarly condensed Feel Script, Hipster’s generous swashes, bouncy alternates, and unique ligatures (some of which even incorporate apostrophes) provide plenty of fashionable form and function. See for yourself in the accompanying PDF specimen featuring the arguably hip photography of Germán Paley.
Flowing out of Sweden’s Fountain this week is a brand new face in the grotesque vein. Rui Abreu’s Gira Sans finds inspiration in the early 19th century, but has been updated with a playfulness that is “decidedly contemporary, yet subtly quirky”. Seven balanced weights — from thin through extra bold — are furnished with true italics. The generous x-height and proportions make for a highly readable text face, while “idiosyncratic” details such as circular tittles and angled stroke endings provide oodles of character in headline settings. An extensive PDF specimen and Abreu’s lovingly prepared “typeface trailer” complete the package.
What’s better than one revitalized grotesque sans? Unlimited refills! Rod McDonald’s Classic Grotesque is an update and extension of Monotype Grotesque, first published in 1926. Happy to be able to explore one of his “favourites,” McDonald dove in head first — incorporating stylistic elements from earlier, neutral grotesques such as Bauer’s Venus and Berthold’s Ideal Grotesk. This seven weight family includes finessed italics, small caps, numerous figure sets, and a handful of snappy variant forms.
Trine Rask’s Bornholm Sandvig is rough cut, serif’d companion to her Bornholm Tejn sans released earlier this year. Named after a village located on the rock-ensconced Danish island of Bornholm, this simple two weight display face is outdoorsy, tough, but ultimately approachable.
We’ve been keeping an eye out for updates on Aaron Carámbula’s first commercial typeface ever since his progress report back in January. Well, the Friends of Type cofounder has finally announced that Marais is available for preordering and will be officially released before the end of the month. Ultra and italic styles of Aaron’s chunky, chewy serif will be the first out the door — with additional weights to be added down the road.
According to Kevin Thrasher, Red is the new black. This superdense sans breaks geometric convention with a deft application of subtle humanist details and a surprisingly legible set of lowercase characters.
All the news that’s fit to digitize
Let’s turn away from ruddy, grotesque hipsters and their skinny jeans and gaze upon some links that may give you the skinny on what’s been happening in the world of type — unless, of course, this strained lead-in didn’t cause you to turn away in disgust!
- Khoi Vinh asks, “Are design books meant to be read?”
- David Sudweeks has started a series on typographic trends, beginning with a great post on authenticity.
- Fritz Swanson remembers Tom Trumble, a letterpress pressman.
- Help Kai Merker out by taking his type industry survey.
- Matthew Bower surveys the typefaces ten film directors love.
- Congratulations to Gerard Unger for winning the Beroepsorganisatie Nederlandse Ontwerpers Piet Zwart prize for lifetime achievement!
- Marina Chaccur has pictures from TypeCamp Brazil.
- Be sure to read this love letter to typewriters and other older technology.
- Wicked: the USB typewriter.
- Same goes for these antique radio tuning dials.
- “In letterspace, no one can hear you kern.”
- Here’s some tightly-kerned Univers Extended.
- The premise of this article on “hand-drawn type” is off-base, but the video & comments make it worthwhile.
- It’s been a while since we shared anything on using
@font-facefor resolution-independent graphics. How about we change that? - And finally, check out this interesting — put unfortunately-named — custom tee-shirt service.
Bye! — or to give it a longer title and fit this edition’s pattern — Good-bye!
And that brings us to the end of another week. Thanks for reading; see you soon!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for handing us some dandy new typefaces!
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