The Baskerville Project

The Week in Type

A belated Happy New Year to all. It’s that back-to-work time for everyone. Feeling inspired? I’m hoping that 2009 will pass by a little slower than 2008. Here’s iLT’s first post of 2009. Enjoy!

You may have wished for one of these at Christmas. The leather ‘type bag’ from Assouline. If you have a spare $450, it’s not too late:

Via typornography.

House Industries, makers of fine type, metal ampersands, and, just about anything type related, have redesigned their Web site. Very nice too:

Some nice illustration and lettering from Steve Leadbeater:

A a couple more pieces by Steve, including this great found type compilation, available as a print:

and this clever t-shirt:

You can check out Steve’s other work on redbubble.com.

Plenty of inspiration and numerous illustrative type techniques to be found at debutart.com:

Via Veerle.

Very clever chair alphabet from Amandine Alessandra:

The Designer’s Review of Books is a great sites with some wonderful reviews; and a lovely masthead set in Ale Paul’s Buffet Script:

Another victim of the economic downturn is the bilingual (Japanese & English) PingMag, for a long time one of my favourite graphic design blogs. At some stage I guess they’ll actually take down the site, so I suggest you head on over to PingMag’s typography category and eat it up before it’s taken off the table. Some great articles, including an interview with Linotype’s director of type, Akira Kobayashi; a 2006 interview with Jonathan Barnbrook, and lots more.

In 2008, I stumbled upon numerous posts about the typography of film titles. But I think Art of the Title is the first Web site dedicated to the topic:

Thanks, Anton.

A stunning image from Ebon Heath’s Stereo.Type: a typographic ballet:

Thanks, jcapDesign.

Lovely illustrative type from Jonathan Caplan:

Some nice illustrations and spreads from Jihad Lahham:

Via Andre & Vivien.

I’ve mentioned this site before, but it has recently been updated to include most of the type specimens (back to 2004) of the work of Uni of Reading MA in typeface design students:

Well worth taking a look it.

Smile type

I have nothing against Helvetica, but I don’t think any amount of money would have me repeat this:

Found on the Typophile forum. The first comment made me smile:

What made you go with bold?

Priceless.

I challenge you to find a more bizarre f:

As a good friend of mine commented, “…this is what happens to signage when hair stylists are involved.” Indeed, stick to hair.

This is fun, though I don’t believe that it has been digitised yet. The toast font from Radomir Tinkov:

Like these experiments from Jakob Nylund:

Type links

Introduction to Brockmann (PDF)
Recasting Caslon Old Face
The Truth About Typography
Hamilton wood type
It’s type o’clock
Guerrilla pixels
Able Parris’ January desktop wallpaper
The end of typblography

Be sure to read Dan Reynold’s Twelve memorable type occurrences:

Ivo Gabrowitsch’s list of top types of 2008 is another must see. Die besten Schriften 2008:

Free fonts

The Danish publishing company Aller has released their Aller Sans for free:

Used for today’s masthead. Thanks to Mark Adkins for the heads up.

News

Just in case you missed my announcement on twitter, here’s a new site from iLT. Typenuts is a place to download free iPhone and desktop wallpapers. Some designed by me; many others contributed. You can also subscribe, so that you always have a fresh stream of papers in your RSS reader.

I’m also working on another site (almost identical in design to TypeNuts) for showcasing Type-related posters, with links (if available) to where they can be purchased. No launch date on that one, but coming soon. If you’d like to get involved in gathering resources for that site, then mail me at johno@ilovetypography.com, please.

Thanks to everyone for reading and contributing to iLT in 2008. Do you have a favourite post from 2008? I’ll do more than my best to step things up, and bring you better content, and more of it. Hope you all have an inspiring, productive and, above all else, a happy 2009.

Quality Free Font

A very brief post about a typeface from a type designer I’m particularly fond of. FF Reminga from Xavier Dupré is a great little text face with a sumptuous calligraphic italic. FontFont is offering the Bold Italic completely free of charge for a limited time. So, be sure to take it for a spin. And, be sure to check out some of Xavier’s other types.

Download Reminga Bold Italic. Be sure to let me know if you use it. Would love to see.

Thanks to Ivo for the heads up!

The Best of Type

This year has been a great year for type, with many new releases. Some of them are exceptional. Following is a list of my personal favourites of the past year. This is by no means an exhaustive list; there are, in fact, many others deserving of accolades.

Compendium

Difficult to imagine a best-of list with no showing from Ale Paul. This one is no exception. Ale released several great faces in 2008, but my favourite has to be Compendium. A fluid, beautifully crafted script, made all the more wonderful with a large helping of OpenType wizardry:

I wonder what Ale Paul has in store for 2009. I’ll be sure keep you up to date.

Newzald

by Kris Sowersby, a TDC winner for his sans National, his serif Newzald is already one of my favourite serifs. Has everything you could ever want from a text face. I’m still waiting for it to be taken up by a newspaper.

Marat

A TDC 2008 winner, and one of my all-time favourite a’s from Ludwig Übele:

MEgalopolis Extra

from the very talented Frenchman, Jack Usine. And it’s free:

Skolar

Although it hasn’t been released yet, David Březina’s text face Skolar is already looking pretty exceptional.

Skolar is slated for release in 2009 (probably March/April) through Type Together as a family of six weights (regular, semibold, bold, and their respective italics); and will support most of the Euro-American languages, and come replete with numerous typographhic niceties (five numeral sets, ligatures, superiors, inferiors, fractions, arrows, …). A working beta version — minus semibold and bold italics — will be available by the end of January. Contact Type Together for further information.

