according to tight-lipped north korean, gaejung juk, his solid gold tombstone made of hungry korean bones will be inscribed with 'i told y'all i was ILL!!!' but in Korean/span>
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Typography
Vintage ornaments in postscript format from Briar Press.
Jason Santa Maria visited M&H Type, the oldest letterpress type foundry in the US. He brought his camera. jc-12.17.11
The mountain of entertainment gets a new 100th birthday logo. Sweet. Via Christian Annyas. jc-12.15.11
Join the Sarcastic Font Movement. ms-12.15.11
An infographic history of Western Typefaces. ms-12.10.11
Retronaut highlights a slew of images of Polish Cold War era neon signs from an upcoming book by Ilona Karwinska. When modern meant sleek and typography pointed the way to the future. jc-12.08.11
"My vision might not match yours, but I hope that we can agree that a neighborhood with a logo is better than a neighborhood without." The Chicago Neighborhoods by Steve Shanabruch. Via Quipsologies. jc-12.08.11
So you know, Apostrophes Don't Swing Both Ways, by Julie Elman. jc-12.02.11
Dina Silanteva's complete report on her Typographic Music project. An ambitious undertaking that has yielded quite lovely results. "Using a basic grid and three simple geometric shapes to construct letters, certain parameters around these basic shapes (radius, saturation, color, transparency) change according to a set of rules." More information on her site. Via Typetoken. jc-12.01.11
Murder Most Typographical. Edward McKnight Kauffer's titles for Hitchcock's silent film, The Lodger, 1921. jc-11.30.11
A nice update to Quality Vintage Signs & Lettering Collections. I think I'd like to have a drink at the Royal Tavern and then maybe a bite at Rod's. jc-11.21.11
Leam to Kem. sd-11.18.11
Ladies and gentlemen, via a facebook ad that actually properly targeted my interests (I know, right?): Eric Gill on Stamps. bb-11.17.11
"Type is a design universe unto its own, an essential dimension of the history of modern art and design." In Your Face, by Paola Antonelli. jc-11.11.11
Type-O-Matic. "Your letter will be typed on a mechanical manual typewriter from the Typewriter Heaven collection. Machines are 'rotated' for variety but currently this stylish Italian Everest K2 is in service." jc-11.11.11
Calligraphische Voorbeelden, type samples for the trades, circa 1900, from Piet Schreuders. Check this. Via Letterology. jc-11.11.11
Aqua-Velvet on two inventive and conceptual Venus is such a typeface." jc-11.02.11
"My goal is to create a collection of all titles from all commercially available Warner Bros. movies. I started with five pages, covering 25 years worth of trailer typography: from 1930 to 1955, simply because it's the Golden Age of Trailer Title design." —Christian Annyas. jc-10.27.11
"This font is especially designed for people with dyslexia. When they use it, they make fewer errors whilst they are reading. It makes reading easier for them and it takes less effort. The Dyslexia font is used by several schools, universities, speech therapists and remedial teachers." dw-10.26.11
Just getting around to appreciating Christian Annhyas' latest collection, this time it's handlettered logos from defunct department stores. So cool. jc-10.26.11
"Hey girl, I didn't bring flowers but I do have these fleurons in my glyphs pallent I could set for you," and other sexy things Ryan Gosling might say if he were a typographer. jse-10.25.11
Train Set Typography by Ludvig Bruneau Rossow, in Oslo. jc-10.21.11
Don't Forget These Rules of Typography. jc-10.21.11
Dan Sheplavy posts still from Don Record's lovely title sequence for the unknown 1971 film Mrs. Polifax -Spy. jc-10.18.11
A sneak peek at what has been occupying The Ministry of Type's time. Beautiful. jc-10.18.11
How they kern the road signs, from Ben Terrett. jc-10.07.11
Go here and you probably won't surface for an hour or two. The Archives at Typographie, images by month. Splendid. Bye. jc-09.29.11
Color Order & Harmony. jc-09.29.11
Graham Smith found this sweet vintage VW logo specifications sheet and then recreated it. Now that's my idea of fun. jc-09.29.11
Index, fist or manicule? John Coulthart points to some nice vintage type specimens. jc-09.26.11
A brief history of the emoticon. dw-09.21.11
Christian Annyas collects some Chevrolet chrome lettering. jc-09.21.11
