More Edible Type

We’ve had chocolate type, but that’s just for dessert. Well, here’s some carbohydrates in the form of potato type. How do you like your type? Baked, boiled, fried, sautéed, perhaps? Which type would you use for your own potatoes? I’d go for sautéed Parisine.

ATypI membership

It’s January and ATypI membership for 2008 is now open to buy. ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) annual membership costs $110 ($35 for students).

Not only does membership bring with it discounts for ATypI events, but you will also have access to the database of members, subscription to the members-only e-mail discussion list, annual reports from Country Delegates, and much more. If you’re already a member, then please share your thoughts.

I love these beautiful letter blocks that I found via Swiss Miss. Just need to have some children, so that I can justify buying some.

RedHat users might be pleased to hear of the release of Liberation, a set of fonts for Unix, that acts as a replacement to Arial and Times, etc. However, you don’t need to have Unix to use them. They can be downloaded here in several formats. Thanks to Alec for the link.

Up with the x-height

It seems like an age ago since I last mentioned the Insigne type foundry. Terfens is the latest offering from Jeremy Dooley, also the creator of the rounded sans Montag:

Terfens is a sans serif with inspiration from chancery scripts like Stefania. Subtly rounded and eschewing harsh technical lines, Terfens is a warm and inviting typeface. Its tall x-height gives it a friendly but not overly informal feel. Its readability and unique contemporary look makes it suitable for a wide range of design applications.

The next item doesn’t make for the most legible type, but it’s an interesting experiment nonetheless. Each letter form is derived from the number eight:

Might also be interesting to see something similar derived from squarer-looking eight. Thanks to James Brown (yes, it’s his real name) for the link.

During my interview with Neil Summerour I mentioned one of his recent typefaces, Epic. It’s now on sale over at TypeTrust. All twelve weights can now be purchased for $145 (half the original price); and Epic Pack A (4 weights) is available for just $50 (an OpenType font of course).

I’ve mentioned the display face Brasserie from Swedish designer Stefan Hattenbach before, but I’ll mention it again because iLT will be interviewing him in future.

And here’s another of Stefan’s, Anziano,

which comes adorned with numerous ornaments. To see more of Stefan’s work, visit his web site.

Tales of tattoos

Do you remember Roger who asked for your advice on a suitable type for his tattoo? Well, yesterday he did the deed, and here’s what he has to say:

Thanks for all your suggestions and inspiration regarding my possible tattoo a few weeks ago. I promised I would send a photo of the completed work and I’m happy (and slightly shocked) to report that I paid the shop a visit this afternoon and got my very first tattoo.

I went through a couple of type options with my friend and the artist. I wanted lowercase, but my friend rightly pointed out that a single lower-case word looks odd out of the context of a sentence. Also, uppercase tends to have more impact. I was keen to go for Baskerville, but the artist informed me that he wouldn’t be able to give proper definition to all the subtle curves and serifs (except he didn’t use the word ‘serif’), so I went with xxxxxx instead. I wanted a smaller size, but apparently what I’ve got is about as small as you can go without losing definition. In the end, it wasn’t exactly what I was after, but it’s definitely growing on me. I’m hoping it will thin out a bit when it has healed properly.

Thanks again for all your help! Perhaps this will be of use to someone else planning a type tattoo in the future.

I’ve intentionally x’d out the name of the type Roger used. That’s for you to guess. It’s not so easy:

And talking of tattoos, there’s an interesting article over on Easily Amused, the blog of John D Berry. It’s entitled Wearing your art on your sleeve.

Coming soon

The next in our Type Terms series, Transitional Type, where we’ll be heading back to early-eighteenth century France to take a closer look at the types that followed the Old Style forms like Garamond. We also have some more great interviews to come.

And finally…

I’ve added some links and a search this site and search for fonts option, accessible via the ‘Typography Tags & Search” menu at the top of the page. You can also search for fonts from the FontWall. Soon I hope to have a search for fonts application within this site, with samples from a database of thousands. Yesterday I published the first translation of an ILT article into Portuguese. It’s a translation of Alec’s Font Creation case Study—one of ILT’s most popular. Many more translations to come, including Japanese, Chinese and French.

Have a great Sunday.

tattoo typography news