Calluna started out as a little test I did to see if I could add serifs to Museo, to make a slab serif. Because of its pipe bend serifs I suddenly saw the connection between serif and stem, and some sort of direction.
With all the talk about web fonts, I think it’s time I tried to outline the present situation. I’ve not attempted to do so before, owing to the complexity of some of the material, and the speed at which things are moving.
Web designers are generally not interested in technical specifications, TrueType Hinting instructions, and extended OpenType permissions tables. They have one pressing question: when can I use font x in my web pages? Today, in Atlanta, Georgia, at TypeCon 2009, the faithful met to talk about Web Font Embedding: The New State of the Debate. At the foot of this article, I’ve included highlights from the twitter feeds of @typographica (Stephen Coles) and @splorp (Grant Hutchinson). Many thanks to them for the great job they did in reporting. Continue reading this article
The week in type is coming very soon. In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this video from Pierre Smeets and Damien Aresta.
More information about the project on Pierre and Damien’s web site, pleaseletmedesign.com. More images on Flickr. You can download the free iQ font from Toyota.
Great, fun project. If you decide to have a go, then please refrain from type design in built-up areas. Oh, and wear your seatbelt.
Let’s jump straight in with some great photos from the Type & Media graduation exhibition. Really impressed, not only by the quality of the types, but by the specimens. Here’s a detail from the graduation poster:
Welcome to another roundup of what’s new in type. If you missed the interview with French type designer Alice Savoie, then be sure to take a look. Alice’s next typeface, Capucine will be released through the Process Type foundry. Follow them on Twitter, and you’ll be informed the moment it’s released.
Not quite sure how I failed to mention this before. Chester Jenkins & Kris Sowersby bring us Galaxie Copernicus:
Alice Savoie started out with a foundation course in Applied Arts and then studied graphic design and typography for four years in Paris. She then set sail for the UK to follow the MA in Typeface Design at Reading University. Upon graduating in 2007 she relocated to London to work as a graphic designer. In March 2008 Alice joined Monotype Imaging as a full-time type designer.
Every year The St Bride Foundation holds a lecture in memory of Justin Howes, a great typographer and historian who was instrumental in supporting the St Bride Printing Library. He re-established the firm of HW Caslon, published books, organised exhibitions, delivered lectures and worked with the Type Museum in Stockwell, finally moving to the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp before his death in 2005, aged 41.
Previous lectures have been popular, but demand was so high for this year’s lecture that all the tickets were booked up in two hours and it had to be moved to Conway Hall to allow more people in, and still there was a waiting list. Given that Matthew Carter was giving the lecture and he would be talking about his views on type revivals, it was perhaps not so surprising so many people wanted to go. For an hour he talked through the development of some of his typefaces and his philosophy not just on revivals but on type design in general. I suspect it’s this philosophy and thinking that interested a lot of the attendees, including me, so I’ll focus more on that here.
This July, the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading is offering a week-long, condensed version of the MA Typeface Design course it has been offering for the last ten years. It may only last 5 days, but it promises to give a small group of participants a chance to spend all of that time getting some insight and feedback from the core staff at Reading — Gerry Leonidas, Fiona Ross, and Gerard Unger — along with some brief sessions with a few more of us who work with the department.
— Hochuli & Kinross 