"Frustrated with the growing tendency of copywriters to combine the exclamation mark and question mark to yield a surprised or rhetorical question — 'Who would punctuate a sentence like that?!' — Speckter penned an article for Type Talks to offer a solution." Keith Houston on The Interrobang, Part 1, Part 2, Addenda. jc-09.16.11
"We commissioned ourselves to create a complete monospace typeface within 24 hours. –Hello Me. jc-09.16.11
"This is too Tom and Jerry, it needs to be more Don Draper." Nice short film on typography from PBS arts. jc-09.09.11
Local note. Wood Type, Evolved: Experimental Letterpress & Relief Printing in the 21st Century opens tonight at Columbia College. Should be great, it's curated by April Sheridan and Nick Sherman and includes the world's largest printing type. jc-09.08.11
Leeds Play Bills Collection. Lovely victorian typography. jc-09.01.11
Art for transportation enthusiasts, like SE: Trnsprtnation. Via Laughing Squid. ms-09.01.11
David Berlow's Titling Gothic is all over Central Park. jc-08.30.11
Possible relink: How to Explain Why Typography Matters mcj-08.24.11
"...the real father of the font wasn't a typographer at all, but a wooden boat designer from Boston." Katherine Eastland on the complicated history of our pal, Times New Roman. jc-08.17.11
Altering the streets of Brazil by requesting that signage Try Helvetica. sd-08.11.11
Illustrated post from The Eye on Frederic Goudy's The Alphabet: Fifteen Interpretative Designs from 1918. Sublime. jc-08.11.11
CR on Craig Oldham's Hand Written Letter Project. jc-08.10.11
Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection. Via BibliOdyssey. jc-08.10.11
An infographic guide to typography. ms-08.09.11
Original Model T's, a series of commissioned artworks to be displayed online, focusing on the logo of the NYT Style Magazine. jc-07.28.11
Typeverything. So great. jc-07.26.11
"2 Lazy 2 P" An interesting illustrated post about cattle brands from We Made This. jc-07.26.11
Maria Popova on Scripts, a new book on classic lettering by Steven Heller and Louise Fili. jc-07.18.11
Optical Illusion Alphabet. ms-07.02.11
The making of the first Coca-Cola neon sign for Piccadilly Circus, in 1954. jc-06.28.11
Buck 65 "Superstars Don't Love." Dig this by video by Travis Hopkins which features 60 fictional movie title cards. Beautifully and playfully done. Via It's Nice That. jc-06.22.11
So you know. Mid-Century Modern Typefaces Identified. A helpful reference by Mark Weaver. jc-06.20.11
"Attention Musicians: Please Stop Using a Font Called Bleeding Cowboy. There is a limit. It has been exceeded." Though, personally, I'm okay if Popa Chubby keeps using it. sd-06.19.11
Lovely typographic movie posters ms-06.13.11
Typographic lounge furniture. ms-06.06.11
"There are few pieces that represent the typographic and design spirit that illuminated that moment of history, and certainly none on a scale as ambitious." -Milton Glaser. A film about Lou Dorfsman's iconic installation for the CBS building. Check this limited-edition print too. jc-06.02.11
Hypnotic film of Frank Ortmann hand-lettering the album art for Max Goldt's L'Eglise des Crocodiles. jc-06.01.11
Con la Tipo en la Cabeza. dw-05.26.11
So you know. Dan Benjamin's top programming fonts. jc-05.25.11
In the most unlikely location lies a typographer's oasis. ms-05.24.11
"They drink hard, they work hard, they are dedicated to their craft. They're typesetters. Oh yes they are." John Hendel on the 125th anniversary of the invention of the Linotype machine. Via Quipsologies. jc-05.23.11
Traffic sign typefaces in East Germany from the mid-1970s. sd-05.18.11
Possibly related. Quad Royal on "A Spacing Oddity," lovely type spacing guidelines, perhaps for Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert's 1964 typeface for British Railways. Plus, some very cool symbols, "for tourist guides and maps." jc-05.18.11
New Rail Alphabet a beautiful revival of Margaret Calvert's original, the backbone of Britain's national signage system. jc-05.18.11
TV Typeface, a project by Jack Archer. "I built a shelving unit to house 15 small televisions; creating a dot-matrix grid where individual TV's could be turned on or off, to produce different letterforms and numbers." Via Typetoken. jc-05.18.11
Lost Type Co-op. Name your price typography. Thanks Ant. jc-05.16.11
Of particular interest to us, for obvious reasons, Galerie Anatome in Paris is mounting a new exhibition on Paul Renner's Futura. Check the gallery. Via the always observant Swiss Legacy. jc-05.12.11