Museo

The hugely successful Museo, from Jos Buivenga. Available in 5 weights, three of which are free:

Blaktur

Ken Barber’s simple yet in your face letterforms, wrapped up in some really smart OpenType features. If you’re looking for a ‘blackletter’ display face that won’t be lost in the crowd, then look no further:

Facebuster

A very bold slab serif with minuscule slit counters — from Silas Dilworth:

Tomate

Voluptuous, fun, and very sexy — from Ramiro Espinoza:

Soho

from Seb Lester, very talented illustrator and type designer who is finally starting to get some of the recognition he deserves. Both Soho and Soho Gothic are exceptional typefaces. Be sure to take a look at the Soho PDF specimen.

FF Utility

Lukas Schneider’s sans, FF Utility is one of the best you’re likely to see. A sans with real warmth and personality. I love it:

I’d love to know your favourites of 2008. Please share them in the comments below.

I’d also like to wish you all a great Christmas, and I hope that 2009 will be the best year ever.

Up next …

A review of the font manager app, FontCase.

Come on Marlene

Fast closing in on 2009. I can’t believe it. What happened to 2008? The very lucky winner of the Seb Lester poster is mentioned toward the end of this post. Thanks to everyone who entered. This week’s the week in type is a big one, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably. Enjoy.

A beautiful new letterpress poster from Cameron Moll. I’ve ordered one:

There are two options, signed and unsigned. Can’t wait to receive mine. If you want one, hurry. I’m pretty sure they’ll soon be sold out soon. You can see more photos of the project over at Veer.

Some wonderful luggage labels, and some lovely custom type:

I’m a little late to the game in mentioning these but, just in case you missed them, here are Type Trumps from Face37:

Would make a fine Christmas present (that’s not a hint).

Some nice posters from the One Ton Show, held earlier this month in Shoreditch, UK:

A neater way to look at your RSS feeds. A skin of sorts for Google reader, Helvetireader:

Had meant to mention this one least week. Here is Antonio Carusone’s (AisleOne) wonderful new grids resource, the Grid System:

Big type, nice tee (not sure if it’s actually for sale):

Some nice numbers from Andrew Byrom:

New fonts

Lots of new typefaces this week. Let’s start with Zócalo Display from Font Bureau. Designed by Cyrus Highsmith:

Young Blood from Jeremy Dooley’s Insigne foundry:

PDF specimen here.

Diane Script just released by Mark Simonson, and available at Font Haus:

You can read more about the development and inspiration for this gorgeous script here.

Back in August I interviewed Nikola Djurek of Typonine, and the designer behind the lovely Amalia. He’s just released another great text face, Marlene:

Be sure to take a look at the Marlene PDF specimen.

Geogrotesque, a sans family in seven weights from Emtype:

And the exceptional looking FF Mister K, designed by Julia Sysmäläinen:

Yesterday I received my copy of the TDC’s Typography #29. The cover is brilliant and the contents more so. This is definitely my pick of the month. A must have.

Really like this cover for Acido Surtido, designed by Marian Bantjes:

MyFonts has finally redesigned its site. Still in beta, but approximately 7 million times better than the old site, which was a hideous eyesore. The new site looks much, much better, and comes with lots of new features, and is generally so much nicer to use. Congrat’s to MyFonts. Oh, and the new logo is nice too:

Typesites has a great review by Joey Pfeifer of Wilson Miner’s Joseph Müller-Brockmann-inspired new Web site:

A slightly bizarre, but nonetheless interesting ‘type’ treatment:

Thanks, Jason.

And if you think that’s strange, then how about Amitis Pahlevan’s ‘typeface’ constructed from fake eyelashes. I love it:

Some exquisite wood alphabet blocks:

Free font

Toypography from Jack Usine is really fun. Architectural shadows and shapes as type:

Events

I there’s one event I’d just love to go to, it’s the Typophile Film Fest. Entries for Film Fest 5 are open until Friday, March 13, 2009.

For more details, see Typophile.

Type links

Eco fonts save your ink
Importing text — Ilene Strizver
Typography inspiration showcase — thanks, Peter
MA/PgDip Typography at Salford Uni — thanks, Vlad
Paper-cut illustrations by Yulia Brodskaya
Houston Chronicle redesign
Typographic Gifts for Designers, Part 14

Video

Psycho Typo Graph:
 Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks, Yuki.

A wonderful introductionn to Arabic typography. Audio and slides, narrated by Titus Nemeth, a former Reading student:
 Click here to view the embedded video.

Many more hosted on River Valley TV. Definitely worth clicking through to.

Some great spreads from SEED magazine:

Fantastic Flickr set from Berlin Type:

Note how the umlaut sits inside the ‘o’ in the word “Böttger”.

FontShuffle is a free iPhone app from FontShop. Personally, I can’t understand the point, but perhaps I’m being a little harsh. Others have said they find it very useful. Feedback, please.

However, I do think there’s a lot of potential for this kind of app. Just needs a little more work, and a larger library of type.

Nice and simple cover for Mark Boulton’s upcoming title, A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web (detail shown):

And nice to see Joshua Darden’s Jubilat on the cover. Love it. You can even download a free sample chapter.

Like these numbered stools over at Design Sponge:

Though not sure where they come from.

This week’s type is …

Mason from the immensely talented Jonathan Barnbrook.

As used rather nicely here:

News

Some great news on the plugin front. Hamish, author of the typogrify plugin for WordPress and Jeff King of the recent WP-hyphenate plugin have decided to collaborate on a single plugin that does it all. Can’t wait to see that.

