Type News: Mastodon Five Thousand
Classic forms meet the cutting edge in this week’s news and new type. Rather than hold you back, let’s leap — to the future! Or maybe the future perfect. Anyway, these fine typefaces will have been news to some of us:
Okay Type’s The Harriet Series is a significant release by any standard. Thirty months in the making, Jackson Cavanaugh’s contemporary “rational” serif covers an impressive range of six display and four text weights, plus true italics across the board. The bogglingly beautiful microsite and comprehensive specimens that accompany the release just amplify the amount of font lust for this family.
Hubert Jocham is pouring out some packaging love with Crema — a boldly curvaceous, yet casual, display script. Tricked out with a triple hit of styles, Crema moves from quiet italic to subtle “flare and flourish” — finishing with a truly fluid, connected script.
Free is a good thing, but often the ‘thing’ isn’t necessarily that good. The Lost Type Co-op continues to prove that theory wrong by supplying high quality (and rather tasty) display faces like Sullivan on a “name your price” basis. This solid, squarish beveled sans by Jason Mark Jones consists of three variations designed to be layered, shaded, and combined with vernacular abandon.
While we’re on the topic of free (and squarish), the prolific Fontfabric released a condensed, linear sans by the name of Rex. Light, bold, and inline weights feature a rigid construction, distinctive ‘notched’ capitals, and Cyrillic language support.
Building on the charming “zip-top” style of his recent Dynascript release, lettering artist Michael Doret gives us a double dose of Dynatype. An upright “cousin” of the aforementioned script, Dynatype is really “two fonts in one” — changing from aggressively retro display type to connected script with the flick of the stylistic switch. This workhorse headliner can even hold its own when faux-italicized.
How is it possible that Laura Worthington has another new typeface out? Not that we mind, of course. This time around she’s creating a buzz with HoneyBee — a slightly weathered titling face with a jaunty baseline. There’s also a hive full of hand drawn alternates and ornaments to enjoy.
Talk about putting some Type Together … Poland’s Anna Giedryś and Germany’s Elena Schneider have collaborated with Czech type designer David Březina on an extension to his popular Skolar family. The newly minted light and extra bold weights are a welcome addition to this highly readable, lightly modulated serif face.
This may be one of the best self-described headline types of late. The Infamous Foundry’s Fancy Antique Display is an uppercase-only face born from mid-century French lineage — featuring familiar geometric bones and striated dimensionality.
Also making headlines this week (or I guess making our giant list of links) — this week’s type-related news, ephemera, et cetera!
- Nadine Chahine writes about Arabic type for the Turquoise Branding blog.
- Tim Brown has been busy! Check out his take on “MyFonts on CSS line-height and web font spacing” and on CSS vendor prefixes and web typography.
- Indra Kupferschmid shares a quote from Cynthia Batty on fonts and intellectual property.
- Jean François Porchez’ Typofounderie has a new design from the fine folks at Paravel.
- Check out Talking Type, from Gestalten TV.
- It’s an election year in the United States; Steven Heller, Debbie Millman, and Alice Twemlow take a look at some of this year’s presidential campaign logos.
- Starting this spring, Adobe’s forthcoming “Creative Cloud” service will include a Typekit plan with each subscription.
- YouWorkForThem is now offering webfonts. Maybe this whole webfont thing will catch on.
- Speaking of webfonts, Matthew Butterick’s essay on Google’s webfonts has made it onto Reddit.
- And an experiment in web typography: “responsive text,” by Frankie Roberto.
- Steven Heller has read and recommends Robert Bringhurst’s What Is Reading For?
- Yves Peters brings us another edition of ScreenFonts
- TTYPP has an iOS app.
- It’s always hard to say “no” to free. Even harder when the free stuff in question is type from Type Together.
- If you have an iPad with iBooks 2 installed on it, you can peruse DSType’s 2011 Report.
- Phaidon interviews Shelby White.
- How about this for a new definition of wood type?
- Linotype: The Film is making the rounds, and it’s been getting some very favorable reviews.
Get out your calendars! A few of these events are coming up soon:
- Head to the St. Bride Foundation on Tuesday, February 21, to hear Fred Smeijers speak on “Life after Counterpunch.”
- If you’re in Chicago on Wednesday, February 22, consider heading over to “Typography: Does It Even Matter?”
- Dates are up for Alan Kitching’s typography workshop. Try not to get motion-sick while scrolling the site.
- This year’s edition of Paul Shaw’s Legacy of Letters Workshop and Tour runs from July 18 until July 28.
- Which ends just in time for you to take in the entirety of TypeCon2012: MKE SHFT, from July 31 until August 5. (Get your programming proposals in by February 29!)
That’s it for this week. Until next time, how about some cats?
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for bringing us yet another amazing week of new type!
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