As the ATypI 08 conference draws to an end today, we can all start thinking about if we can attend the 2009 and 2010 events. Next year, the ATypI caravan of typography gypsies travels to Mexico City, and in 2010, it arrives at Dublin, Ireland. Mexico City may be a bit hot for the likes of me, and I am not sure I want to be responsible for that level of CO2 emissions, but Dublin, now that is a fine city to visit. Start saving for those air and ferry fares, hotel/hostel rooms and conference fees, I know I will be.
TypeTrust has released Facebuster, a positively obese slabby little number from Silas Dilworth. Six dollars off currently too, if that makes a difference to you. TypeTrust have an interesting range of releases, some of which I quite like, others I can't claim to care for, but overall you should go look.
Dear reader, this is exactly why punctuation is so very important.
It really is, you know.
Oiy vey, FontFeed has already started on semantics already. That’s actually probably a good sign. Today: Is it a font or a typeface? I’m with Mr Coles, who uses a perfectly succinct analogy to do with music. I love how many music related analogies circle the type world, waiting to swoop in and win the argument at a moment’s notice. I won’t steal the punchline though, so go read.
The University of Reading has released a lovely specimen showing the final works from this year’s students on their world-renowned MA in Typeface Design course. My personal favourite is Ingeborg by Michael Hochleitner, but then I’m a sucker for a pretty Didone, and this family even has a unicase version. Interesting!
Very very warm congratulations to Yves, Stewf and Jürgen Siebert, who today banded together to relaunch the FontFeed as a stand-alone blog of note. Mr Spiekermann has chosen well, but would you have expected any less? Quick, everyone visit it right now, see if we can crash the server! Kidding!
You know how it is. Back in 67, you went to Las Vegas with your childhood sweetheart to get married, oh the neon, the neon, where has it all gone? Quite possibly replaced by a giant pyramid, lasers, disturbing amounts of water and a carbon footprint that would intimidate an Exxon executive (well, maybe not). Now, it lives here.
Seriously though, would you trust a man who hires people who cannot even set a gargantuan sign correctly?
Gee look ma, Meta Serif went and got itself a website.
Spiro is a spiral-based curve toolkit focussed on type design, and created by Raph Levien. Inkscape, an open-source SVG-based illustration package, of which I am something of a fan, has incorporated Spiro in the most recent release, 0.47. This is pretty exciting, but rather than bore you with details as to why, just check out this video. You will see what I mean.
Over at the Ministry of Type, Aegir has written a rather interesting examination of the Faber Finds service. Seems pretty spot on to me.
Off to ATypI this September? Are you insane? It’s in Russia for Christ’s sakes, they’re basically all Slavic mafiosos. Well, don’t blame me if you come back missing a wallet and two fingers. While you are there, don’t forget to pop along to the Typophile Film Fest, which promises lots of fun, and a bit more marketing for that bloody Helvetica film, if you aren’t totally bored out of your skull by it by now. Screening from 5.20pm till 6.20pm on Friday, 19th September.
Speak Up has a great piece on digital printing, with a handy test for your own suppliers. A product of a student workshop that might well come in handy for any of us who are pondering digital when deadlines insist.
Rian Hughes, the only type designer who can wear wallpaper successfully, is featured in Design, Tea and Biscuits, 26 minutes of fun from ADC courtesy of Veer. Rian is his usual charming self, thought the piece is very heavily edited and overlaid with apparently funky music to make his presentation slicker in a slightly cloying American manner. This seems a shame, and I found the constant compression of his flow distracting. I heard Rian speak at St Bride earlier this year, and was lucky enough to interview him a few years ago, and the contrast between his edited and unedited self is stark. To be honest, I would rather listen to his natural rhythm. However, that said, go watch.
Do you pine, day and night, for another typewriter typeface? Never tire of seeing a crushed m or artificially wide i? Longing for the days of Nixon, or Heath? Then joy of joys, Lineto has a new release that will make you happier than a pig in poo. A revival of the short-lived Candia (a single weight originally designed by Joseph Müller-Brockmann for Olivetti), Lettera is a family of four, out now, courtesy of Kobi Benezri.
