Type News: .tc-brew
What a week! There were a couple of huge announcements and the usual deluge of news and new type. And we raise a glass to Steve Jobs.
First: if you love type, you’re in for a treat. If you also love beer, cheese, and encased meats, well, you should probably sit down. TypeCon2012 will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee itself is a great city, with the added bonus of being unreasonably close to the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. You can be sure there will be a strong Hamilton presence at the conference, with a tun [sic] of other surprises in the hopper.
The other big story of the week has caused quite a stir. Adobe has acquired Typekit. As with any acquisition of this kind, reactions have been mixed. Friendly rival Fontdeck thinks this will be a good thing (while assuring everyone that it will remain independent). .net has collected some designers’ responses to the aquisition. The posts on Dirtystylus and by Andrew Boardman are also worth reading. To round it out, be sure to read Christopher Slye’s take for the view from within Adobe. (I feel that it’s a sign of Adobe taking the web seriously as a medium and am hopeful that this thing will result in more better type on web. Not that you asked.)
Speaking of more better type …
François Rappo’s Genath for Geneva’s Optimo foundry is a gorgeously detailed interpretation of a 18th century “baroque” type. High contrast and slightly condensed forms are evident throughout the light, regular, and bold styles — as well as the razor-sharp display weights. There’s a reason why Herr Spiekermann calls it the “… best Caslon alternative yet.” So nice.
Typedepot has just shipped Centrale Sans. This is a fresh-faced family with a firm grasp of geometry, but truckloads of warmth. From extra light through bold, this seven weight package covers a lot of ground.
Simple, soft, and subdued. Alex Scholing refers to his space-savingly named CoreHumanistSans as a “strictly neutral” typeface. Even though it’s a single weight freebie, this font comes fully-equipped with stylistic alternates, small capitals, oldstyle and lining numerals, extra ligatures, and a set of handy directional arrows.
The light-hearted and unassuming Garden Brush is the latest casual script from Jess Latham and his Blue Vinyl Fonts foundry. The bouncy, unconnected forms can be dressed up with optional swash capitals and swooshy contextual alternates.
Calling all headlines! Arnold Hoepker’s Teléfono has a crisp, Art Deco influence combined with a “decomposing” digital aesthetic. Teléfono is also free for the taking, just like Arnold’s other experimental design from this past summer, Pavo Royal.
From new type the world of webfonts:
- James Bridle writes about “The New Value of Text.”
- Elliot Jay Stocks describes designing for the web from the typography out.
- Which is worth considering, as David Březina thinks that typefaces are the most important thing on the web.
- Tom May interviews Jeff Veen about webfonts and pre-acquisition Typekit.
- Last night’s panel on “The New Web Typography” was informative and fun — and with some great questions from the audience. I added my slides to Speaker Deck, in case you’re curious (and want some pictures and text devoid of context). This webfont thing might be going somewhere!
- One of the points I tried to drive home was striving to use 16 pixels as a minimum font-size for body copy on the web. Check out this recent article from Smashing Magazine to learn why this matters.
- The CSS3 Fonts Module has been updated.
- Speaking of CSS3, check out this nifty tilt-shift demo.
- Jason Santa Maria introduces us to FF Basic Gothic.
We go from one gothic to another, to start off the rest of the news:
- Titling Gothic is a welcome addition to New York’s Central Park.
- Ludwig Übele writes about “The Making of FF Tundra” for I Love Typography.
- Thomas Phinney recaps some of the happenings from ATypI 2011.
- Here are some enticing photos and short videos from Letter.2.
- Kickstart the Ludlow Project and help save a hefty amount from the history of hot metal typecasting.
- There’s a new draft of the UFO 3 specification.
- If you are a student from a Visegrad country, you should look into the TypoTopo typographic workshop.
- And if you love type and live in or near San Francisco (or happen to be visiting), be sure to consult Jessica Hische’s new Type SF, which features “news and events for (Bay Area) typophiles.”
- Yves Peters looks at the numbers — again! — with even more fascinating stuff to share.
- These letter constructs are interesting.
- More pixels, please! If you like video game title screens, be sure to head over to Title Scream.
- But try not to forget your kerning pairs.
- OMG YOU GUYS JOHN PAVLUS LOVES COMIC SANS
- John Boardley asks, “How many [type designers] have dropped FontLab to work only with Robofont?”
- Letter Fountain has a website now.
- Identifont has added the Dutch Type Library.
- Dan Reynolds is off on a new career adventure. Best of luck, Dan!
- Mota Italic is hosting a Photo-Lettering exhibition through October 29. The opening party looks like it was a blast.
- Kiss the rest of your day away by staring at the new font sales map from MyFonts.
Finally, we mourn the loss of Steve Jobs. I Love Typography reminds us of his love for letters. Dan Reynolds shares his own gratitude for what he achieved during his too-short life. If you crave more, Jason Kottke has curated an impressive online memorial to one of the crazy ones. We’ll miss you, Steve.
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for bringing us this week’s new type!
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