Type News: Tall Bold Slugger Set Vivid
We won’t be stacking wheat, but we do have quite the eclectic font stack (and news) this week. We’re painted, under the gas lamps, and ready to lure you in. What.
Designing your very first typeface is quite the accomplishment. Doing it when you’re just 18 years old … well that’s just phenomenal. Freshly released through the Positype foundry, Mary Catherine Pflug’s Dumpling proves that talent and tenacity will handily trump any assumptions about your age or experience. With a bit of guidance from her instructor, Neil Summerour, Pflug navigated her stout, lighthearted headliner through the “ridiculously tedious, painful and compressed process” of type production. Quite a nice achievement. Quite a nice font.
Typonine’s Thema is a “beautiful rephrasing” of their popular Typonine Stencil — refining the curves, finessing the contrast, and sharpening the hairline serifs — to produce a delicate, balanced text family. The four upright weights and their sumptuous italic counterparts sport a variety of OpenType charms including nesting capitals, multiple figure sets, and some seriously sexy extended tail options for the capital Q.
Colour us copperplate’d. Eduilson Wessler Coan’s Maestra is a delightfully animated, two weight calligraphic script that provides multiple initial and finial forms, a handful of optional swashes, and plenty of pointed nib character.
Finally, Russian type foundry Green Type has released Patriciana — a delicate display sans by Dmitry Greshnev. It features fragilely crisp contrast, extremely trim lines, plus an abundance of angled alternates and interlocking ligatures somewhat reminiscent of Lubalin’s Avant Garde.
And now the news, delivered at first with stormy, husky, brawling laughter:
- The thirtieth Olympiad has begun. That must mean it’s time for Jonathan Barnbrook to release a new set of Olympukes — “No D, no lot emo, clew,” indeed.
- While we’re in a welcoming mode, we extend a laurel and hearty handshake to the new Fonts in Use.
- Sam Byford interviews Oliver Reichenstein about design, typography, and a bunch of other topics.
- Ferdinand Ulrich reviews Herman Zapf’s Hunt Roman for Typographica.
- Nick Cox showcases Typekit’s collection of webfonts from psType.
- David Sudweeks has some fun with Chartwell.
- Be sure to check out the Gerd Arntz archive.
- Gareth Hague is this month’s creative character.
- Avenir, et al., join the list of typefaces available in iOS 6.
- I wouldn’t mind vacationing here.
- Gunnar Link has withdrawn his recently-released Riga over its similarity to Octavio Pardo’s Sutturah.
- When is 14-point type not 14-point type? When it gets caught up in legal action.
- If you’re feeling stuck, remember to ask yourself, “Where do I begin?”
Why stay behind your computer screen when you can be alive in the world? — perhaps even at one of these fine upcoming events:
- TypeCon starts on Wednesday, August 1!
- Overlapping with TypeCon, but as (more?) worthy of your attention: ISIA Type Design Week, July 29 – August 3, in Urbino, Italy.
- Once TypeCon is done, stay in Milwaukee — or travel there from Urbino — for the 2012 Convention of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting, August 6–12.
- Half a world away, join Gemma O’Brien and Wayne Thompson in Glebe, Australia, for two Type by Hand workshops, September 22 and 23.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for coming along for the ride. On a more personal note, this is probably the last Type News from Chicago. Next week we’re reporting from the land of beer and Cream City Brick — and then it’s (near) San Francisco all the way down. Until next time, enjoy yourselves some of them there Olympics!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for delivering this week’s new type with strength and cunning!
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