You know how it is; you are watching Wales beat England in the 6 Nations, and you see those banal corporate sponsor adverts on the pitch, painted with freaky perspective just so that they appear to defy logic and seem normal when the half way line camera is pointing in their direction. Except they never do, and you want to go sort it out for them. Oh, that is just me? Anyhow, someone went and did something interesting with that whole concept and signage. In a car park. And it is cool.
July saw the first simultaneous release of a digital and metal typeface, with the unveiling of Stern, a typeface designed by Jim Rimmer and released by P22. This first, quite possibly the last, such event of its kind, as letterpress continues its sad decline. And it is sad, not from some overly sentimental romantic view of the technology, or some Luddite anti-progress manifesto, but rather for the fear of the passing of a form of typographic aesthetic and level of consideration.
The first book I read on typography was a facsimile of the original letterpress edition of An Essay on Typography, by Eric Gill. As a teenager I thought it strange that someone would decide to reproduce a book in such a manner, but put it down at the time to wanting to reproduce the illustration more accurately. Of course hindsight tells me that it was rather to do with trying to reproduce the whole aesthetic of the book intact. Yes, the publisher could have easily typeset it again, in all the accuracy of modern type, but the end result would lose something that belongs to the realm of the physical, not the digital.* That aesthetic you get from when a piece of inked metal is pushed into paper, rather than a thin film of ink being gently laid across it.
A simultaneous release such as this is important, as it lets us acquaint ourselves immediately with the fundamental differences between the two technologies. We can look at previous metal faces and compare their digital equivalents, but often those latter editions are not created by the original designer. Even when they are, so much time between the editions has passed as to significantly influence the translation, whether it be through changes in fashion or convention, or the product of hindsight. What this simultaneous release gives us is an immediacy and authenticity to the translations across the media. It says, "This is me, this is your decision. See the differences, and decide which is right for you."
I, like others, received the specimen. It was produced in both litho and letterpress, naturally. As you might expect, the letterpress edition was ever so slightly heavier, the way the type appeared on the paper less perfect, changing ever so slightly, being more three dimensional and interacting with the paper. The digital edition, blunt in its perfect sharpness – beautiful yes, but for slightly different reasons.
I’ve heard people say that letterpress gives warmth, but I prefer to think of it as giving humanity. That the type’s interaction on a page is so dependent on the punch cutter, the caster, the compositor, the printer, the humidity, the papermaker and inkmaker gives it a humanity, not a warmth. Each adds their time, consideration, experience and craft to the process, dealing with tools that are intricately linked to their physical beings, influenced as they are by their physical and emotional environment. Differences emerge, but that difference need not be seen as divergent from the ideal, but more of an opportunity to add experience, solve problems, and show consideration. We are imperfect beings, and while it is laudable to strive for perfection, it is wise to realise that attaining it is not necessarily prudent, because in doing so we lose something fundamental to who we are, and what we wanted all along.
Letterpress isn’t coming back to replace litho, and neither should it, but the lesson of Stern loud and clear is that it has a place and should not be allowed to die. The quality of offset lithography and the customisation and accessibility of digital presses have their place, but it is not as king and queen of printing to the exclusion of all others. I do not believe, however, that letterpress should remain the sole preserve of boutique printing. Books that are to remain in your collection for years deserve the careful considered humanity of the letterpress process and faces such as Stern, and I am sure that the poems that will benefit from this face for which they were designed will be served in exemplary fashion. But letterpress has other uses, should you, my fellow designers, choose to use it. Alan Kitching’s poster work springs to mind as a perhaps obvious example. So too does low run business cards (and be honest, most of them are). You would be remiss as a designer to not consider all reasonable options, but the sign of a good designer is the ability to assess that word reasonable, and remember it does not always just mean easy. And as for cost, how much do you charge per hour? And how much did that laminate cost? Or the hexachrome printing? Come to think of it, how may of those cards from the last run went to waste?
Go forth, consider pressing ink into paper. Consider it not from dogma, but from what might just be worth the candle.
The first book I read on typography was a facsimile of the original letterpress edition of An Essay on Typography, by Eric Gill. As a teenager I thought it strange that someone would decide to reproduce a book in such a manner, but put it down at the time to wanting to reproduce the illustration more accurately. Of course hindsight tells me that it was rather to do with trying to reproduce the whole aesthetic of the book intact. Yes, the publisher could have easily typeset it again, in all the accuracy of modern type, but the end result would lose something that belongs to the realm of the physical, not the digital.* That aesthetic you get from when a piece of inked metal is pushed into paper, rather than a thin film of ink being gently laid across it.
