Type News: The Anti-Aaron Burr
It’s another spectacular week for news and new type! Before we get started, though, we’d like to call your attention to a couple causes worthy of your support:
- Contribute an asterisk to Font Aid VI: Aster Affects. When completed, the collaborative all-asterisk typeface will be sold to help raise funds for Hurricane Sandy relief.
- The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum is being forced to vacate their location in mid-February. This means they have around 60 days to raise enough money to move “30,000 square feet of printing history” — and then find a new place to exist. The Hamilton would surely appreciate your help in raising the $250,000 needed to make this happen, so why don’t you do your part and click on this excessively long link already?
Speaking of the Hamilton, there’s good news from Two Rivers, Wisconsin, as well — but we wouldn’t want to spoil the new type for you.
All the type
Celebrating the launch of its nifty new site and hot on the heels of its inaugural American Chromatic release, the Hamilton Woodtype Foundry has unveiled another pair of 19th century treasures. The “very” condensed HWT Antique Tuscan No. 9 is the first digital version of this bifurcated beanpole to include a complete lowercase and extended European character set. HWT Borders One provides a decorative collection of “streamer” and border components in a similarly historical vein.
Fresh from the Gestalten font garage comes Andreas Søren Johansen’s Berg — a semi-traditional sans, packed with personality and designed with “a striking visual pitch” in mind. Somewhat organic transitions and terminals are pinched, flared, and otherwise spurred — echoing many of the idiosyncratic traits of the grotesque style. The family’s stance is condensed, but not uncomfortable — even in the beefiness of the black weight.
Jesse Ragan’s Export channels some unusual (and curiously attractive) handstyle lettering found on some discarded cardboard boxes. The quirky vernacular, unpolished charm, and limited character set has been gently rationalized, while “preserving the apparent chaos” of the original. Currently a work in progress and only available for selective licensing, Ragan plans on releasing a more robust edition down the road.
Billed as “The smallest thing to happen to Trivia Serif since Trivia” … Trivia Serif 10 is a diminutive extension to František Štorm’s “inconspicuous” text family. The details have been sweated and opticals optimized, making this tiny, two weight workhorse suitable for all manner and instance of long form text.
A jaunty, considered sans family, Lupa Sans Pro is fully equipped for complex typographic challenges. Designer Melle Diete provides a flexible range of weights from extra light through black with delicately feminine italics. Each member of the family includes multiple stylistic alternates, a subdued set of swash caps, and no less than seven ampersands per face.
We’re big fans of monospaced faces here at the Type News. So when Jörg Schmitt’s Ingrid Mono slid across our desk and tipped its typewriter topper — we were intrigued. This extensive, eight weight monolinear sans sports playful tails and terminals, consistent character widths across the entire range of styles, and a seriously jolly lowercase g.
Hanging around the extreme end of the angular geometry spectrum is John Moore’s Factor. Stripped down, rectilinear construction is combined with a just a hint of blackletter flavour. Four weights — including a graphic inline variation — include numerous clever alternates, ligatures, and dingbats.
All the news
Who are you calling a dingbat, Grant? Oh, well. Here’s this week’s news-related list:
- Steven Heller interviews Heather Mitchell about the Vandercook proofing press and related topics.
- Alastair Johnston examines type from the age of steam and iron.
- Jeremy Keith shares his thoughts on using webfonts for iconography.
- Meanwhile, Jenn Lukas details her experience working with three icon webfont services: Pictos, Symbolset, and Web Symbols.
- Typekit has released a new troubleshooting guide.
- Catherine Dixon argues that the popularity of letterpress is more than nostalgia.
- Take a look at what’s in Jesse Ragan’s tool box.
- Random images + typesetting = Google Type.
- Chank Diesel highlights EINE’s new typographic murals in Minneapolis.
- Rolando Alcantara explores mutable typography.
- There’s some great typographic stuff to covet in The Harry Potter Collection.
- The first Rosetta Type specimen is quite lovely.
- House Industries shares uncut type timber on Instagram.
- “Uncommon sources” are the latest of David Sudweeks’ type trends.
- If you love letters, this desk may be for you.
- Yves Peters introduces us to “The Futura Gold.”
- Partners + Napier take parking seriously.
- Beware, mutant verbs!
And in case you hadn’t heard, there were some elections in the United States this week:
- Jonathan Hoefler reviews the presidential campaigns’ typefaces.
- The folks at Talking Points Memo share some photos of political Americana.
- The Eye blog takes a look at home-grown political signs
All the events
Well, a couple at least:
- Beyond Tellerand takes place November 19–21 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Yves Peters takes a look at what’s in store.
- Kerning, “the first Italian digital typography conference” takes place some time in Spring 2013. Stay tuned for details.
- Opening November 12th, Berlin’s Mota Italic gallery is presenting Chromeography – an exhibition of photography curated by Stephen Coles that celebrates the shiny side of lettering.
All of the farewells
That’s it for this week. Keep your stick on the ice!
Thanks to Grant Hutchinson for delivering yet another great round of new typefaces! Dingbat.
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