Sunday Type: Ale Paul type
In the Beginning
Welcome to this week’s roundup of what’s hot in type. Before I get started, I’m thinking of renaming Sunday Type to something like This Week in Type (a nod to my favourite tech show, This Week in Tech, perhaps). Work commitments sometimes make it difficult to publish every week on a Sunday, so I’m trying to come up with a title that is not day-specific. Perhaps you have some of your own suggestions?
Let’s start with some beautiful lettering in the form of versals or initial capitals. I’m a big fan of them, and Pascal‘s article demonstrates how they can be achieved using a little CSS (if only initial capitals were as easy on the web as they are in InDesign).
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an enormous raised cap here, but here’s an initial cap that beats them all:
Beat that. You can read more about the five-volume Doves Bible, from The Doves Press in Simon Loxley’s Type—the secret history of letters, chapter seven.
In response to several questions on the topic, I’ve started writing an article entitled Why Type Matters. There are, of course two answers to this question; the first concerned with aesthetics; the second philosophical in nature. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.
Last week I mentioned the birthday of Adrian Frutiger. This week it’s the turn of Alejandro Paul, the creator of beautiful scripts like Feel.
I hear he’s approximately 21. Aren’t we all. Be sure to check out his Flickr photos too; he often posts work in progress.
Next is a typographic tribute to the animals lost in space research from 1949 to 1990.
The exhibits comprise a number of Medical Xray Light Units, each telling its own story.
A great Flickr group showcasing the designs of Müller–Brockmann, Bos, Crouwel et al.
Via AisleOne.
This poster by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is pretty clever:
Via boingboing.
And some more inspirational calligraphy from abduzeedo:
Does anyone know how the above reads?
Lynda Thain is collecting data on text preferences for the web. If you’d like to help out, then head on over and submit your preferences.
I’ll let you know when the results are published. Not sure how—or if—this will be helpful, but perhaps the results will highlight some trend.
The following is an interesting experiment with letters constructed and reconstructed using pieces of Morris Fuller Benton’ Stymie typeface. The whole thing is screen-printed:
A collaboration between Facing Desks’ Julie Cloutier and Alex Petty, and Claire Nereim.
As my last article was all about the Moderns or Didones, then it’s quite fitting that this calendar from Newfangled should feature one:
I guess we should have a monthly iLT calendar. I’ll do one for July. Anyone else? I also like this new desktop wallpaper designed and submitted by Julia Kaestle.
I posted about this one on Twitter, and received a very positive response. More wallpapers here.
For the children, or the child in you, here are some lovely wood blocks from notNeutral:
Old type specimen books don’t come cheap, so it’s nice when we can at least view and read them online. Here’s a Goudy specimen book on the Fountain Type web site.
Do actually read it if you have time. Courtesy of the Bruhn Collection.
Thanks to George for this iLT tribute:
You can even create your own CubeScape.
Sunday Type Links
Akatre experimental type. Thanks, Vivien.
The non-typographer’s guide to practical typeface selection. Thanks, Vivien.
Happy Typographic Holidays—H&FJ.
FounDesign—some nice found type.
Quite literally hand-written type.
New Type
Parry and Parry Grotesque from OurType, and designed by Artur Schmal.
A lovely sans and serif pairing.
Today’s Type
Scala Sans from Martin Majoor. I’ve mentioned it before, but here he is again.
This paired with Scala is just gorgeous.
Coming Up
A typeface review from Mr Sowersby. In addition to having made some wonderful contributions to this blog, he has done the same for type with Newzald (I love it), National and Feijoa. The week after that we have another interview, with the designer of another of my favourite serifs of recent time. And, of course, the crossword—with a big prize, I hope. I’ve also started writing a series of articles on some of my favourite type foundries—the people behind them, their types and much more.
Have an exceptional week.