A simultaneous release such as this is important, as it lets us acquaint ourselves immediately with the fundamental differences between the two technologies. We can look at previous metal faces and compare their digital equivalents, but often those latter editions are not created by the original designer. Even when they are, so much time between the editions has passed as to significantly influence the translation, whether it be through changes in fashion or convention, or the product of hindsight. What this simultaneous release gives us is an immediacy and authenticity to the translations across the media. It says, "This is me, this is your decision. See the differences, and decide which is right for you."
I, like others, received the specimen. It was produced in both litho and letterpress, naturally. As you might expect, the letterpress edition was ever so slightly heavier, the way the type appeared on the paper less perfect, changing ever so slightly, being more three dimensional and interacting with the paper. The digital edition, blunt in its perfect sharpness – beautiful yes, but for slightly different reasons.
I’ve heard people say that letterpress gives warmth, but I prefer to think of it as giving humanity. That the type’s interaction on a page is so dependent on the punch cutter, the caster, the compositor, the printer, the humidity, the papermaker and inkmaker gives it a humanity, not a warmth. Each adds their time, consideration, experience and craft to the process, dealing with tools that are intricately linked to their physical beings, influenced as they are by their physical and emotional environment. Differences emerge, but that difference need not be seen as divergent from the ideal, but more of an opportunity to add experience, solve problems, and show consideration. We are imperfect beings, and while it is laudable to strive for perfection, it is wise to realise that attaining it is not necessarily prudent, because in doing so we lose something fundamental to who we are, and what we wanted all along.
Letterpress isn’t coming back to replace litho, and neither should it, but the lesson of Stern loud and clear is that it has a place and should not be allowed to die. The quality of offset lithography and the customisation and accessibility of digital presses have their place, but it is not as king and queen of printing to the exclusion of all others. I do not believe, however, that letterpress should remain the sole preserve of boutique printing. Books that are to remain in your collection for years deserve the careful considered humanity of the letterpress process and faces such as Stern, and I am sure that the poems that will benefit from this face for which they were designed will be served in exemplary fashion. But letterpress has other uses, should you, my fellow designers, choose to use it. Alan Kitching’s poster work springs to mind as a perhaps obvious example. So too does low run business cards (and be honest, most of them are). You would be remiss as a designer to not consider all reasonable options, but the sign of a good designer is the ability to assess that word reasonable, and remember it does not always just mean easy. And as for cost, how much do you charge per hour? And how much did that laminate cost? Or the hexachrome printing? Come to think of it, how may of those cards from the last run went to waste?
Go forth, consider pressing ink into paper. Consider it not from dogma, but from what might just be worth the candle.
Mr Hoefler reports on the typographic fall-out from those carbon-based fuel hikes, and on a fucking obscenity.
Would I fancy spending five days this August on an island in British Columbia with a load of type nerds, eating locally-produced organic food, going for walks, discussing approaches to type, having a bit of a swim and getting sloshed? Actually, yes, yes I would. And if I wasn’t so darn poor I would be, under the helpful instruction of Tiffany Wardle, Dyana Weissman and Dr Shelley Gruendler. Registration is still open (despite what the website said at time of posting this), so go look at the website. Peace.
Sometimes I simply adore being European.
Off to Buffalo in July? You need to know what is what.
My grey one has a little stain on it that no-one but me can see. The navy one is a tiny bit too small for my belly. The red one’s white type is coming off, and has a million tiny holes in it, one for each time it’s been washed. Won’t you design me a new Typophile Tee?
Yes, it’s time for another installment of A Brief History of Type over at iLT. This, the fifth edition, looks at the Slab Serif. Next up, the Sans Serif. Stop reading this and go read that.
Ralf Herman’s assessment of the typography features in the new Firefox 3 is much like the Curate’s egg - good in parts. The comparisons are based on the Mac platform in this instance, please note. I’m always surprised at how Safari hasn’t developed its handling of type as much as I’d have hoped for, and I’d be interested to see how it and Firefox, on both platforms, fares against Microsoft’s eponymous offering.
