Type News: Soup for You
Saturday! No SOPA for you! What could be better? How about some new type! Let’s enter, then move along in an orderly fashion.
The latest release from OurType is a reinterpretation of a little known “Balken-antiqua” by the name of Wellington. Maurice Göldner’s Stan takes the Brüder Butter foundry’s stark — yet sophisticated — early 20th century slab through a seven weight OpenType update. Highly readable, display-savvy, and including charming details like the “mailbox flag” ear on the lowercase ‘g’ and a ‘Blond’ weight sitting between light and normal. Also available is Stan Plus which provides slightly extended ascenders and descenders.
Rhythmic. Invigorating. Angular. Expressive. Humanist. Glyphic. All of these words can be used to describe Winco — a bouncy, flared stroke sans from ReType’s Ramiro Espinoza. This five weight family offers a useful range of colour and sports some rather intensely calligraphic forms — especially the italics. Espinoza studied the work of book cover designers and the “German and Czech traditions of expressive printing types” prior to beginning work on Winco. Ultimately, he designed the typeface from the ground up, nodding to the past while creating something fresh and energetic.
Set a couple more places at the table. TypeTogether’s popular Abril has added a pair of family members … and more substance. Abril Display Black is the heaviest (and frankly, most fanciful) addition to the didone-style headliner. It has plenty of contrast and curvaceousness where it counts … and that just happens to be everywhere.
Industrial architecture and the gritty bones of the Rust Belt have inspired designers and artists for ages. This includes Chris Lozos, who feels that stencil type “is almost a signature for the city.” Dez Yinz’nat Stencil is an emboldened condensed sans channelling some true Pittsburgher vernacular. Even the name is a combination of colloquialisms that defy explanation outside the region. Ya-hunh.
While we’re on the subject of regional flavour influencing type, Diego Sanz Salas has pulled from several sources in the newest face from Cocijotype. Taking visual cues from Peruvian sign painting and its name from South American music styles, Chicha is an undulating and vibrantly calligraphic script. Several hundred alternates, swashes, and ligatures are included — along with ‘Suave’ and ‘Dura’ styles for additional layering and shading options.
Before we move completely away from our new type segment: Remember Pictos? Now you can customize and use it as a webfont — and have it served without your needing to put the whole infrastructure together on your own. This is no small undertaking. We might usually think of this kind of service in the same way Jackson Cavanaugh does, but the reality is probably more like what Typotheque diagrams here.
Speaking of webfonts … Matthew Butterick explains “Why Google Web Fonts aren’t really open source” and questions Brad Bird’s use of Verdana. Meanwhile, the Legal Writing Institute awarded Mr. Butterick the 2012 Golden Pen Award for his excellent Typography for Lawyers. Quite the week! — and well-earned.
And now for the rest of the news:
- I missed the TDC’s “Judges Night 2012.” If you did, too, or you just want to relive it, the video is on Vimeo. How about that!
- Taro Yumiba interviews Kunihiko Okano for I Love Typography.
- James Lileks profiles Chank Diesel for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
- Meanwhile, Yves Peters interviews Łukasz Dziedzic on the FontFeed.
- Dave Foster describes and documents his experiences during the first fours months of the KABK’s type and media course.
- Early- and mid-century ATF paraphernalia are making the rounds. There’s a 1912 specimen book on the Internet Archive. And Mark Simonson writes about their alphabet boxes.
- The 17th edition of the Speedball Text Book is on Flickr.
- Speaking of Mr. Simonson, his “Bookmania”: is featured on the German FontShop Blog.
- The final edit of Linotype: The Film is complete. Check out the screenings page to see when it might come to your area.
- Fontfabric is offering free social media icons.
- Paul Shaw will be editing the second issue of Codex.
- YouWorkForThem Shares its top 10 fonts of 2011.
- Support Valuco on Kickstarter, a project to develop a beveled typeface that only requires two colors to achieve that effect.
- Also on Kickstarter is the intriguing Vernacular Typography project.
- Swarm is a “parametric” typeface that might hypnotize your morning away.
- House Industries opens an exhibit on Photo-Lettering at the Chapman University Guggenheim Gallery on February 6. The show runs until March 9. Stephen Heller has a few things to say about it, too.
- On January 26, Ilene Strizver will demystify OpenType in a webinar.
- Head to New York on February 16 to hear Abbot Miller’s “My Beautiful Dark Typeset Fantasy.”
- Stephen Heller shares a tree of type.
- Let’s wrap up this week’s links with some great experimental typographic poetry.
See you next week.
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for bringing us this week’s new type!
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