Type News: Talar þú íslensku?
Komið þið sæl! It’s time for ATypI 2011, this year in Reykjavik, Iceland, a rose among thorns … and eths and ashes, yogh. We aren’t there, but even if we were, that wouldn’t keep us from bringing you the news!
Where are the halls and our loyal companions? Where are the letterforms once molded in lead? We don’t know, but we’ll console you with this week’s new type:
It’s a Typotheque trifecta. Peter Biľak’s Irma Text covers a triplex of geometric ground — quite a bit more than his graphic, caps-only Irma Display and Irma Slab originals. These new text families — fluid sans, humanistic slab, and “intimate” round — provide nine weights, finessed italics, plus Cyrillic and Greek language support. Peter has also posted a series of images documenting Irma’s final proofs.
The text weights of TypeTogether’s Abril come from Scotch Roman and 19th century slab serif roots. The titling weights are meticulous and energetic contemporary Didones. José Scaglione and Veronika Burian managed to pull together this pair of related styles into a versatile and extremely tight family of text and headline faces. Abril also comes fitted with plenty of ornaments, borders, dingbats, and alphanumeric alternates. Fair warning … with just enough contrast where counts, the larger you set the display italics, the sexier they are.
Talk about a tough act to follow. Jim Parkinson’s “systematically remodeled” Parkinson Electra updates the William Addison Dwiggins original with softened curves, slightly reduced contrast, and less finicky terminals. Even in the new heavier weight, the quirkiness and personality of Dwiggins’ Electra remains present — it’s just been lightly sedated.
The name of Nikola Kostić’s Pagewalker is a bit of a giveaway. Yes, it was designed specifically with the idea of setting multiple pages of legible, flowing text. Upon closer inspection, Pagewalker is an oddly organic typeface with an exceptionally large x-height and undulating forms — comfortably distinctive at headline size as well.
Looking for something in the “generously proportioned” department? That’s how French studio Mostardesign is positioning their new Kyrial Display Pro. This practical sans features a sextet of weights from ultra light to black, an array of numeric styles, plus a handful of stylistic alternates.
Trending up! What’s with all of the design studios releasing their own typefaces lately? Not that we’re complaining. Thailand’s Suffix has just unleashed their self-referential Suffix-Mono. It’s modular, monoline, and monospaced with semi-rounded terminals. This single weight freebie is available in OpenType format for desktop use and as a webfont.
Maybe it’s an indication that we need to take a break, but Scannerlicker! has got to be the best foundry name ever. Their newest release is Catorze27, a minimalist condensed sans inspired by the modernist, wrought iron signage common to northern Portugal. After designer Fábio Duarte Martins photographed several examples of this simple lettering style, he extrapolated seven weights worth of faces. This family is the first of three styles planned by Martins.
Practice Foundry’s mission is to showcase and evangelize underexposed Canadian typographic talent. One of those talents is 21-year-old graphic design student Ivan Kostynyk. Recently added to the Practice roster, Egypt 22 is a study in both geometry and symbolic representation, stripping down glyphs and forms into raw visual elements. It’s also available on the “pay what you want” plan.
It’s no mystery that news is and will be coming out of Iceland. To keep abreast of events as they happen, follow ATypI on Twitter. Even though we’re far away, we’ll try to keep track of the goings-on and report on as much as we can next week.
Brace yourselves for the rest of this week’s news:
- Perhaps the biggest news from ATypI, the font editor RoboFont (Mac only and Python-powered) is now available for purchase.
- The UK agency Mother has released the first book in its “Ministry of Letters” series: Operation Alphabet.
- Paul Shaw has published his review of Just My Type (and explains why it has taken him this long).
- Digital Arts interviews Jessica Hische on lettering mistakes, why you should code, why cheap designers are like free sofas, and a slew of other delightful things.
- Jo De Baerdemaeker writes about when writing becomes typography.
- Beautiful letters and amazing drawings fill the pages of Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer.
- If you’re planning to be in Amiens, France on September 29, you might want to attend a colloquium on Claude Garamont.
- Jean François Porchez has stumbled upon the lovely Typomanie.
- Are you running Mac OS X Lion? There’s (finally) a public preview version of FontLab available that’s compatible with your system.
- Wood type is the focus of an exhibition at the Bradley Gallery at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and runs through October 14.
- Take a peek at Soleil, a forthcoming geometric sans face from TypeTogether.
- Typotheque showcases Typographic Matchmaking in the City.
- The National Design Award winners, including Matthew Carter and Hoefler & Frere-Jones, got to have lunch with Michelle Obama. Fontblog has more on Matthew Carter.
- Speaking of Mr. Carter, the next Type An Sich features his work and runs from October 13 until December 30.
- Dan Frommer interviews Chank Diesel.
- Are you missing any Emigre Type Catalogs from your collection? Hoarders and type lovers rejoice! They’re now available as PDFs — not as wonderful as in print, but I’ll take what I can get.
- Auto-generate kerning pairs using Stringmaker.
- Dunwich Type has published Type Library, “a web site about books about type.” Handy!
- We’ve found the perfect gift for someone who thinks type is for the birds
- Type designs from the 2011 class at the University of Reading are here.
- Yves Peters writes about the recent Expert Class Type Design Graduation and Exhibition
- Ilene Strizver is speaking at HOW Interactive in November. Bryn Mooth introduces her to anyone interested in the conference.
- Here’s what we missed by not attending TYPO Berlin 2011.
Finally, here’s some webfont-related news to fill your digital quota:
- Prepare to melt your brains, as Tim Ahrens kicks off a new series for the Typekit blog with “Optimizing Fonts for the Web: Outlines and Components.”
- Last week we reported on a new webfont plugin for Photoshop, from Extensis. Scott Boms has seen it in action and is very excited.
- Learn about Radley Italic and making new webfonts from old type specimens.
- Nadine Chahine has compiled some of her recent tweets about using Arabic on the web.
- August Heffner writes about hand-lettering on the internet.
- MyFonts talks with Jack Auses about how webfonts have impacted the University of Chicago.
- Speaking of webfonts and Chicago: join Nick Sherman, Jackson Cavanaugh, David Demaree, and me (!) as we discuss “The New Web Typography,” at the Illinois Institute of Technology on the evening of October 6.
Whew! That’s it for this week. Is there something we missed? Please let us know about it in the comments.
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for bringing us this week’s new type. Skál!
Comments are closed on this entry.
1.
Fábio Duarte Martins Sep 22, 2011
Wow! Thank you for featuring Catorze27, guys! It’s a honor, really!
And yes, Scannerlicker! is the best foundry name ever. :P
2.
Grant Hutchinson Sep 26, 2011
You’re very welcome, Fábio. It’s our pleasure to introduce our readers to interesting and underexposed typeface designs and foundries such as yours.
Cheers!