And the winner is …

Almost 150 entries to the Seb Lester competition. Of those I received about 30 correct entries. The question was, How many stylistic sets are there in the OpenType version of Soho Gothic? Many answered the number of weights and/or styles, but there are, in fact, 5 stylistic sets:

Stylistic Set 1: Semi-slab letterforms in upper- and lowercase
Stylistic Set 2: Simplified forms for lowercase a, u & y
Stylistic Set 3: Simplified forms for lowercase u & y only
Stylistic Set 4: Semi-slab letterforms in the lowercase only
Stylistic Set 5: Semi-slab letterforms in the lowercase i & l only

The answer can be found in the Soho Gothic PDF specimen.
The randomly selected winner from the pool of correct entries is Florian Hardwig. Congratulations, Florian.

A couple of new desktop wallpapers.

More iLT desktop wallpapers here. There are also some great iPhone wallpapers over at Poolga:

I’ve added a small new feature to the comments. If you register with iLT, and complete the extra fields, then other readers can visit your Flickr [FL], Twitter [TW], and FaceBook [FB] pages. It’s also pretty useful for me in getting to know you better.

You can signup here if you want.

Hope that’s enough to keep you going. Enjoy the rest of the week; and a big thank you to those who regularly send in links of interest. Keep them coming.

Call for Submissions

For over 60 years the Type Directors Club has been the leading international organisation whose sole purpose is to support and promote excellence in typography wherever it’s found. The club was founded in 1946 by some of graphic design’s legendary pioneers, the TDC’s earliest membership included Aaron Burns, Freeman Craw, Louis Dorfsman, Gene Federico, Edward M. Gottschall, Herb Lubalin, Bradbury Thompson, and Hermann Zapf.

With this solid historical background, the club today represents the best of today’s type design and type use.

The TDC holds 2 yearly typographic competitions (design and typeface) whose winners are reproduced in our Typography Annual, as well as offering educational courses, student scholarships, monthly Type Salons and access to a comprehensive library at its Manhattan gallery/club space.

TDC members come from very diverse backgrounds but all have one thing in common — a love of type and typography.

Call for submissions

TDC55 & TDC2 2009: this year will be TDC’s fifty-fifth open Call for Entries in its international competition which recognizes excellence in the use of typography, calligraphy, handlettering and other letterforms. Deadline is December 19, 2008. For further details see the TDC’s competition page. And here are a few winners from the TDC 54. And here for the complete list of the TDC2 2008 winners.

Who would you pick?

Coming up

Fasten your seatbelts because I have a monster the week in type posting in the next couple of days, when I’ll also announce the very lucky winner of the Seb Lester poster competition.

Mightier Than…

Type designer and typographic illustrator Seb Lester is truly passionate about letterforms. His recent limited edition posters have been a huge success. His typefaces are used by the likes of Dell, Intel, The New York Times, The Sunday Times, and GQ Magazine, to name but a few. Seb kindly took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to be interviewed by iLT.

How did you get started designing type?

I was doing a foundation course in Birmingham in the UK in 1992. I stumbled across a book, ‘The Graphic Language of Neville Brody’, in the college library. That man really has got a lot to answer for because I became obsessed with type and typography. I later studied Graphic Design at Central St Martins in London where I got some help digitising my first fonts in FontStudio from a tutor there.

My first typefaces were designs for T26 and Garage Fonts in the mid 90’s when I was still at college. I have no formal education in type design and some of my designs from that period certainly have ‘self-taught’ qualities about them.

What do you like most and least about it?

The best part is the creative process at the beginning. The excitement of developing ideas and fleshing out letterforms. It’s great fun developing the basic digital character set and developing weights. Watching the design take shape and evolve.

Generally I find the more technical aspects of type design like font naming and coding OpenType features pretty uninspiring, but its part and parcel of the process.

What are you working on now / future plans?

I have a full time job as a type designer at Monotype Imaging working on custom fonts. I’m working on two very big and exciting projects at the moment that I can’t discuss yet, but I feel privileged to be involved in both of them.

In my spare time I’ve recently done some typographic illustration for the New York Times.

I’m also developing some experimental stencil lettering styles that I’m going to be using for some forthcoming t-shirt designs. I’m working on a new industrial sans serif family which is shaping up very nicely I think. Finally, I’m thinking about two art prints that I want to release at some point next year.

How have things gone with your first set of prints?

I have to say I’ve been really amazed at the response. The first one released, ‘Mightier’, has more or less sold out now, and several of the other prints look set to do the same soon.

Thanks to anyone reading this who has bought one by the way. I greatly appreciate it.

Your favourite type designers / typefaces?

Way too many designers and too many typefaces to list. The usual suspects I suppose, but I have extremely broad taste in type. l love ornate letterforms. I love sober and functional type. I actually love a lot of crap type too. In fact I probably have the biggest collection of photos of crap type, mainly crap fried chicken shop signage, in the UK. Actually perhaps I have the only collection like this, now I think about it.

I find calligraphy very inspiring at the moment. Much of it can be rather twee but the best of it, the most innovative and virtuoso work, can be amazingly sensual and dazzling. That’s what I want to try to achieve in my ‘type art’ screen prints in the future.

Any plans to digitise some of the scripts used in your recent prints?

I’d really like to develop some of them into full alphabets as I think some could be really nice typefaces, but I really have far too much else on my plate at the moment. Maybe one day.

Anything else to add?

Just that I really feel very lucky to have found letterforms. I feel so passionate about type and lettering. There are a lot of things I want to achieve in my working life. Some brilliant opportunities are presenting themselves at the moment, fortunately. I’ll be curious to discover where my work takes me in the next few years.

Competition

Seb has kindly offered a free limited edition print of your choice, if you can answer the following question:

How many stylistic sets are there in the OpenType version of Soho Gothic?

Please send your answer to jboardley[{AT]}gmail[dot]com, and use Seb Lester as the subject line. I’ll pick one correct entry, and announce the winner next week. To see what you could win, visit seblester.co.uk.

