Type News: Metal-Cast Dinkurisms
A lucky number of new typefaces, combined with some number of news items equals lots of good things at the beginning of the week. Behold:
New Type
Ján Filípek’s Preto Serif is a natural accompaniment to his existing Preto Sans family. Designed from the outset to be part of a sizeable type system (including an upcoming semi-serif version), this face contains uniquely spiked serifs, angular stroke transitions, persnickety optical adjustments, and language specific ligatures and alternates.
Fresh from the Exljbris foundry is Jos Buivenga’s Tenso, a five weight sans with more than just a few “hints of grotesque”. Pinched and angled stroke endings and a lightly condensed stance are matched with an aggressively sloped, yet uncompromisingly sexy, set of italics.
We’re always pleased to find a new face hanging out at the Lost Type Co-op and this past week was no exception. Klinic Slab is another multi-weight workhorse by co-operative regular Joe Prince. The clean (and nearly monoline) four weight family features a large assortment of ligatures, unpretentious small caps, ball-terminalia amidst the numerics, and some delightful italic detailing.
Just over two years ago, Paul Barnes released Dala Floda — an elegant (and arguably innovative) display stencil. Now with Dala Moa, he gives us more than just a sans companion to the serif’d original. Yes, they share the same underlying structural elements and take visual cues from both Renaissance forms and eroded stonecut lettering. However, this new sister family “diverges into the upright humanist tradition” with its less-intense italic styles and a larger, eight weight range.
Voluptuous and delicate do not have to be mutually exclusive traits. Case in point is Salomé — where hairline and curvaceous strokes mix and mingle, swell and confine, contrast and couple. This titillating titling face comes fully fleshed in stencil, display, and “Decó” variations — with plenty of hot, ligatured action to spare.
In creating Bulo Rounded, designer Jordi Embodas (with the help of Noe Blanco), set out to provide a softer, warmer version of Bulo for Barcelona’s Tipografies foundry. Specifically, they delivered “a real rounded” face — not just softening the ends of the monolinear strokes, but also smoothing out every nook, cranny, counter, and notch throughout this five weight condensed sans.
The latest collaborative effort between the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and Buffalo’s P22 is mostly straight, definitely square, and “curious angled”. HWT Geometric revives six styles of late 19th century charm from the archives. Typeco’s James Grieshaber digitized and expanded the original set of cuts to include a regular weight of the condensed width, plus a pair of even heavier “Shopworn” styles.
News
This week might look light on links, but rest assured: there’s plenty of there there.
- Carol Fillip and Lorrie Frear show how to use pre-digital typographic techniques to teach those of us who grew up, um, post-analog.
- NYC Type 2.0 has launched, and it’s enchanting. Matthew Anderson talked about its creation with Jakob Schiller for Wired.
- The fine people at Underware explain what went into the upgrading of that foundry’s font library.
- John Brownlee explores the history of the ‘@’ sign.
- Multiple discussions of peculiar characters and their evolution? I smell treble (this time courtesy Jimmy Stamp).
- Another trend: trends! First up is unusu all etters pacing.
- The second trend is hyphenation, sometimes in we-ird places.
- Let’s end this foray with a current non-trend that the Font Bureau would like to become one: dinkuses and asterisms.
- David Shields examines the work of the ACME Wood Type & Manufacturing Co.
- Brian Warren wrote an article on web typography for .net magazine, which is ironically not (yet) available on the web.
- Type.io can help you figure out what webfonts others are using.
- If [ed. — ‘if’? Ha!] anyone has been wishing for Berthold typefaces on the web, wish no more. Berthold Types has teamed with Typekit to make your dreams a reality.
- More webfonts! This time from Commercial Type, which are available for self-hosting — and are as carefully crafted as you’d expect from Paul Barnes, Christian Schwartz, and company.
- Meanwhile: the complete Freight family can be had on Webtype.
- TypeTogether recently announced that Sonja Keller, Irene Vlachou, and Elena Veguillas have joined the team. Congratulations, everyone!
- Creative Bloq takes a closer look at the type for Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby.
- Adrian Shaughnessy will give the keynote presentation at TypeCon2013: Portl&.
- One more scheduling note: Join Meredith Kasabian on June 15 at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art for a discussion on sign painting and the work of Barry McGee.
- Can a type designer’s work day be distilled to 30 seconds? Jessica Hische shows how.
Cast off!
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading; see you soon!
Thanks, too, to Grant Hutchinson for wrangling all of this week’s new type!
Comments are closed on this entry.