Type News: I to the 18 to the N
Envision a map emblazoned with anachronistic typefaces, with red lines tracing our every move. We get around!
New Type
Recognizing that his original implementations of Founders Grotesk were “simply failing” when applied in less than perfect conditions, Kris Sowersby revisited the revivalist sans. Across its five weight range, Founders Grotesk Text provides looser letterspacing, wider forms, and more “exaggerated” details — those odd, yet compelling tidbits that were smoothed over in the headline versions.
If you like extended headliners (like us), you’re going to love Jeremy Tankard’s Capline. This display sans is clean and wide and features five inline “weights” that can easily stand alone — or be combined with the solid style for all manner of mix and match. Cyrillic and Greek scripts are included, along with a smattering of alternates.
A softened sans inspired by stamped type. That’s the basis of Grilli Type’s Pressura, a twelve style family that mimics the effects of ink spread on less than optimal printing surfaces. A trio of weights, true italic partners, and a set of fixed pitch flavours complete the package.
Slapjack is lettering artist Stephen Rapp’s unique twist on a “broad-edged” script. The energetic strokes of the calligrapher’s pen have been controlled, but not watered down. It’s bold and brash and loaded for bear, with plenty of OpenType chutzpah — including a streamlining stylistic set that removes all of the lowercase baseline connections.
Jeremy Dooley loves the “crispness and rationality” of geometric sans serifs. With Steagal, Dooley set his sights on creating an American-influenced, “vernacular” sans — with and without the warts and artifacts of handpainted signage. The five weight family is tightly constructed, but still soft around the edges. It’s accompanied by an additional quartete of roughed-up weights, designed to channel that “bad signpainter” vibe. Each face contains numerous alternates, Deco-esque titling caps, and optically compensated forms.
Closing out this week’s batch of new type is Alejandro Paul’s Bellissima — a delicate copperplate script in a similar vein as his exuberantly flourished Burgues and Compendium. Although the calligraphic ornamentation takes a back seat to the bright handwritten forms, he’s managed to stuff close to 2,000 glyphs into the design. Trying something a bit different with this release, Paul is offering Bellissima Script Redux — a stripped down version of the “pro” parent. The “redux” includes just a taste of the alternate glyphs — at a much tastier price. And be sure to peruse the lovely PDF specimen, featuring the interpretive three-dimensional illustrations of Corey Holms.
News
How about some more superlatives — as in, these are the most interesting things we found this week. Maybe you’ll agree.
- Monotype’s fonts.com webfont service has released a way to use JavaScript to render advanced OpenType features in virtually any web browser. Sounds fancy. (But what are the accessibility implications?)
- Thierry Fétiveau guides us through the work of Albert Boton.
- Thanks to the Internet Archive, you can enjoy E.F. Watson’s “Fundamentals of Teletypewriters Used in the Bell System.”
- While we’re traveling back in time, learn how books were made.
- Atif Akin has assembled an impressive Instagram collection of “urban type” at TypingLot.
- “Out of Print” is an experiment in converting digital ephemera into analog artifacts.
- Brian Jaramillo’s Type & Texture is exquisite.
- “‘Wiper typography’?” Wiper typography.
- Watch the calligraphy of Kaoru Akagawa come alive in “Ancient Words.”
- Take a gander at the strikingly redesigned A List Apart.
- Lisa Landa explores the rebranding of Monotype.
- Tiny books are a big deal.
- I covet these House Industries factory blocks.
- Emily Gregory discusses her book The Little Book of Lettering and shows off some brilliant lettering work.
- We’ve seen beautiful book covers, but what does it take to make a lousy one?
- Surprise, Helvetica & MTV are a couple.
- YouWorkForThem has assembled its list of top fonts of 2012.
- Whoops!
Timely things
More than usual is coming up. Grab your planner of choice!
- Help move the Hamilton — every weekend in February. (It’s also not too late to support the museum.)
- Get married at the Neon Museum “Boneyard” in Las Vegas — on Valentine’s Day.
- Adobe is hosting a type design workshop with Paul D. Hunt, March 11 – 13, Guwahati, India.
- That workshop follows almost immediately on the heels of Typography Day, March 7 – 9 at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati.
- If you head to Amsterdam October 9 – 13, you can take in ATypI 2013.
[Some bad pun]
And … that’s it for this week. Thanks for stopping by; see you soon!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for trotting the globe in search of new type!
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