Oh yeah. The Folk Typography Pool. I. II. III. Via ILT. jc-05.12.11
The Scout visits with Andy Cruz at home and at House Industries. jc-05.10.11
Radim Malinic, London designer (and Layer Tennis player) has completed a smart-looking overhaul of his portfolio site, Brand Nu. Check this and this to start. jc-05.10.11
And the winners are... Type Directors Club 2011 Awards. I love Brandon Grotesque by Hannes von Döhren which is available here. jc-05.09.11
Nick Shinn on glyph substitution. Geeky but great, Engaging Contextuality for ILT. jc-05.09.11
Three routes on Linefeed's Typosurvey of London. Via Things. jc-05.02.11
For KG and BB, the Simphabet. ms-04.30.11
"I don't think I was trying to avoid a 'calligraphic' sanserif as such; I was looking more for a 'lapidary' effect, and to the extent that these two qualities are different, the resulting design has more chisel than pen in its makeup." Matthew Carter chats with Paul Shaw about his new inscriptional typeface design. jc-04.29.11
Apropos of nothing, Llama Font. Via Swiss Miss. dw-04.26.11
I bring up The Liberated Page, edited by Herbert Spencer, 1987. A copiously illustrated review by Pierre-Yves Cachard for Designers Books. jc-04.15.11
German Warner Brothers movie poster typography, 1950s hand-letteringby Hans Otto Wendt. Via Quipsologies. jc-04.15.11
"Typeface As Program has long been sold out and will never be reprinted. Since it would be a shame to let this valuable resource disappear, we are very pleased that ÉCAL and Jürg Lehni, the author of the essays and interviews, have agreed to let us republish the texts online." Excellent. jc-04.14.11
All displayable characters in the unicode range 0 - 65536. (49571 characters). One character per frame. Via Ethan Zuckerman. jc-04.11.11
Can we add serifs to Gotham? For the President of The United States? Yes We Can. jc-04.06.11
Typographic prints by Therese Sennerholt. dw-04.04.11
Google Helvetica. dw-04.01.11
Typography in 8 bits. ms-03.26.11
Kun Qian's bacterial font. Via It's OK To Be Smart jc-03.25.11
"The idea for this type came in when seeing that this operative system memorizes the position of any file or window when you minimize and maximize it." 114.psd Type, by Emilio Gomariz. jc-03.24.11
LetterCult's The Year in Custom Letters, Parts Helvetica Face is a Livetype format font. This new Helvetica family font changes the 'typeface' based on the posting of a new 'face.'" dw-03.16.11
So you know, Fonts used in logos of popular brands. ms-03.12.11
Sneak peek at Dirk Barnett's redesign of Newsweek. jc-03.07.11
The Practice of Typography; Modern Methods of Book Composition by Theodore Low De Vinne, 1904. Free download, via I Love Typography. jc-03.03.11
All the title screens from all the Best Picture winners, all edited together quite nicely. Hypnotic. Via Craig Hockenberry. jc-03.02.11
The story behind the face. Bold Monday's custom type for Audi. jc-03.02.11
Versatile Microgramma, an ad from Print, 1958. Via Vintage Scans. jc-02.23.11
Christophe Szpajdel, Lord of the (Metal Band) Logos. Via James White. jc-02.22.11
Cheese or Font? ms-02.19.11
Hmm, this makes me hungry, when is lunch? Type Sandwiches. ms-02.17.11
69 Magazine Cover Lines that will Blow Your Mind. Hot! "A titillating typographic and linguistic examination," by UnderConsideration. Stuff like this just drives us wild. jc-02.15.11
Frank Ormann's film detailing the process of creating the handwriting and lettering for the cover art for Max Goldt's L'Eglise des Crocodiles. Via the Minister. jc-02.14.11
An amazing post from Peacay, selections of Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Typography, "title pages, headings and letterforms clipped, cropped and isolated from maps and map publications issued between about 1880 and 1920." jc-02.14.11
Michael Flückiger and Nicolas Kunz's Bachelor Thesis from 2009, Laika, a truly dynamic typeface. jc-02.09.11
Devil's Rope Alphabet. jc-02.09.11
A well-shot conversation with Erik Spiekermann: Putting Back the Face into Typeface. sd-02.08.11
Mash Creative 'Rethink' of the Royal Mail logo for ICON. jc-02.04.11
"Strip it down in caps. Four verticals. Five horizontals. Nothing else." The "The" Project. jc-01.31.11
Guess what Iconwerk makes? jc-01.28.11
Fonts in Use. ms-01.26.11
Nutmegger Workshop "celebrates the unadorned typography master sign painters created for businesses and shops over a century ago." Correct Liveries for Every-Occasion. jc-01.26.11