Any more questions for Seb?

No Lemons

I was going to save these until the next the week in type, but why keep people waiting. In the world of free fonts there are numerous lemons; however, these from the FontFont library are of exceptional quality. I’m pretty sure these will only be available for a limited time, so grab them while you can.

Packed to bursting with OpenType features is FF Nuvo OT. The medium weight is free. Designed by Siegfried Rückel:

FF Chambers Sans OT. The Medium Italic is free to download. Designed by Verena Gerlach:

By all means download and use these fonts, but don’t redistribute them. They’re free to download, but they’re not freeware. Enjoy!

See you very soon for the week in type.

Deviant Typography

For a while now, I’ve been tagging type-related work on deviantArt. I thought I’d share them with you, so here’s a sampling:

Do you have a favourite?

Next up is the week in type.

Thanksgiving Type

I hope that my American readers had (or are having) a wonderful Thanksgiving. The winner of the Ugmonk t-shirt give-away is at the end of this post, in addition to a special offer for iLT readers. Lots of type goodness today, so let’s get started with …

some lovely letterpress, and a pretty web site. Wilkintie:

Birthday cakes with a typographic twist, from Suck UK:

Via deathbykerning.

Art of Music from Museum Studio:

Thanks, Blake.

A great screen-printed calendar. Unfortunately it’s sold out. However, perhaps if they receive enough requests, they’ll consider another print run:

Thanks for the heads up from inspirationbit on twitter.

Posters from Jean Widmer, via Aisle One:

Kyle Bean:

Thanks, Lauren.

Another fantastic illustration from Kevin Cornell for A List Apart:

The End, a collection of film end titles:

Some humour from Hamish:

Also available in 1920 × 1200 and 1024 × 640 for your desktop.

From TypeSites, a review of the beautiful Good:

Some great type and lettering photos from Depression Press:

Nice work from Studio Punkat:

But sadly one of the most annoyingly frustrating web sites you are ever likely to visit. Fortunately, there’s a Studio Punkat Flickr page.

A great little (out of copyright) book found on archive.org:

You can literally flip through the book on issuu.

Nice cover from Danny Goldberg:

Again, nice work, but when will designers start creating accessible sites‽ Sorry, Danny.

New fonts

New styles of Whitman & Whitman Display:

Several new types from Sudtipos:
First is Angelus

Lynda

and Paz:

A good collection (aggregation) of type-related RSS feeds from Alltop:

Type links

Helvetica and the New York City Subway
Quantum of Solace location cards [via]
“T” towel
Behind the Obama logo
sIFR revision 436 (download)
Paris Métro Style
Letter Love-Silk Batik Scarf
Font Meta Karaoke
Font of the year

An interesting experimental type from Manolo Guerrero. Optica normal:

Manolo’s site is written in Spanish, but here’s a link to an English version (via Google translate)

Ugmonk t-shirt winner

Thanks to all who took part. I will pass on your recommendations to Jeff at Ugmonk. So, the winner is Alain Boisvert who wrote that he’d like to see an ë emblazoned across an Ugmonk t-shirt. Alain, I’ll pass on your mail address to Jeff, so you should be hearing something soon.

And here’s one of the latest offerings from Ugmonk:

For iLT readers there’s a special deal: 12% discount for any Ugmonk t-shirt; just enter the code ILTGIVE at checkout. This code is good from Wednesday, November 26 through Wednesday, December 10. Happy shopping.

I’m hoping that I can spend more time on iLT in December. I have many articles to finish writing, including Part 5 of the Type History series, The coming of the sans; the lengthy Why type matters; and a list of 100 of my favourite typefaces; and lots, lots more.

And finally …

I wonder whether anyone can name the typeface used for this article’s masthead? Vague hint: it hasn’t been released yet.

Those posters from Joseph Mueller (including casanova) will arrive any day now, so I’ll be giving some of those away to previous commeters. I had something of a Spring Clean (in November), and found a number of posters that I just don’t have the wall space for. I’d love to hang on to them, but I’d rather they grace your walls, than sit in their tubes indefinitely. The first one I’m — reluctantly — giving away is Coudal’s Field Notes screen-printed poster (18″ × 24″):

Who wants it? Quick, before I change my mind :)

Hope you enjoyed this week’s the week in Type. Have a fantastic weekend!

Your Life Work Series (1947)

Just discovered this wonderful little gem from a post on TYPO-L (ATypI). It’s from a series of films produced by Holmes (Burton) Films, Inc. Enjoy!

Thus press work is particularly fitted for young men who like to work with machines…. Work conditions are generally satisfactory, as are housing, hygiene, and hours.

Fancy a change of career?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via archive.org

FontFont Catalogue Online

Just a quick one: not sure how I missed this the first time around, but the entire FontFont catalogue can be viewed online over at issuu. You can flip through the 2009 catalogue, zoom in for higher resolution, and even download it (though you’ll need to sign up).

In addition to that, this page, has a list of every single FontFont PDF specimen — brilliant! There are still some foundries that do not offer PDF specimens. I’d never, ever purchase a typeface without first seeing it — un-metaphorically — on paper.

And a pretty cool little movie for FF Trixie:

And then there’s the Trixie microsite:

Trixie isn’t new, but it’s now available in all its OpenType glory. And, if you’re not all trixied out by now, there’s a desktop wallpaper. Enjoy!

Thanks to Christoph Koeberlin for the masthead, which is set in Trixie HD OT Light.

Ramping it up

First, thanks to everyone who took part in the My favourite letters competition. Some great entries, and two great prizes for the winners. See the end of the post to discover who the lucky ones are. If you didn’t win, then rest assured there will be many more give-aways and prizes in future, so stay tuned.

