Type News: Steam
What are those fonts doing? Let’s find out:
New new type
Berlin’s Jan Fromm shows us another side to his warm and round Rooney family. Rooney Sans shares the same comfortably low contrast design as its serif’d sister, from the tidy terminals of the light and regular styles through to the pinchably pudgy cheeks of the black weights.
To call FF ThreeSix a “huge experimental optical type system” is incredibly accurate — and a bit of an understatement. Paul McNeil’s and Hamish Muir’s modular display family incorporates design methods that adhere to a strict grid consisting of 36 units (hence the face’s name), using a minimum of geometrically constructed components and minute optical adjustments. Because of the underlying unit-based grid, character attributes such as x-height, ascenders, descenders, and metrics are consistent across the entire 52 weight range. Quite the undertaking — and quite the achievement.
Combining geometric and humanist characteristics in a contemporary sans is nothing new. However, Jan Maack has managed to freshen up an old idea with FF Marselis, his latest release for the FontFont collection. Open counters, minimalist forms, and organic “teardrop” transitions can be found throughout the four weight family.
OurType’s original Stencil Fonts Series was released to accompany the Between Writing & Type: The Stencil Letter exhibition at Antwerp’s Catapult Gallery. The initial trio of crafty cutouts has recently been joined by another set of striking stencils. The new designs include Pierre Pané-Farré’s chiseled Couteau, plus a pair of calligraphy-influenced French numbers by Fred Smeijers — the sophisticated Bery Roman and its elegantly compatible partner, Bery Script. As was the case with the first series, the second set of stencils is also available as a free download from the OurType site — but only for a limited time
What would you call a square made of curved lines? Why a squircle of course. Taking a cue from this hybrid quadrilateral, Dunwich Type Founders’ Gigalypse is a one weight wonder that provides plenty of headline punch. Designer James Puckett pushes into the future with a beefy display face that simultaneously feels new and retro.
And now, one last typeface to Peruse — a brand, spanking new display sans by Austin’s Gerren Lamson. It features stark, linear forms and a unique, stylized uppercase inspired by the “lead came” joints found in stained glass windows. Fair warning — being a display face, the character set is rather minimal, lacking diacritics and other glyphs. Along with Peruse, Lamson has also released two additional faces — the weathered, geometric stencil TerraStamp and the “sketchnote” inspired NimblePen.
New news
We won’t help you know your stripper from your paint, but we’ll make this type-related news as real as any place you’ve been.
- David Sudweeks continues his exploration of typographic trends by covering “Physical Type.”
- Read Jonathan Perez on “The Design of Multilingual Type Families,” the latest essay added to TypeCulture.
- Looking for a shitty webfont? Try Open Baskerville!
- The Believer interviews book designer John Gall.
- Alexander Barrett introduces us to the art of classily defacing property.
- The Type Directors Club has assembled a special book celebrating their 65th anniversary.
- How did the US end up with 8½"×11" paper as a standard size?
- Instapaper has been updated to include Abelardo Gonzalez’s OpenDyslexic typeface.
- Erik Spiekermann discussed type on screen at the 13th Creative Morning in Berlin.
- Yves Peters interviews Rob Meek about the updated FontShop plugin for Adobe Creative Suite.
- Wee Society has a bunch of stuff I covet.
- Check out Christian Swinehart’s “Typography of Neglect.”
- But whatever you do, don’t miss Leandro Senna’s tribute to Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
Dates, not figs, for your enjoyment
What’s happening? This:
- Roadworks is this afternoon (September 22) in San Francisco. There’ll be a steamroller!
- On Monday, September 24, join AIGA San Francisco for An Evening with Jesse Ragan, Typeface Designer.
- The Herbert Lubalin: Then and Now Symposium takes place October 26–27 at the Cooper Union, New York.
Cover it up in bubblewrap
Or some kind of wrap. That’s it for this week — see you next time!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for steaming out the log jam [Ed. — what?] of new type!
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