Typefaces of the World. Via Swiss Miss. ms-01.25.11
Sorta related to our printing films for Field Notes, House Industries: The Trailer. Fab. jc-01.24.11
Your Moment of Type Zen #3 by Gail Anderson. jc-01.20.11
If we ever have a physical store I want John Downer to do gold-leaf lettering on our front window, and maybe show us how to do the weekly specials too, jc-01.20.11
Dana Tanamachi is a graphic designer and custom chalk letterer living in Brooklyn, New York. Via Glass. jc-01.18.11
So great, the Bicycle Typogram. ms-01.14.11
Climent Canal's type-based animation Make It Better. Via Doobybrain. sd-01.14.11
Almost Extinct, "design and print an alphabet of animals without the use of a computer. Some of the designs require many passes of the printing press with letters at various angles. Others require overprinting with a precise weight of ink..." Via JSM. jc-01.07.11
Via the Tony Wilson headstone comments: Paul Rand's headstone, another beauty. bb-01.04.11
"The Bauhaus theme is one of the most common victims of lazily picking a font just because of its name." The True Type of the Bauhaus. sd-01.03.11
You're a Comic Sans Criminal but we're here to help you. ms-12.22.10
new Comedy Central identity. Liked it immediately. jc-12.10.10
The Most-Read Man in the World, The Economist profiles Matthew Carter. jc-12.10.10
Meet Me in the City. "A quick movie with some vintage sign photos and music. That's it." From Quality Vintage. jc-12.06.10
Mark El-Khatib's Animation Alphabet, developed for the Royal College of Art Animation Showreel. Via Typedia. jc-12.03.10
Simple and smart-looking rebrand of Portland boutique Frances May by OMFGCO. jc-12.02.10
Just in time for your holiday place setting cards, free Thanksgiving fonts. ms-11.23.10
Michael Bierut talks typography. ms-11.22.10
A big Typedia News update. Loving Fred Smeijers' update to the Custodia family. jc-11.19.10
The smallest legible screen font. dw-11.16.10
TypArchive. See you in a couple hours. jc-11.11.10
The Typographic Years. A gorgeous series of marks by Simon Page. Also, see his Hard to Read Typography set. jc-11.11.10
So you know. How to use the mighty Ames Lettering Guide, by Dustin Harbin. Via Drawn. jc-11.10.10
Jim Sutherland's Hat-Trick, typographic playing cards. Found at Goodd, our newest Field Notes retailer. jc-11.10.10
Kern, 2, 3, 4, Kern, 2, 3, 4. Type Camp. jc-11.04.10
Ill Studio type design originally made for a rejected Zadie Smith novel cover published by Penguin. Lovely. jc-11.04.10
"You can't tell a lie in Caslon." William Berkson on reviving a classic typeface, Part 2: Readability, Affability, Authority. Here's Part 1. jc-11.04.10
"Wordmarks from a private stock of predigital lettering scoured from low resolution archives, personally converted to bezier outlines by Robb for use by today's graphic designers who appreciate the wonky shapes of yesteryear." "The" Project. Via BrandFlakes for Breakfast. ms-10.29.10
Issues from year one, 1974, of U&lc Magazine are now available for free download. More to come. Excellent resource, great period print ads too. jc-10.28.10
B-Movie Type Cards by Will Staehle. Great. jc-10.22.10
We've pushed our post from last year on Bodoni Poster back to the top of the front page. The "Who Rules New York" issue of New York Magazine is chock full of the typeface, set just exactly as we like it. Guess that revival is well under way now, so we're working on the next "Classic Display Face That Deserve Props," so stay tuned and stay ahead of the game. jc-10.08.10
Arbor, Chester Jenkin's "channeling" of Caslon Italian from the 20s. Sweet. jc-10.08.10
Flashcards. The Typeface Memory Game. Via Swissmiss. jc-10.04.10
Alexander Ross Charchar looks at where the question mark, blockquote and ligature came from. jc-09.29.10
Click through an overview of the collection at Berlin's Buchstabenmuseum. The Museum of Letters. Via Trend Hunter. jc-09.24.10
When Letraset walked the earth. Two of the company's catalogs from 1970 and 73. Fab. Via Quipsologies. jc-09.23.10
"I designed it for myself, frankensteining three typesfaces together by taking characteristics I admire from each." . mgr-09.15.10
The answer to a very important question is 2,826,206,643.42. jc-09.09.10
In German, but some cool photos of The Museum of Letters in Berlin. More info on the Buchstabenmuseum here. sd-09.01.10
Alphabets from old books. jc-08.26.10