Let’s start with something different, a typography-inspired WordPress theme from hellyeahdude:

And it’s free. And while we’re on WordPress, I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback about the WP-hyphenate plugin. I haven’t yet had a chance to test it, but will do. Hyphenation—depending on the measure (line length)—isn’t always the solution to ugly rags, but I’d like to hear what you think of it. You can download the WP-hyphenate plugin from King-Desk.

Like this work from ramp creative for CWS Capital Partners. Bringing the sex back into annual reports (was it ever there?):

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages—collect all the posters I’ve featured on iLT, and archive & index them. Behance has already done it, and very nicely too, with Typography served:

Some interesting type on these—of all things—poison labels:

Via.

A great little interview with František Štorm on Ralf Herrmann’s OpenType blog:

Who can name the typefaces in the illustration above?

A lovely collection of postage stamps designed by type designers:

Via Zeldman.

A great letterpress Flickr set from The arm:

They’re in NYC, so if you’re close by, why not drop in. Map here.

Really like the look of this display face, Akimoto:

Its designer, Ossi Gustafsson, tells me its release is imminent. Will let you know here.

I think I want one of these t-shirts from ugmonk:

In fact, thanks to Jeff Sheldon, the guy behind ugmonk, we have one t-shirt of your choice to give away. Just tell me which letter you’d like to see make an appearance on an ugmonk t-shirt. Rather than clutter up the comments, please send your idea to jboardley{å†)gmail(dot)com. Please put ugmonk in the subject line. I’ll announce a winner on next week’s twiT.

This wonderful design for a commenorative 5-Euro coin. Designed by Stani Michiels:

Thanks to proud Dutchman, Albert Visser for the heads up.

To see the reverse side, and for more information see Unzipped.

The Dutch government has just introduced new corporate typeface familes, Rijksoverheid Serif and Rijksoverheid Sans:

Read more about it over at Sander Baumann’s designworkplan.

An interview with Austrian artist BUSK on LetterCult:

Give-away idea

I have an idea: each month I’d like to select someone at random from those who subscribe to iLT, and give something back. The lucky winner each month will receive an Amazon voucher, a book, a font, a t-shirt, a poster, or something else. So, I’m looking for someone who can write a WordPress plugin that will add, say, a random number to the RSS feed. Each month, I select one number, and the winner gets the stash. How can I make this work. Ideas, please.

Type links

Real type on the web
2 Colors Design
New type: Late November from P22
Re-branding Polaroid
Irish Typewriter Keyboards
Font sightings—the next generation
Web fonts: the death of type foundries?

New fonts

Soft Serve from Haley Fiege and James Arboghast of Sentinel Type:

FF Mister K looks absolutely fantastic:

There’s quite a lot to be said about this great new Kafka-handwriting-inspired type, but rather than repeat it all here, simply head on over to the FontFeed for more about the incredible new type from Julia Sysmäläinen.

There’s a new addition to the Mrs Eaves family, in the form of Mrs Eaves bold italic:

A beautiful cover idea from Pentagram. Designed by Angus Hyland and Fabian Herrmann:

Love the manila bellyband! Via Ace Jet 170.

Some more yellow and black in the form of this poster from Vgrafiks Design for Amnesty International:

Events

Really wish I could have dropped in on the Letters & Ligatures exhibition held by House Industries. For coverage see nerdski’s blog.

Robert has also uploaded a bucket-full of photos from the exhibition, including several of a 6ft ampersand!

And yet more info and pic’s at House Industries. Wish they’d go on the road with this.

I featured Paul Grabowski’s stunning poster for the 54th Type Directors Show. Heather Mcleay has done something similar with Times New Roman:

iLT was featured in Creative Arts design annual #49:

I don’t have my copy yet, so thanks to Lauren for sending me a few pic’s. More on creativecurio.

And the winners are…

Some great submissions for the My favourite letters competition. Stephen Coles of FontShop chose the winner of the FontBook: Hamish’s w from Museo:

It’s one of my favourites too. Stephen had this to say about Hamish’s entry,

Love the way it plays on the trademark feature of Museo: its pipe-curve serifs.

The second winner, who gets a copy of Made with FontFont, is Anne-Sophie Fradier (mitternachts on Flickr) with the letter R from Duc de Berry:

Congratulations to Hamish and Anne-Sophie, and a huge thank you again to Stephen and FontShop for these wonderful prizes. Be sure to subscribe to FontShop’s very cool FontFeed.

Space doesn’t permit listing all the others worthy of honourable mention, but here are two:

You’ve got to love Buffet Script!
The My favourite letters pool is still open, so feel free to continue submitting your favourite letters.

I’m only about a third of the way through my list of things to post here, but it’s getting late. If I have time mid-week, then I’ll post more then. Hope you enjoyed the week in type. Have a great week!

Sexy Type

Last week I featured Seb’s Mightier poster, one of which I purchased. The print quality really is quite exceptional. I don’t even have mine framed, yet I’m itching to buy another. Here are the latest from Seb Lester:

The beautifully ironic Keep it simple:

Some very Sexy type:

And last, but not least, Indelicate:

Not sure which one I’ll buy next. Do you have a favourite?

This is not a poster, but one of Seb Lester’s experiments in 3D type. I like it:

Other news

For more print loveliness, be sure to check out FontShop’s latest edition of the FontBooklet:

Oh, and did I mention, it’s free. See the FontFeed for details.

Minister for Typography

Welcome to The week in type*, the new name for Sunday Type. I know many of you have gotten used to the name, but for those new to the site, the former nomenclature could be a tad confusing. Thanks to the more than 100 of you who commented on the previous post, and for your votes on the Wordpress showcase. Makes me all the more determined to really step things up. The book winners are at the end of this post. Let’s begin with some love,

from Joseph Mueller. I may have one of these to give away. Anyone interested?

