Yes, we kern
The Week in Type
I had intended to publish my review of Theo‘s The Typographic Desk Reference today. I’ll publish that next week. And, I missed out on April Fool‘s. I had so many ideas, from the new and free Adobe fonts with embedded ad glyphs (the humour’s in the execution!) to the … well, I’ll save that for next year. In the meantime, here’s plenty to keep you busy. Everything from new typefaces, interviews to … well, you’ll see. A little later than usual owing to days and nights spent on a soon-to-be-launched type-related site that I’m pretty excited about, and hoping will inspire.
OK, let’s get started with some seriously gorgeous book covers from Louise Fili Ltd:
Where type meets art. The Dreamweaver from Nina Jua Klein:
New fonts & typefaces
FF Seria Arabic by Pascal Zoghbi:
Good to see that FF Milo and FF Balance have been expanded to support more languages. Nothing more frustrating than finding the right type, only to discover it doesn’t support the languages you’re setting in. For more, see the April FontShop newsletter.
Updates to Typonine’s Tempera Biblio:
A new microsite devoted to FF Dingbats:
Some beautiful spread and covers from IL magazine:
The typeface is Christian Schwartz Publico. Be sure to take a look at the other wonderful spreads and covers on Flickr.
Love these pieces from Stefano Lionetti‘s Portfolio on Behance:
Set with Seb Lester’s wonderful Soho. Great display face.
Some wonderful letterpress minature books:
Architecture meets typography in these clever Ikea ads:
Typographic bling, anyone? From Amsterdam-based tjep:
Like this packaging concept from Hattomonkey studio:
No counters, please. Drop poster from Jonathan Looman, AKA Lowman:
Type-related videos
Intro for Web09 from John Ballinger:
Thanks @bboybri.
Love this kind of experimentation. Shadow type. Pretty complex to actually set this up:
Learn more about the project here. Thanks, Max.
Next, a promotional video for James Puckett’s Black Monday, demonstrating the wonders of OpenType:
A forceful political message through the medium of kinetic type:
Thanks to @marcocardenas.
The making of a letterpress poster:
Via Inspire Me. And it was the discovery of Inpsire Me, that led me to this lettering by illustrator Daren Newman:
There are also many other videos from Robothon 2009, especially useful for type designers. There’s even a video on the joys of kern table overflow issues — fascinating.
And from video to audio. Type Radio interviews type designer Kris Sowersby at TypeShed11 in Wellingtonon. Do be sure to check out all the other interviews there. Should keep you entertained and informed for weeks to come.
I mentioned the brilliant Book Cover Archive some time ago. There’s now another great book cover resource in Faceout Books. This is one of the gems I discovered there:
Cover design by the very talented Helen Crawford.
Like this rather elegant use of H&FJ’s Gotham in this identity piece for Cruet & Whisk. Designed by Allison Newhouse:
Tobias Frere-Jones presented this stunning enamel sign to Wim Crouwel, winner of the 2009 Gerrit Noordzij Prize:
It features numerous styles of Gotham. Jonathan Hoelfler writes that the sign features 64 of the 66 styles of Gotham. I wonder who can name the two styles that are omitted! Thanks to H&FJ for permission to use the above photo.
Johnson Banks was comissioned to turn crop circles into lettering. For Quaker Oats:
Came across this on one of my favourite type blogs, Ministry of Type:
If you haven’t already subscribed to Ministry of Type, then do. The Cooper Typography blog, from which the above image (Alfred Mahlau) was sourced is another to add to your feed reader.
Type links
Keyboards for typographers
Arial is everywhere
A natural history of the @ sign
The Palatino story
Metrics Machine 4 (video)
Smoking type
Love, romance, and a little controversy?
The Alphabet: A Dramatic Reading
26 symbols
Downloadable font formats for the Web
The most beautiful alphabet?
Wood type collection for sale (373 fonts +)
White space — how to get it right
Letterpress Things — equipment & resources
Interview with Font Bureau’s Dyana Weissman
On a lighter note
Looking for a theme for your next party. Follow Anne Ditmeyer’s lead, and make it a type-themed birthday party:
And if you’re wondering what to do for entertainment at such a party, then why not steal some sheep with Erik Spiekermann.
Gems from the archives
Fred Smeijers on legibility
I hate ITC Garamond
Featured faces
Bohemia available through Linotype:
From a great serif to a great sans: Apertura, a rounded geometric by Christian Robertson of BetaType:
A great PDF specimen too.
Since my interview with RBtL, I received several emails about Comenius, a crisp and lovely text face from Hermann Zapf. Someone asked where they can find a good example of Comenius in use. One of the best examples is to be found in Type & Typography: Highlights from Matrix — The Review for Printers & Bibliophiles. Besides looking beautiful set in Comenius, the handsomely bound book is a wonderful read.
Perhaps MyFonts wins the April 1st prize with its Interview with Eric Gill. It is, however, worth reading! Both funny and informative.
And finally …
Apologies if you have mailed me recently, and I haven’t replied. Each week, the number of mails I receive through ILT is growing. Be assured, I read everyone, but it’s now impossible to answer them all. I will be creating an FAQ page; perhaps that will help.
Thanks for reading, and have a great, great week.