Related to the last, Monograms & Ciphers by A.A. Turnbayne from 1906. Page after page after page of sweet interlocking capital letters. jc-08.26.10
True wisdom. jc-08.19.10
Chicago Type, an ongoing project documenting interesting typography in Chicago. My favorite. Via Swiss Legacy. dw-08.19.10
Quick and sweet. Alphabet Truck, by Eric Tabuchi. jc-08.19.10
Jessica Hische's letterpress alphabet prints. dw-08.03.10
Quadräteln, a typesetters' dice game played using "spacer" leads. Machine translated from the excellent and excellently named Reden ist Silber, Schrieben ist Blei, Reading is Silver, Writing is Lead. jc-07.28.10
Brockmann in Motion, twelve lovely seconds from Vit Zemcik. Via Casual Optimist. jc-07.28.10
Dan Beckemeyer's Ampersand Food Groups. Via Whitezine. dw-07.27.10
Tor Weeks' awesome Field Guide to Typestaches Thanks, Gome. bb-07.27.10
So you know. Small Caps. jc-07.27.10
"How much should a revival of a typeface look like the original?" William Berkson on his work on a new Caslon. jc-07.26.10
Typographic cake. dw-07.16.10
Check the brand new typeface design program at Cooper Union, in conjunction with the Type Directors Club. Thanks Nick. jc-07.13.10
So you know, origins of the world's most important typefaces. dw-07.13.10
When you're the owner of a basketball team and you're upset about LeBron James deciding to leave, and you need to write a letter about how that makes you feel, shouldn't there be a better font to use than Comic Sans? sd-07.08.10
A charming profile on the sunset profession of typesetting. That blob of type that spits out at the end still feels as magical as an everlasting gobstopper. Via The Rumpus. cw-07.02.10
Carlos finds typographic inspiration in a Barcelona cemetery. Via @zeldman. jc-07.02.10
The End of Movable Type in China, a visit to the last few remaining businesses in the place where it all began. sd-06.30.10
'CMYK Alphabet is a typographic experiment, a set of 26 sans-serif uppercase letterforms on a grid of 5x5 inch. Each letter is hand embroidered using a combination of two overlapping CMYK colours." Genius, by Evelin Kasikv. Via Andy Baio. jc-06.30.10
Movie poster font quiz. ms-06.25.10
BibliOdyssey on The Printer's Handbook or Schrift- und Polytypen-Proben from 1848. Sublime. jc-06.23.10
Answer promptly with a smile. ms-06.22.10
Console Font. Fab. ms-06.18.10
"Three main factors dominate typography: first, appropriateness, as affected by the time, the place and the function of the material; second, attractiveness, ingratiating the eye and so the mind; and finally and most importantly, legibility." Steven Heller on Vanity Fair's "A Note on Typography" from 1930. Amen. jc-06.17.10
"You think I'm stupid. You think I'm immature. You think I'm a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I'm Comic Sans, and I'm the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes f*ing Gutenberg." sd-06.16.10
"CitID is a ambitious project aiming to gain global consciousness by giving a (type)face to every city worldwide; big or small, rich or poor, famous or infamous, well-known or or unheard-of." Via MeFi. ms-06.15.10
Related to the last. More on Reid Miles from Retinart and also from The Font Feed. jc-06.11.10
A collection of "the worst ampersand designs in typographic history. Or, when ampersands go wrong." Via Design Info. sd-06.04.10
Grain Edit on the Italian newspaper supplement Intelligence in Lifestyle. The magazine's visual approach encompasses type and graphics in a highly unified manner. Bravo. More scans here. jc-06.02.10
Get the lovely letterpress poster as a reminder not to commit thirty four typographic sins. ms-06.01.10
The evolution of the alphabet. Via DRB. ms-05.28.10
"Commercial graphic and typographic creativity that does not serve, but found only the graphical idea in itself is overstated, because it is in most cases only fashionable in a quest for otherness." A day-starting pleasure, enjoying the accidental poetry of a machine translation of Martin Z. Schröder's ruminations on typesetting and a particular job. jc-05.27.10
Typography for Lawyers or dentists or arms dealers or welders or anybody else for that matter. A smart resource, via Kitsune Noir. jc-05.25.10
Related to the last, Hyperactivitypography from A to Z is an activity book for typographers illustrated in a nostalgic vintage style to give it a sweet and childlike look. The book is packed with activities, ranging from silly to hard core nerdiness. It's great to test your skills on and to learn new things while having fun." dw-05.18.10