New fonts

Neil Summerour has been pretty busy with the recent release of his latest sans, Akagi:

Available in twenty weights. It’s also Neil’s birthday today, though his age is a closely guarded secret.

And a lovely custom sans typeface from Kris Sowersby for the Bank of New Zealand. Serrano:

You might also be interested in this lengthy Serrano Typophile thread.

Though you’ll have to wait until October 2013 to license it for yourself.

Free fonts

A few weeks ago I mentioned SMeltery’s free font Geronto Bis. Well, Jack Usine (aka Jules the Vernacular) has updated his 2004 release Megalopolis. Now in OpenType, and with exteneded language support, download the freeware font Megalopolis Extra:

As always, remember to read the license before downloading. Also used to set today’s masthead.
Via Le typographe.

We’ve had Helvetica the documentary; now, from kartemquin films we have TypeFace, the movie:

For info about screenings see the Kartemquin web site. Thanks to Peter van Impelen for the link.

Lots of inspiration to be found in this type sketchbook Flickr pool:

For those of you who like type with an added dimension—the third—you might enjoy this list:

A brief, though excellent little article, Making geometric type work:

Attempting to apply exactly the same set of rules to each letter is similar to handing out the same size clothes to a random selection of adults. Some will have excess baggy sleeves, others will be skin tight, and some will barely squeeze over their heads.

Via Dan Reynolds’ typeoff.

A collection of ornamental type & lettering:

Lots more on the BiblioOdyssey web site. Thanks Jeffrey.

Those who read Portuguese might like Anatomia tipográfica:

And don’t forget there are already six iLT articles in Portuguese too.

Posters

I may have some Jawa and Midwich to give away, so keep your eyes peeled.

A type a day, for 365 days, from this calendar:

See typografie.de (German only) for more information.

For fans of type and Hitchcock, here’s a new t-shirt from Pampling:

Thanks, Yuki.

The rather clever Decode clock from Arthur Yung and Clement Cheung:

Thanks, Anton.

Print

Some good news about Slanted:

I loved the magazine, but hated the printing. Well, now Slanted is printed in offset, to match the quality of its content. Issue 6 is now out. In future, Slanted will be published quarterly. There’s more information about subscriptions here.

Please, Slanted, have an optional English-language order/subscriptions page! Anyway, Slanted is great. Buy it!

Letterpress

Typoretum has just launched its letterpress Christmas cards:

Clever little star thing from the letter overlaps. Hurry while stocks last:

Roundup links

Display Type & the Raster Wars—Jon Tan
Typography Kicks Ass
WDE2009 dream speakers
Type Battle 28—Defiant alphabet
Whose Garamond is it anyway?
Android supports the @font-face
Hermann Zapf turns 90 today
Type trends—Sean Ashcroft
Discount on Spanish Bringhurst
Typography as the only design element
Pop!Tech poster from Bantjes
TypeLadies.org
Obama big news in the NY Times
Image caption design—Smashing Magazine

An interesting piece from John D. Berry who suggests a new position in Obama’s government, Minister of Typography.
It brought to mind (though not completely related—that’s just how my mind works, I guess) Robert Kinross’ words in Unjusttifid texts,

Could tyography be a topic of regular and intelligent discussion in newspapers. If music, architecture, cookery and gardening have critics and columnists, then why not typography? **

Apologies for the hurried (dreadful) PhotoShop job. Send me a better one, if you can. Who would you vote for?

And the winners are …

In the previous post I offered two giveaways. The winners, chosen at random are Carolyn, who gets a copy of Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, and Torbjørn Vik Lunde who’ll get a copy of James Felici’s The Complete Manual of Typography. Thanks to everyone who left comments on the post. Wonderful to read your kind words. I’ll do my best to offer many more prizes and give-aways in future. In fact, I have some posters on the way. As soon as they arrive, I’ll be itching to give them away to iLT readers.

And finally …

Don’t forget the My favourite letters competition. You have until November 13. Two winners receive a copy of the type compendium FontBook, and Made with FontFont, courtesy of FontShop.

I’m really very, very far behind on replying to emails. If you have emailed me, then don’t take my silence as a snub/unrequited love. I’ll do my best to respond to everyone, but sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Hope you enjoyed today’s post. I have another interview coming up, a post of some of my favourite typefaces, and an in-depth look at diacritics, plus lots, lots more.

Have a magnificent week.

* Thanks to Stephen who suggested “the week in type”.

** Unjustified texts—perspectives on typography, p.358, making reference to Erik Spiekermann’s Rhyme & reason (sadly out of print).

Red or Blue?

Good luck to US voters. You might also want to vote for iLT:

Oh, and as I’m in a particularly good mood, and I’d like to say thank you for your support of iLT, there’s a copy of Felici’s The Complete Manual of Typography, and a copy of Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style up for grabs.* Just tell me—well everyone—why you would vote for iLT. I’ll pick the winner from the comments before the next post.

See you all for the next post, and some more inspiring type.

* Two winners; one book per winner. If you already have the book, then choose another of approx equal value.

Thanks to Douglas for nominating iLT.
See also the FontFeed’s gentle reminder.

Click here for info about sponsoring iLT’s RSS feed.

