Type News: Seven-Minute Slabs
Last week we overwhelmed you with new stuff. This week, we bring you more. Feel the burn.
New Type
We’ve all experienced that feeling of anticipation prior to something being imminently available. Sweat on the brow, dryness on the tongue? Well, now you can relax. The fine folks at TypeTogether have released the last piece of the Bree puzzle. Yes, a sweet set of italic styles have finally been added to their popular Bree Serif family. Whew.
Commercial Type’s Portrait marries the elegance and classical proportions of French Renaissance type with the sharpness and “aggressive simplicity” of Latin serifs. Did we say “aggressive”? Designer Berton Hasebe has developed an audacious range of 29 styles — including text, display, condensed, and inline variations.
Don’t let the bargain basement price or understated presentation dissuade you from checking out Jan-Christian Bruun’s latest headliner for Ten Dollar Fonts. What it lacks in glyphs, it makes up in character. Fellars provides two styles of vintage-flavoured, condensed display type — packed with plenty of Brooklyn-born charm and no-nonsense industrial vernacular.
The lettering and sketches that would eventually become the lively, textural Gonte were inspired by designer Alison Argento’s travels to Spain. This loose pen and ink script with exaggerated capitals has been duly enhanced (and personalized) with OpenType-powered alternates, contextual swashes, and a plethora of double letter ligatures.
Switzerland’s Optimo presents the highly controlled, yet somewhat contradictory Programme. Developed by studio Maximage Société Suisse, the face combines humnanist and geometric forms with stark, angular cuts. The three primary weights are supplied in Roman, italic, and “rotalic” styles — each with a set of “brutal” alternate glyphs. Also included is Programme Primitiv — the original “scripted” version of the design.
Nearly ten years ago, Marconi Lima first started tinkering with what would eventually become Pétala Pro — his “neo humanist superfamily.” Covering a nine weight spectrum, balanced Romans and dynamic italics yield a significant range of colour and attitude through the application of subtle optical adjustments and increasingly “expressive ink traps.”
Letterist Ray Cruz has gone positively dotty with Dot Script. Following the recipe for a simple, monolinear display script, the loopy characters mimic the chaser-light signage of old school Vegas. And that means … bigger is always better.
The unapologetically calligraphic Excritura is Spanish designer Alex Camacho’s nod to the work of Antoni Gaudí. Upright, organic forms and very “deliberate” stroke contrast provide energy, rhythm, and a unique ornamentality that echoes many aspects of Gaudí’s “obsession for nature and crafts”.
News
Warm up your link-clicking or -tapping fingers.
- Kathryn Wescott explores the joy of Letraset.
- Rob Lowe and Dan Rhatigan visit the Monotype archive, and things get interesting.
- Dàvid Ranc interviews Xavier Dupré.
- Communication Arts interviews Jackson Cavanaugh.
- Lola Landekic interviews Jessica Hische about her work on Moonrise Kingdom.
- Congratulations to Donald E. Knuth for being awarded the third Dr. Peter Karow Award.
- David Sudweeks explains kerning settings — and why to avoid “optical.”
- Domenic Lippa throws down and identifies “The Ten Best Fonts.”
- Grain Edit features the work of Tal Leming.
- John D. Berry writes about his new booklet, Hanging by a Serif.
- Karin Jager shares her experience at the TypeCon2013 Type & Design Education Forum.
- Speaking of TypeCon, Rob Saunders has posted the slides from his talk on W.A. Dwiggins.
- Take a gander at Jurriaan Schrofer, Restless Typographer.
- Visit the Biblioteca Bodoni to learn more about Giambattista Bodoni and the history of the book during his lifetime.
- James Edmondson is studying type in the Netherlands and writing about it.
- Yves Peters returns with another edition of ScreenFonts.
- Mozilla has some pretty thorough type usage guidelines for use in Firefox OS.
- The cover for the Novum typography special is sheer madness.
- Help Gary Hustwit publish the full unreleased interviews from Helvetica, Objectified, and Urbanized.
- Straight quotes vs. curly quotes: learn the difference.
- Hello, Eric Gill.
Events
Time for wind sprints!
- Pour one out for the closing of the Mota Italic Gallery on September 21.
- Hear Armin Vit discuss “Not Amazing and Not Groundbreaking, but Really Very Decent Good Typography” on September 26 at the New School of Architecture and Design in San Diego.
- Head to the San Francisco Center for the Book on September 29 for the tenth Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival.
- It’s not too late to plan a trip to Amsterdam for ATypI, October 9–13.
Gasp!
That’s it for this week. See you soon!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for lugging all the new type!
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