Sunday Type: czech type

Sep 21 2008 [comment]

Final Registration

What a hectic couple of weeks. Well, time to forget all your worries, sit back and enjoy some type and lettering. The winner of the Designing Books competition is mentioned at the close of today’s article. Thanks to all those who have sent in links and suggestions.

The other week I mentioned Typoretum. I mention them again because they have some lovely new printers’ flowers letterpress cards:

It’s been a while since any mention of tattoos on this site, so here are a few photos put together by cmdshiftdesign.com

I’m a sucker for black type on yellow:

Gerard Unger’s Swift—one of my all-time favourite typefaces—made of rose petals. More great work from the brilliantly talented Gemma O’Brien:

A couple of great Czech covers:

This second cover was designed by brilliant Czech graphic designer Ladislav Sutnar (1932)

You can learn a little more about Sutnar here and here.

Paul Prass:

Thanks, Vivien.

Paperclips with a type twist:

Via How / OhJoy.

Lovely 2009 calendar from Egg Press

They also make a letterpress calendar. Thanks design*sponge.

New work from Pentagram for Khaleej Times:

I just can’t get excited about newspaper design. Would love to see someone completely rethink the newspaper.

Moss Lettering. Whatever next! Love it:

Thanks, Kyle.

Nice interview with Peter Crnokrak on AisleOne:

New type

New from TypeTrust is FaceBuster. I love it. This is no shy slab serif. Great for big headlines and adding a little—a lot of—punch.

Used to set today’s masthead too. Facebuster, designed by Silas Dilworth.

Typotheque has just released an incredible set of 21 fonts or font layers. As all the fonts share the same metrics, the fonts can be overlaid one on another, with an almost infinite number of permutations. Not easy to explain exactly how it works, so head on over to Typotheque for an explanation and video demonstration.

You can even try for yourself with the History Remixer. Why not make a masthead for the next Sunday Type. And while on the subject of Typotheque, be sure to check out Dot Dot Dot 16 by Stuart Bailey.

Three new faces from OurType: Alto, a versatile sanserif superfamily designed by Thomas Thiemich,

Lirico, a contemporary text family designed by Hendrik Weber:

And my personal favourite, Meran, a sans designed by Maurice Göldner, described as a ‘contemporary rotunda’. The Meran family consists of six weights (roman & italic) and three widths, normal, semi condensed and condensed.

Helvetica paper:

Like these repeating patterns from Yasmine at A Print a Day.

And on a lighter note

A capital FI lig is rarely a good idea:

Thanks Alec.

Designing Books winner

In my review of the wonderful Designing Books: practice and theory, I offered a free copy to a randomly selected commentator. And the winner is… Lorraine Reinsch. Thanks to everyone who contributed. I’d like to offer more books and more prizes, but as my pockets are far from bottomless, if you’d like to contribute, then I’ll use your contribution to buy more prizes. If you’re feeling generous, then visit the About page and find the ugly yellow PayPal Donate button (must change that). Every dollar helps.

Coming soon

That article on ten great sans serif / serif combos, more book reviews, interviews, the third quarter instalment of 15 Great Examples of Web Typography, and lots, lots more—so stay tuned. Have a great, great week.