The Competition

As a way of reducing the length of Sunday Type, I’ve decided to move the general links—bits and pieces—to a separate page. I don’t think I’ll show these posts on the home page, but by slicing Sunday Type in two (from time to time), I hope that it will be a little easier to digest. I’m also looking at ways to better tag the content within Sunday Type; so that, for example, if you just want to see typographic posters, then a little WP wizardry will dig out and display only poster-related content from all the Sunday Type posts, and serve them up as a single custom post. Not sure that that will make any sense. Anyway, here we go (competition details at the end!):

These are the links for Sunday Type: tomate type:

Notes on the Frankfurt book fair—the FontFeed:


Join H&FJ on FaceBook:

typographer.org on CrapFont [ed. typo!] FlipFont

Type Camp Galiano 2008 photos

Tokyo Design Week (Oct 30–Nov 3)

Handmade Font

Emigre free book offer (via)

Alternatives to your favourite sans serifs

A map of ‘Pompey’

Erik Nitsche Flickr

More type cushions:

Vintage and Retro Typography Showcase

Carolyn Fraser’s letterpress workshop

Tugboat press [blog | etsy | flickr]

Alphabet travelling exhibition (via)

Type sketches from Paul D. Hunt [blog | flickr | typophile]

Green Chair press

The competition

Thanks to the generosity of the folk at FontShop I have two wonderful competition prizes. But before I tell you about them, here’s what you need to do to be in with a chance of winning them:

Simply submit your favourite letter(s) to the My Favourite Letters Flickr pool. Multiple submissions welcomed. Existing entries will be included.

The first-place winning entry will receive a copy of the FontBook; the second-place winning entry gets a copy of Made with FontFont. They’re both fantastic books that will make you happier, more successful, and the envy of all your friends, work colleagues, and perhaps even your neighbours.

The first-place winning entry will also be screen-printed by my own hands in a limted edition of 50 signed by me (that adds about three cents to the value).

I’ll choose and announce the winners (or perhaps ask Stephen Coles of FontShop / FontFeed / Typographica / Typophile to choose one) on November 13. If I can get more prizes, then I’ll make this a regular feature. Visit the My Favourite Letters pool on Flickr to get started.

Related:
FontBook—the movie
FontBook at FontShop with some PDF sample pages
Made with FontFont on FontShop—also with PDF sample pages
Sunday Type: tomate type

Thanks also to Vivien over at inspirationbit for the competition theme idea.

Click here for info about sponsoring iLT’s RSS feed.

No Underwear Mon Amour

If you missed the interview with Ludwig Übele, then be sure to check it out. For excerpts of all the interviews on iLT, then simply click right … here. Until I can wrap my work schedule around iLT, then Sunday Type will still be published once weekly, but that could be any day. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I actually posted Sunday Type on a Sunday. Well, that’s quite enough preamble; on with the show.

First up is something new from one of my favourite young designers, Gemma O’Brien:

Quote of the week

Short explanation: Because wearing no underwear is preferable to wearing it on the outside, over the trousers.

And that in an article on the current state of diacritics in Romanian.

New type, fresh fonts

Lots of new releases this week, but my pick is Tomate, a gorgeously voluptuous brush script from ReType in the Netherlands.

Designed by Ramiro Espinoza; aimed at packaging. I’d start eating breakfast cereal if it came adorned with Tomate. Also used for today’s masthead, of course.

Web Fonts

Don’t quite understand what’s going on with web fonts and font-face, and wondering what WEFT and EOT is. Then read for and against standardizing font embedding.

via Jon Tan.

Another type in motion video:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Thanks, Miguel.

2009 is fast approaching (can’t believe it), and the FieldNotes calendars are now in stock. They’re much sought-after, so hurry while stocks last

Fraktur mon Amour

I mentioned the first edition of Fraktur Mon Amour by Judith Schalansky a little while back. Owing to demand, Princeton Architectural Press (a publisher of some mighty fine titles), has produced an expanded second edition. I received mine in the post this morning. I’ve never been a huge fan of Fraktur / Blackletter, but after a few minutes swimming through the delights of this gorgeous book, you might say I’m a new convert.

Something that occurred to me while flipping through its pages was the potential for these types to be used in design—not necessarily as text—but as ornamentation, for patterns. So taking the cap R from Manfred Klein’s Ornamental Initials (page 434–5), duplicating and rotating, we can easily create some rather lovely patterns. Mine was assembled in something of a hurry, but I’m sure you get the idea—and see the potential:

Fraktur Mon Amour comes with a CD of 137 fonts. This is definitely my book recommendation of the month.

Some incredible light-type images from Julien Breton. Beautifully controlled:

In addition to work on his web site Kaalam, Julien has a wonderful Flickr set.
Thanks to David Březina for the link.

The my favouroite Letters flickr pool now has more than 200 members, and over one-hundred submissions. Be sure to share your favourite letters. Perhaps there’s a smart coder out there who could turn these submissions into words? This is sitting on my desktop right now:

Designed by Hamish (same guy who created the WordPress typogrify plugin). You can download and use as your desktop wallpaper!

And while on the subject of Jos Buivenga’s Museo, here’s a moving type that makes good use of Museo’s bendy serifs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember that three weights of Museo are free.

We hear a lot about Penguin book covers, but Faber & Faber has some wonderful covers too:

Check out the Faber Flickr page.

Like this poster from Béla Frank, aka Fabergraph, the minimalist:

Type Republic has launched a gorgeous new web site to compliment their fine types:

And get ready for the titling version of Carmen, Carmen Fiesta—coming soon!

Looking for a fresh new Baskerville? look no further than StormType’s Baskerville 10 Pro:

More posters

There have been some great Obama posters. Here are a couple of my favourites:

and from Jonathan Hoefler:

You can read more on the FontFeed’s Artists for Obama.

Win a book!

FontShop has generously donated not only a copy of Made with FontFont, but a copy of the type book, FontBook.