Rejected design by Dynamo for Canton of Neuchâtel French schoolbook covers. Simple and lovely. Via James White. jc-05.18.10
A collection of seminal works in typography from the 20s from MoMA's The New Typography exhibition. jc-05.13.10
Michael Bierut hates ITC Garamond. Amen. jc-05.12.10
The Art of Hermann Zapf, a lovely film on the "purpose and techniques of calligraphy." Via Martin Schröder. jc-05.10.10
Numerals. jc-05.07.10
Related to earlier, Christian's sweet type sampler. Via @jkoxvold. jc-05.06.10
"Where did you find your 'g'?" Why Christian Schwartz started a type foundry. jc-05.06.10
This preview of Slanted Magazine #10, Heavy Metal. Lovers, is full of blackletter fun. jc-05.04.10
A 200-year letterpressed calendar by Munich's Sonner, Vallee u. Partner. Via the Casual Optimist. jc-05.03.10
Rock That Font, which face is on which record, all of it "semi-verified." Great idea, hope it keeps rolling. Via Jason Santa Maria. jc-04.28.10
Some things never change. This photo from 1910 called "The Typesetters" looks almost exactly like a typical day here at 400 North May. Thanks to Jason Santa Maria for the heads up. jc-04.26.10
So you need a typeface. Via FFFFound. ms-04.19.10
I can't think about Ed Benguiat's eponymous typeface without picturing the cover of The Cave of Time, and that artwork is expertly cribbed for Ars Technica's Tentacular, tentacular! "Decide Your Own Experience" article. bb-04.08.10
Junkin' with The DDC. jc-04.06.10
A few things Gerry Leonidas has learned about typeface design. Excellent. jc-04.06.10
Arial, it's a little bit bullsh*t. ms-03.29.10
Typographic Playing Cards. jc-03.24.10
MOMA acquires the @ symbol. Neat: Spanish-speakers have started using "@" rather than "o" or "a" to imply gender-neutrality, i.e. "amig@s." Via Pica+Pixel bb-03.24.10
What Jessica Hische did today, drew type with 1000 thumbtacks. Via Faceout Books. jc-03.16.10
If fonts were dogs. ms-03.15.10
"In memory of the black art of type setting, we are producing letters out of high quality, handmade chocolate." Yum, Typolade. Via Materialicious ms-03.15.10
1960's Scandinavian design logos. ms-03.11.10
Alex Merto's steamy typeface. jc-03.11.10
James Patrick Gibson's New Type York, a daily archive of images of typographic artifacts. Via @H_FJ. jc-03.10.10
Ditoria, a sweet short film about letterpress. Via The Casual Optimist. jc-03.10.10
Katerina Orlikova's Kaleidoscopes made from type. jc-03.09.10
Put your special 3*Type glasses on now and read that FotA Ben Greenman has just unveiled unveiled the future of print print. sd-03.08.10
A brief homage to Franklin Gothic from MoMA. Via Dinosaurs and Robots. jc-03.08.10
"Sometimes a text is just about its letters themselves, not an object to be read, but one to be looked at." Dan Reynolds for iLT on The Library of the Gutenberg Museum. Mandatory reading, there will be a quiz later in the week. jc-03.04.10
Beneath the Volley of the Fonts, Mark Simonson on Friday's Layer Tennis Typopalooza with Peter Bruhn. An awesome, illustrated look behind the scenes at designing a typeface, 15 minutes at a time. jc-03.01.10
The Varityper "was a highly ingenious 'word processor' of the pre-digital age. This machine could use over 300 different type styles... adjust the space between characters, and even produce right-justified copy." Plus, it's totally boss looking. From Uppercase. jc-02.25.10
Fab typographic poster of all the ingredients in a Ham and Cheese hot pocket. ms-02.23.10
An interesting illustrated chat with Design Director Arem Duplessis on the NYT Sunday Magazine redesign that happened last June and how it has worked out. A thoughtful and thorough assessment, but for me, the before and after images show a great and iconic design that has been lost. jc-02.22.10
Runic, a typeface by Ingmar Spiller. jc-02.19.10
Related to the last. Leo Beukeboom, master Dutch letterschilder. jc-02.15.10
"We hired our good friend John Downer, who is a professional sign painter & typographer, to fly to LA to do gold leaf lettering on our store window & transom. Glass gilding is becoming a lost art that only a few dozen people in the United States still know how perform." Thanks Jason. jc-02.15.10
The Ministry of Type notices "a lot of ampersand-related activity about at the moment." jc-02.12.10
EndGrain, Bethany Heck's blog on letterpress and nice big beautiful wooden letters, like these condensed French Antique Zs. Via Uppercase. jc-02.11.10