54 comments * comment * trackback

Kim Andre Fosslien Ottesen
Brilliant article. Keep it coming!
Sep 21, 2008
Dan
Keep up the great work!
Really looking forward to that sans/serif combo article, sounds great.
Sep 21, 2008
johno
Thanks for the positive comments, Kim and Dan.
Sep 21, 2008
martidlo
Hello from Czech Republic. I have tip for next “czech type” - graphic designer and typographer Jiří Rathouský. And some information about Josef Čapek. He was a brother of Karel Čapek, famous writer and inventor of international word robot.
Sep 21, 2008
johno
Martidlo
Great idea to include some of Jiří Rathouský’s work. I will do.
And about the Čapek brothers, I think Josef also designed some of his brother’s book covers.
Sep 21, 2008
Words&Eggs
First: Thank you so very much for the shout-out in your “Sunday Links”! My “Words and Eggs” are new, and they very much appreciate your publicity help. :)
Second: You really should print a disclaimer prior to posts such as this one. I am left completely overstimulated and gasping for air. The sight of the new Typoretum cards was enough, but then you had to go and post images of Josef Capek, and paper clips with letters, and Egg Press calendars (my Eggs especially dug those), and ANAL REGISTRATION?!?!? I mean, really… I need a warning before consuming such things.
:)
Sep 21, 2008
johno
Martidlo
Forget to mention: a great Czech-language type blog is Martin Pecina’s typofilos.
Words&Eggs
I’ve been reading Pauvre Plume for a while now; love it. And that’s how I came across Words&Eggs. Best of luck with it. I shall devise a rating system for future posts: in the place of stars or x’s, I shall use those little wide-open-mouth smilies :o —five of those, and you’ll need to don a straitjacket before reading :)
Sep 21, 2008
martidlo
Yes, it is true. Josef Čapek was writer too. For examle - Tales about doggie and kitty + graphics in this book. There is link of Josef Čapek graphics http://www.galerieart.cz/capek_vystava.htm
Sep 21, 2008
johno
martidlo
Great link. Thank you. Looks as though I’ll need to brush up on my Česky. By “brush up” I mean expand my vocabulary beyond the three words I know :)
How do you write “I love typography” in Czech?
Sep 21, 2008
Words&Eggs
Johno (is “O” your last initial, or do you actually refer to yourself as “Johno”? either way, it’s fun):
Thank you so much for that rating system suggestion. I am so grateful to you for looking out for my health; I need all the help I can get. My straitjacket, which is adorned with illuminated initials and typed-page-excerpts from various insane artists, is ready and waiting for your next 5-:D post.
Sincerely,
W&E
PP
And whatever else you care to call me.
Sep 21, 2008
martidlo
I know typofilos. I think that we have a lot of fans of type, typography, design and very amazing history of this people.
Sep 21, 2008
martidlo
I love typography - miluju (mám rád) typografii.
Sep 21, 2008
Travis Walton
Great article, johno.
Congrats to Lorraine for winning the book.
Sep 21, 2008
johno
W&E-PP
You’ve made it now—you’ve been hyphenated.
Johno is a long-standing nickname.
martidlo
Thank you. I’ve changed the masthead ↑
Travis
Thanks. I’ll get saving and buy some more books for prizes!
Sep 21, 2008
martidlo
Well done! It is great! It is the best thing of this weekend :-).
Sep 21, 2008
Dainis Graveris
Nice selection, people always love pretty typography images :)
Thanks for sharing! :)
Sep 21, 2008
Rob Sawkins
A selection of Czech book covers from the Smithsonian you might like here.
Sep 21, 2008
Brooke
Splendid! I’ve already read though this article twice today and have a feeling I’ll be coming back for more. I’m feeling like a little kid who has just tasted her first candy.
Keep it up!
Sep 21, 2008
Lorraine
Sweet! Thanks again, John! And what a great edition this week: can’t wait to follow up on all of the links both in your post and in everyone’s comments: Nemluvím česky, but I do love me a good kolach. ;)
Sep 22, 2008
Estuardo A. Choc Salazar
Hey the pentagram’s newspaper project is very good, that catch my eye, and the Alto font looks great thanks for share it, I’ll check them later, cause here are 23:10 in the night -naa seriously? in the night?- and i’m tired right now. Greetings from central america.
P.S.
By the way, I have found this a minutes ago http://blog.pentagram.com/ the typgraphic calendar of pentagram, looks very interesting.
Sep 22, 2008
Martius
Another Hello from Czech Republic. Nice post, thank you!
Další pozdrav z České republiky. Skvělý příspěvek, díky!
Sep 22, 2008
mixedbrains
I thought I was the only one who liked the Black Type on Yellow.
And the tattoo’s . uhh. Speechless. Came out real nice.
love your site.
Sep 22, 2008
inspirationbit
I fell asleep while putting my daughter to sleep, woke up a couple hours later… too sleepy to work, but couldn’t resist from checking out your Sunday Type and all the links out.
Really liked those paper clips and Typoretum flowers letterpress card, laughed at Font Fail, enjoyed discovering new blogs, especially Words & Eggs, and pleasantly surprised to see Josef Čapek’s book cover.
Congratulations to Lorraine.
Oh, and I quite like today’s iLT header, I think Facebuster fits this blog’s style rather well.
Sep 22, 2008
Alex Charchar