I’m not one to exaggerate, but you could well think of your life in terms of BFB (Before FontBook) and AFB (After FontBook). Once you get your sticky mitts on a copy, you won’t want to let go. I even have friends, with zero interest in type, who still spend ages leafing through it, the silence punctuated with the likes of “ooh, I like that one!”. I’ll stop rambling now, but you can read my review of Made with FontFont for more on that title.

I will post the competition details in the next post (the links one; explanation below). So, I need creative competition ideas. I was thinking of a poster of some kind (need a theme), that could later be screen-printed. Ideas in the comments below, please.

When I feel that Sunday Type is a little too big to publish as a single article, I’ll be splitting it in two. The Sunday Links part will have its own page. I’ll publish that one tomorrow (it will appear in your feed reader, but not on the home page). Let me know what you think of this idea.

Have a great week (what’s left of it).

Click here for info about sponsoring iLT’s RSS feed.

by Rouslan Valiulin

After studying graphic design in Germany and Finland, Ludwig Übele worked for a number of years in the industry until he decided to concentrate on type design, and set off for the Netherlands. Since graduating from KABK’s TypeMedia course in 2007, Ludwig works freelance as a professional type designer—designing type for both text and display—and works on brand development.

What did you do before The Hague? What’s your background?

Originally I studied graphic design in Germany. Already my main focus was on type related courses. I had very good teachers in typography and calligraphy, who inspired me to go further with type. After I graduated from graphic design, I worked for several years in that field. It was a good experience, but in the long run not really satisfying. Whenever I had a job which was related to type design I was much more enthusiastic. This was the time when I decided to do the Type and Media course in The Hague, to find out if I could concentrate on the design of typefaces. 

Why and how did you get started in type design?

I did my first type designs while studying graphic design. But I owe my introduction to type design to Hubert Jocham, who is an excellent type designer and friend of mine since I was fourteen. We are from the same hometown and I often visited him in his studio where he would always show me his new type designs. I think I was fascinated that someone actually makes something as basic as type. An instrument which everybody uses every day and yet nobody recognizes. And it’s that that still fascinates me. Type is a highly fundamental element of our culture. I find it extremely interesting to design a typeface that creates its very own impression or pattern on text.

Augustin is one of my earliest typefaces. The letterforms are based on classic proportions. I looked a lot at early types of the Italian Renaissance.

You’ve already designed several typefaces. Can you describe the process? Do you start from a specific letter? And how long does it take to create a typeface?

I try to start with a general idea, such as a certain ductus of the stroke or a certain kind of construction. Very often I just sketch all over the place, and when I see an interesting element, I try to apply it to the whole alphabet to figure out if it is strong enough to serve as a general theme. I don’t have a specific letter I start with. It’s not very useful to start with a single letter. It’s better to start immediately with a whole word. It gives you more freedom and prevents you from working too detailed too early on.

How long it takes depends very much on the kind of typeface you are working on. A headline font can be done in a single weekend; a text face with several weights and styles can take a whole year. 

What do you like most and least about designing type? How do you usually start designing a typeface?

The nicest part is to start: sketching randomly, finding an idea and a general construction or characteristic; drawing the first letters and making the first words. As I said before I don’t have a specific letter which I usually start with, but there are some key glyphs which show the basic forms: n, b, o, v for instance for lowercase, A, H, O for uppercase.

I try in the begining not to concentrate too much on single letters but work on the whole alphabet and balance the single letters in relation to each other. That way I can set text very early on, and see how the typeface looks in small printed text—that’s usually very different from what you see on screen. Once the basic letters are done, then the real work starts. Never-ending corrections on details, and expanding the character set. This can be painful when the family is extensive and contains endless number of characters and styles. It is very tempting to add lots of characters and features to the first font, but exhausting to implement it through the rest of the family. 

Your typeface Marat has received the Certificate of Excellence in Type Design. How was it started and what inspired you?

I started Marat at my Type and Media postgraduate course at the KABK in The Hague 2006/2007. My concept was very simple. I wanted to design a nice and useable typeface. Not necessarily for books but for magazines, brochures or for corporate use. In contrast to books, magazines have more varied content (from straight, linear text to very fragmented information), with different weights, styles and sizes all appearing on the same page. Marat should meet these (conflicting) requirements: open and legible for small text, compact for tight headlines and narrow columns. Another inspiration was an experiment with Erik van Blokland’s Superpolator. I moved a so-called ink trap gradually from left to right and from top to bottom.

I based the construction of Marat on one of the interpolation results.

Do you visit type-related sites and communities like Typophile.com? If so, do you find them useful? Do you communicate with people in the industry?

Yes, there are some type blogs which I visit regularly. And I find it absolutely helpful in keeping me up-to-date, and for finding solutions to specific technical or linguistic problems, or for historical research. Work in progress I usually discuss with type-designer friends.

Who is your favorite contemporary type designer and typeface?

I don’t have one favorite, neither a designer nor a typeface. But there are some which I admire. Matthew Carter for instance or Gerard Unger. Bram de Does’ Trinité and Lexicon are two of the nicest typefaces ever made. I like the work of Roger Excoffon (although he is not contemporary). František Štorm does amazing stuff. I also like the types of Alejandro Lo Celso (Pampatype). The sans serifs of Georg Salden* are excellent (Polo, Planet, Axiom).

Is it possible to become a professional type designer without a KABK or Reading background?

Many people who are now professional type designers didn’t study at KABK or Reading and many who studied there don’t do type design anymore. But since designing typefaces is a very complex undertaking, it is of course a great chance to spend time exclusively and very intensely on this subject and meet and discuss with many of the best type designers around. I only can recommend these type courses. For me it was essential in making the move to professional type design.

What are your favorite books on type design?

Honestly, I’ve hardly ever seen good books on type design. Most books teach the basics, but remain on the surface and don’t have their own view on type design. I like Gerard Unger’