Sevigne is a sleek, new, modern san-serif from Reserves. jc-02.11.10
From artist Andrew Van Der Merwe, Beach calligraphy. ms-02.10.10
Film At First Sight, Steven Heller on movie title cards and Christian Annyas's fantastic and much-linked collection. jc-02.05.10
"The New Typography is distinguished from the old by the fact that its first objective is to develop its visible form out of the functions of the text." -Tschichold. Via Design Observer. jc-02.04.10
Preserve, a refuge for hand-painted signs from Mark Spurgeon. Awesome. Via Made In England. jc-02.02.10
Yves Peters' latest installment of the always great ScreenFonts movie poster reviews. sd-02.02.10
Sign up for House Industries' catalogs (which are always awesome btw) and you could win a tour of The Eames House in Pacific Pallisades. jc-02.02.10
Relink: the secret history of typography in the Oxford English dictionary. ms-01.29.10
"...it has been allowed to go through years of looking dated and out of style until the current moment, where through nostalgia and the fact that the other signs on the street have left it behind, it has become eye-catching and unique once more." Charles Swinehart's The Typography of Neglect. jc-01.27.10
Want! Helvetica cookie cutters. ms-01.26.10
I Love Typography picks his favorite fonts of 2009. ms-01.26.10
"This is why I love scrounging around the jc-01.20.10
John Boardleys' fave fonts from 2009, an excellent list, beautifully presented. jc-01.20.10
The history of the Ampersand. Thanks Michael. ms-01.19.10
"Big types customarily bring up the rear of a type specimen book, and Catalogue No. 14 does not disappoint. The book reaches an explosive crescendo with this design at 864 point, in which just two letters fill the entire page." H&FJ on The Hamilton Manufacturing wood types collections. jc-01.19.10
Collected reality TV show logos. rw-01.19.10
300&65 Ampersands. dw-01.18.10
Typographically speaking, Paul Barrett says, "Let 'em hang." jc-01.13.10
An open letter to James Cameron from the font Papyrus. ms-01.04.10
The Art of Hand Lettering by Alan Ariail. A fascinating series of sketch-to-finish illustrated posts. Via Drawn!, of course. jc-12.22.09
Walk through the five images of Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth's Measuring Type experiment. Via Currved White. jc-12.22.09
These two words don't begin to express the magnitude of the awesomeness contained behind this link, vintage storefronts. Via The DDC, of course. jc-12.17.09
Boxcar logos. ms-12.16.09
Design Observer slideshow on Dutch designer Piet Zwart. jc-12.14.09
An illustrated review of Graphic Masterpieces of Yakov G. Chernikhov. jc-12.14.09
Sure, we posted this before, but it's awesome: The Daily Drop Cap. bb-12.09.09
Northcoast Zeitgeist: Now that's a lockup. Amen. jc-12.02.09
Neutra Face: An Ode on a Typeface. dw-12.01.09
Craig Ward and illustrator Pomme Chan had a Lovechild. jc-11.25.09
Barbar Kruger and Brand New School collaborated on an installation for "Silent Scriptures," in the rotunda of the Louis Vuitton store in Paris. jc-11.20.09
For the typography fan in your life, typographic scarves. ms-11.19.09
A nixie is a glass tube containing a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes. You'll know it when you see its lovely orange glow and a set of them makes a nice display for a clock. Also, Adam Greig built his own. Via The Ministry. jc-11.16.09
Related to the last. Great Loves and Great Ideas. jc-11.12.09
"I think that book covers communicate quicker if they are boiled down to their most essential elements or rather, they have the best chance to communicate if they do one thing and do one thing purposefully." Beautifully illustrated and engaging Q & A at The Casual Optimist with book designer David Pearson. jc-11.12.09
"Perfect typography is certainly the most elusive of all arts." Making it a bit more concrete, Hofstede Design's limited edition laser-cut stencils. Via H&FJ. jc-11.12.09
Gill Sans Rounded by Julia. jc-11.12.09
"How can I compare spending an hour adjusting the spacing of a font to spending an hour soothing my baby daughter?" In the Name Of the Father (or the troubles with L-caron) by Peter Biľak. jc-11.10.09
A nativity set for the designer in your life. ms-11.10.09
Fonts Used In Popular Band Logos, or rather, logos that were later turned into fonts by fans. sd-11.09.09
I can't think of anything to write that won't spoil the joke. jc-11.06.09