A great sunday type, well worth the wait.. I really love the a print a day blog and Words & Eggs, thanks for mentioning them.. and I cant wait to see the upcoming articles you’re working on—-book reviews are so handy! I’m writing one on The Ten Commandments of Typography/Type Heresy at the moment, a neat little book
and another thanks for linking to my article, it’s really appreciated sir..
Sep 22, 2008
David Airey
Nice masthead change, John. Also interesting to see your 3x3 ad block, as opposed to the older 3x2. I hope that’s working out well for you, and adding to the much-deserved donation bank.
Sep 22, 2008
MP
I love those letterpress cards! Lovely Post, John-o. Congrats Lorraine!
-MP
Sep 22, 2008
Luca Uliana
Hi, i’m italian student at final year of University; i’m writing a thesis on web typography…
It’s very useful read this article and generally your posts…
Thanx…
Grazie!
Sep 22, 2008
Robert
Lost of good stuff this week. I thought I was the only type nerd that was thinking about getting a type tattoo, I guess I’m not alone. FaceBuster is a slab serif at its best. I look forward to your web typography installment, those are usually my favorite.
Sep 22, 2008
soo
hi
i must say that i love this site and it has taught me a great deal about typography (i don’t have a formal graphic design education).
oh and i love your sensitive use of type on this website. keep up the great work!
Sep 22, 2008
Liz
Hey thanks for the link to my tattoo post!
I may end up doing another installment of typographical tat’s before the year is up. If i do, i’ll tweet ya!
great site, one of my favorites.
Sep 23, 2008
David Březina
It is a known fact that Czech type is the best.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/czech-typography/pool/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/typoblog/sets/72157606483975973/
Sep 23, 2008
johno
David Březina
A very “Skolarly” observation ;)
Sep 23, 2008
Felipe Dário
Hi John, thanks for another amazing (bi-)weekly type round-up. :) Love the Helvetica paper.
I’m commenting to introduce my Helvetica-based woodcut-by-hand incomplete free font, Helwoodica (http://www.dafont.com/helwoodica.font). It has two lowercase styles (more-grunge and less-grunge). Uppercase coming soon.
Thank you again.
Sep 23, 2008
johno
Felipe
Good to see you here again. Off to take a look at your work now. Thanks.
Sep 23, 2008
Andy
More Font Fail…
All was great but that made my day, I about fell out of my chair.
Sep 23, 2008
samsam
I love this site! As a student in design; it’s an eye opener for me. I love good typography as I really think it matters in a design. (: Brilliant love reading the articles here and they are really helpful for students who are in design sch (:
Brilliant!
Sep 24, 2008
Lamba
Fantastic article! Lots of new introductions.
Sep 24, 2008
stvn
congratulations lorraine!
Sep 25, 2008
Chris
I’m surprised to hear a site about typography to say how little excitement they get from newspaper design.
Majority of news design is typography. Truly well-designed newspapers are a dream to look at. Many of those are in countries other than the U.S., but there are a few standouts here too:
http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/jpg24/lg/VA_VP.jpg
The Virginian-Pilot: Experimental and awesome.
http://www.newsdesigner.com/blog/tfp/hcdaily.php
The Hartford Courant: Classic and beautiful.
However, the example you showed was even fairly respectable (I say that without being able to closely inspect it of course).
Expanses of grey can be beautiful and its worth adjusting your expectations — especially considering the amount of content a newspaper has to fit into a single issue and still remain economical.
Sep 25, 2008
Jan Novák
Díky moc za velice hezký příspěvek, který velmi dobře demonstruje krásu českého jazyka. Pevně věřím, že se s podobnými příspěvky zde na Ilovetypography.com setkám i v budoucnu.
Hodně štěstí!
Hope you understand :)
Sep 25, 2008
Christapher
Did I miss the Type History: Sans Serif article? I really love the series and its been a while since the last installment.
Always love reading the posts! Keep up the good work!
Christapher
Sep 25, 2008
capiz blog
WHOAH!! I never thought that tattoo lovers would go for such numbers and fonts in their bodies. This is the first time that I saw such long series of numbers and letters in an arm tattooed to the max. Really intriguing on those numbers where there’s big and small. I wonder if those big numbers are a little important than those in the smaller ones???
Sep 26, 2008
M72
Hmm.. Czech you say? And that we have very good typography? It’s shame that I am just a simple graphic designer :O. Anyway very nice post - I got you in my rss Sunday Type;)
Sep 26, 2008
Piotr
Can’t wait to see the 15 more examples of great web typography! I’m sure it’s going to be a great list.
Sep 26, 2008
SugarChill
The yellow/black font is really well-done… and the paperclips are clever too!
Sep 27, 2008
Nikitacortez
Hi, have you already come across of http://wordle.net/ ? Wordle creates a tag cloud for your feeds, tag words, … but it doesn’t always work from the first time (something about the firewall and java applet plugins or something). In the gallery you can see the last created tag clouds and they are a mixture of typography, colours and compositions. Randomly I guess. Try it out and have fun!
Oct 16, 2008
Alec
cool site, wordle.net!
Oct 16, 2008