Type News: Quiet Riot
It’s a light week for news, but another weighty week for new type. Let’s get right to it!
Designing a comprehensive type system for newspapers and magazines is unquestionably daunting. Dino dos Santos takes to the task with Acta, an elegant and comprehensive serif family comprised of six primary weights and another six divinely detailed display sizes, all with corresponding italics. Acta Poster adds another three heavier options, chock full of delicious ligatures and swashy goodness. On top of it all, there’s eight sets of coordinated dingbats as well.
Neil Summerour states quite frankly in the description of his latest design … “I hate the idea of revivals.” That being said, he admittedly based Rhythm on Ratio, an American Type Founders display face from the 1930s. With a swooping stance, subtle inline details, and a plethora of OpenType features, Neil has wedged a ton of flavor to this snappy, serif’d “script.”
Joel Lozano’s lighthearted Network Font was developed and named for the Absolut Network project. The playful, overlapping elements in this monospaced, linear typeface embody the “Join. Create. Share.” theme of the project itself. While on the topic of sharing, it’s a free download too.
Combining visual characteristics of the two previously featured fonts, Claudia Doms’ latest for the Gestalten crew has an aesthetically split personality. Maksim switches between monoline and divided strokes, creating typographic flyovers and underpasses — with a unique calligraphic minimalism.
Evoking the hand-drawn charm and liveliness of mid-century advertising lettering, Richard Kegler’s Casual Script Pro isn’t as easygoing as the name suggests. This is a flowing, yet energetic script jammed with plenty of alternates, swashes, and ligatures. It also has an unexpected trick up its OpenType sleeve … stylistic small caps! Now that’s a brush script with Moxie!
Delicate and fanciful, Penna is a stylistic departure for Pedro Leal. Especially considering his debut typeface was the contemporary (and rather corporate) serif family, Mafra. This sophisticated script comes lusciously appointed with four variations of sweeping ascenders and descenders, a duet of swash styles, and your choice of connected or unconnected forms.
New news is good news. TypeTogether has just published the noteworthy Capitolium News 2, Gerard Unger’s update to his original x-height enhanced serif. Headlining this revamp are expanded language support, fresh ligatures, a multitude of numerical enhancements, and reworked kerning — “fine tuned for better performance.”
And now for the rest of the news:
- The program for TypeCon2011 is up!
- Savor these type-based movie posters.
- Mid-Century Modern Typefaces Identified is incredible.
- If you’re curious about what happens at the Cooper Union’s condensed summer program in typeface design, you should check out Unkerned.
- Letterheady continues to delight.
- Tickets are available for TYPO London 2011, October 20–22.
- Method & Craft interviews John Passafiume.
- If you’re looking for some other type-related something-or-other, be sure to check out the Everything-Type-Company.
- Luke Wroblewski once again took copious notes on Jason Santa Maria’s talk on web typography for An Event Apart.
- Erik Spiekermann shares a list of books for designers.
- Gail Bichler discusses the custom type used in the “Voyages” issue of The New York Times Magazine.
Wait, that’s it? Yeah. Take advantage of your extra free time by scolding us for our brevity in the comments!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for giving this week its heft by writing about some lovely new type.
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