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I LOVE TYPOGRAPHY

Sunday Type: fruity type

Of Pens and Pears

First, thanks to everyone who read and commented on Alec’s great Small Caps article. It’s been incredibly popular. Sunday again, and I still haven’t finished packing! Well, let’s forget packing and start with something else that seems pretty popular these days: we’ve had potato type and chocolate type; even cupcake type; and now we have customized fruit type from the talented Sarah King:

pear-type1.jpg

I can’t imagine how long it must take to complete one of these.A special offer on one of my all-time favorite typefaces, Le Monde Livre PTF.

le monde livre PTF

from Porchez Typofonderie.

Free Fonts

Today’s free font is a rather good one; but hurry, because it won’t be available free forever. I mentioned the new FF Unit Rounded a coupe of weeks back. Now you can download the bold weight for free. (I also like the ‘ty’ discretionary ligature.)The second set of free fonts is based on toothpaste and tomato ketchup. Reminds me of the darling child who comes running to its mother excitedly proclaiming, Mummy, mummy, the toothpaste is as long as the sofa.

Tomatica free font from Autobahn

Gelvetica, Tomatica and Heldentica can be downloaded free from Autobahn. Thanks to Alec for the link.And as the FireFly Letterpress video was so popular, here’s another little slice of letterpress in the form a lovely business card. You really don’t need anything fancy when you have letterpress–the impression of type on good paper/card is enough:

letterpress business card

From Deb Pang Davis of Cococello Design.

Penmanship

They don’t have the prettiest looking web site, but they certainly have some great resources in the form of free downloadable pdf’s and jpegs on penmanship; and although calligraphy/penmanship is not strictly speaking typography, a sound understanding (not necessarily great penmanship) will teach us a great deal about letterforms.

penmanship11.jpg

The succinctly named The International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting, has some great free resources. Via How Blog.

A Font We Can Believe In

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the typefaces used in the the ongoing US Presidential race. Barack Obama has voted for H&FJ’s Gotham:Keep an eye out for Gotham, the documentary.

It was born outside of type design–in some other world.–Tobias Frere-Jones on the lettering that inspired Gotham.

Read more about it on the Helvetica film site.We all know that grids are good for the soul, but Antonio of Aisle One has created a limited edition screen print. And if you like your type without counters, you’ll be especially happy:

grids are good for the soul

The poster is a homage to Josef Müller-Brockmann’s seminal Grid Systems. Since its publication, no-one–in my opinion–has ever written so well on grid systems. This is THE book on grid systems. That reminds me, I have an article, Don’t be square–use a grid, still in draft; I’ll get it finished after my move and publish here.The poster is sold out, but I’m sure there are more to come.

On P22

The latest MyFonts newsletter has a great interview with husband and wife team, Richard Kegler and Carima El-Behairy, of P22 type foundry. Back in 2004, P22 acquired Lanston (Frederic Goudy was art director of Lanston for almost three decades).

lanston monotype

Colon(ial) Isles

San Serriffe has been about for a while, but you may not have seen it. I think I’d rather live on the northern island, far away from Arial

sanserriffe

I’m sure there’s room for even greater creativity here. If you’d like to create your own, then send it to me. Thanks to Felipe for reminding me of this one.And I like this rather fun use of type in the rebranding of Lush. Organic type for an ‘organic’ product.

lush-rebrand.jpg

Article in German only. Thanks to WhyWeRock.And now for a little irony. You may know of the excellent Umbrella type. Well now there’s a type umbrella. If you had one of these, you’d be praying for rain:

umbrella type umbrella

I’m sure most of them were sold to British typenuts.

Miscellaneous links

Keming defined (this link sent by more than 20 readers!)New alphabet iPhone wallpapersTypographic detail–date treatments for the webSafe Baby Handling tipsChocolate Telegrams (thanks, Vivien and others)Alan Kitching is coming to Belfast

Coming Up

I’m writing a series of three articles; a kind of introduction to practical typography. I’m hoping that it will be a good starting place, especially for those new to the site. There will also be a great contributed piece (in nine parts) on some of the basic elements of typography. I’m also writing a piece on the use of Small Caps. In the meantime, for those who’d like to read a little more on Small Caps, there’s a great Typophile node, Caps to Small Caps. Thanks to William Berkson for the link.Once I get settled in to my new apartment, I’ll get on and start screen-printing those t-shirts I promised. There will also be some limited edition screen-printed posters–simple designs on gorgeous archival paper.

Font of the day

Today’s font is a handwriting-inspired script from the above-mentioned P22, designed by Paul Hunt and Richard Kegler, and based on lettering on The Declaration of Independence. It’s called Declaration:

Declaration Pro from P22

Thanks to everyone who sent in links. Apologies that space doesn’t permit inclusion of them all. Back to packing for me. Have a great Sunday everyone.Don’t forget to subscribe to ILT.

previous: Small Caps

next: National News

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