Type News: Nuclear Device
Hello, and welcome to this week’s massive collection of news and new type.
Lucky new type
Rian Hughes tries to “manage one major release of new fonts per year”, but admits to a “slip” in 2012. The latest batch of faces for his Device Collection more than makes up for the unintended hiatus — with plenty of the distinctive, neo-retro display type we’ve come to expect from Hughes. Shall we take a peruse through the ten new families? Why not.
Armstrong is a strong, geometric script channelling some serious streamline vibe. The two weights are furnished with smart beginning and ending characters, swash capitals, and a handful of ligatures.
Taking a more freeform approach, Cadogan is also a connected script with avintage flair. Aggressively italic with accentuated caps, this high-style display face also features beginning and ending glyph variants, plus a tricky “extendable t-bar” that has been designed not to collide with subsequent ascenders.
Join the Clique — with an arguably elegant, subtly flared sans in three weights.
Chiselled terminals, Deco-inspired geometry, and a condensed stance provide Galleria with some graphic oomph.
Get your Glimmer on with two styles of slick, backslanted disco action.
Based on a variation of the Batman logo, the aptly named Kane comes boldly equipped in a pair of comic book styles.
Following in the trenches of 2011’s siginificant Korolev family, Korolev Military Stencil is a sectionalized display variation of the condensed grotesque sans.
Distilled from basic geometric shapes, State is a graphic display face with “futurist” leanings. Both solid and “rough” versions contain different cuts for each uppercase and lowercase character.
The deliciously mod, Avengers-inspired Steed covers two widths, with natty italics.
Last, but not least, the energetic Whiphand shows off some of Rian’s trusty (and rustic) handstyle.
After navigating that truckload of display type, why not rest your eyes on the softened edges of Hoftype’s Foro Rounded. Sixteen styles of relaxing sans echo the humanist structure of the slab serif’d Foro, but with added headline appeal.
Laura Worthington’s retro-flavoured “baseball” script may be named “Number Five”, but that’s not just what it wears on its jersey (it’s actually Laura’s favourite “lucky” number). Bold and blazing like the boys of summer, the smooth and slightly rough versions of this sign-painterly script include a concession stand’s worth of alternates, ornaments, and other extras.
Designed for the Bauer foundry by Henrich Jost during the first half of the 20th century, Beton Open has been revitalized by David Tucker from a print of the original foundry type. Nothing extrapolated or assumed — this is a display face straight from the source. David has also made the font available as a series of high resolution scans.
Wrapping up this huge slice of typographic pie is something fresh from Type-Ø-Tones fridge. Laura Meseguer’s Magasin is a quirky, upright script that combines copperplate calligraphy, draughtsman’s precision, and moderne elegance. High-contrast with an experimental edge, Magasin’s charming fluidity is enhanced by the inclusion of several swash and stylistic alternates.
Nota bene
Whew! I hope you’re rested up, because the next fun slog begins now:
- Fresh on the heels of Blokk comes Christian Naths’ Redacted, a set of three lorem-replacing typefaces. All are welcome companions to Patrick Lauke’s Greeked font utility.
- The Guardian-style comment generator could also prove useful for those moments when you need filler text.
- Sing along with “The Printing Press Song”!
- Viljami Salminen shares his thoughts on “Prototyping Responsive Typography.”
- If you missed Jon Tan’s talk on reading and the web from An Event Apart Atlanta, you can at least read Jeremy Keith’s handy notes.
- Typeplate attempts to address common typographic patterns for and the technical implementation of setting type on the web.
- Help Erik van Blokland with an intriguing digitization experiment.
- The FontFont year-in-review is informative, lovely, and voluminous.
- Learn about the fine print you find in a movie poster’s billing block.
- Thomas Phinney celebrates the Crafting Type workshops.
- David Sudweeks justifies justified text.
- Liz Galle discusses how Typekit adds new fonts.
- Speaking of Typekit, you can now use the service in French!
- Language support galore — from Greenlandic to Cyrillic — is a new way to search for FontFonts.
- Dave Rowland is this month’s addition to Creative Characters.
- Josh Emerson’s “Asset Fonts” presentation contains some handy webfont-icon tricks.
- Yves Peters is back with a vengeance! — or rather, with another great edition of ScreenFonts.
- Consider Kickstarting the Phantom Open Emoji project.
- Read Dustin Senos, “On dashes, hyphens, and other important aspects of life.”
- Join The Every Letter Project and help a good cause!
- Iain Reid expresses concern over spoilers and book subtitles.
- Help clean the wood type of the Cary Collection.
- If you enjoy Edward Gorey illustrations, morbid humor, and video games, you might love “The Game Over Tinies,” (in)conveniently spread over several pages: A–F, G–J, K–N, O–R, S–V, & U–Z.
- Find out how Adobe’s fundraiser for the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum went. (You can still support the Hamilton!)
Calendaria
Now that you’ve burned through your free time, be sure to check out these upcoming events:
- The Tournament of Books begins on March 4.
- On March 14, head to New York City and celebrate the release of Thomas Rinaldi’s New York Neon.
- Join John Downer at the Type Directors Club for “Proportions and Hierarchies,” April 20–21.
- Hurry to Takamatsu, Japan, May 12–17 for Type Camp with Shelley Gruendler and Neil Summerour.
Sigh
How better to end such a huge week than with a simple “See you next time”?
Thanks to a well-rested Grant Hutchinson for the insane number of new typefaces!
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