The Journal of Urban Typography, "dedicated to the documentation and study of signs, word fragments, and typography created with utilitarian intent in urban environments." A+ via Quality Vintage. jc-11.03.09
Pentagram's typography system for The Art Institute of Chicago and especially The Modern Wing. Via an excellent edition of The Week in Type. jc-10.27.09
I don't have any idea where or how I would use this but I totally need Racetracks, a 'typeface' of 111 tracks by Carlos Segura and Chris Manfre. Available from T.26. jc-10.27.09
If you are in NYC, be sure to stop by the Type Directors Club and check out the House Industries Type As Object exhibit. ms-10.21.09
Lubalin Now. jc-10.19.09
Shopping Losts. ms-10.19.09
What did you do this summer? Disneyland? Clean out the garage? Hang by the pool? Jessica went to Type Camp. ms-10.14.09
Posts like this one deconstructing typography on train infoboards are why we elected him Minister in the first place. jc-10.11.09
"Japanese town logos- official symbols designed to communicate the identity of each municipality-- come in a vast array of shapes and colors. Many of these municipal symbols incorporate typographical elements (particularly kanji, hiragana, katakana, and Roman letters) into their designs." Typographic town logos. ms-10.08.09
Nice round up of some examples of hand-drawn typography. ms-10.05.09
"Created by Oded Ezer, Typembrya is the third experimental typo project in his 'Biotypography' series, and a personal homage to the Mother & Child logo, designed by the legendary Herb Lubalin in 1967." jc-09.28.09
Jules Vernacular, a spectacular collection of found type. See you in a couple hours. jc-09.11.09
Cheese or Font? However big a type (or cheese) nerd you are, it gets ridiculously hard after a few rounds. bb-09.10.09
"Stencil lettering, characterized by breaks of negative space between portions of each letter, never really went out of fashion." -Steven Heller. jc-09.02.09
The newest member of The Deck, our advertising network for web, design and creative professionals, debuts today. Typedia is a shared encyclopedia of typefaces. More on how it came together in this post from Mr. Santa Maria. jc-08.24.09
"Amidst a landscape of vapid strip malls, unsightly visual clutter and sterile signage, hand-painted lettering retains an aesthetic to be treasured." TypArchive. jc-08.20.09
The Donut Project on Tapeography by Ersinhan Ersin. jc-08.18.09
"When an 18th century Portuguese chapel was reopened as an art gallery, the owners and R2 Design used its facade as the canvas for an artful typographic composition that recalls the building's former use, but creates a new cultural venue." dw-08.13.09
Some friends had a hard time finding a ketubah that didn't look like someone vomited an ornate rainbow. Finally, they found these nice, simple designs. aro-08.11.09
Public Space Typography. A fab set. The Minister selects a few for commentary. jc-08.11.09
About that typeface over there on the left, the one in the headlines. jc-08.04.09
"We're done with the tired old fontstacks of yesteryear. Enough with the limitations of the web, we won't have it. It's time to raise our standards. Here, you'll find only the most well-made, free & open-source, @font-face ready fonts." dw-07.23.09
Regarding Ill Studio's work on Magazine N°47, I'm right in line behind Khoi. jc-07.21.09
Kernest, a nifty way to host, find, and use web-legal typefaces via CSS "@font-face." bb-07.21.09
A behind the scenes look at two typographers and a pro race driver collaborating to design a font with a car. jc-07.20.09
Relink. Justin Thomas Kay visited the Lubalin archives at Cooper Union. Lucky for us he brought his camera. jc-07.17.09
Pantone typeface. ms-07.15.09
A typography app for the iPhone. ms-07.15.09
Nick Sherman on the new site for UT's Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection. A superb resource, beautifully presented. jc-07.14.09
"Why don't I give you a little tour, and I'll explain things on the way. You drive." Kevin Cornell on the process of developing Phaeton, his "Baptismal Font." jc-07.09.09
If your typeface were a prostitute, what would her business card look like? ms-07.07.09
Baby Got Hand-Lettering. Via JKB. fg-06.19.09
Lettercult's Meagan Fisher. jc-05.22.09
"Brief: Create a typographic font generator and produce a visual representation for the word 'Move.' Solution: Using a Rubik's Cube I designed a set of stamps to be placed on four of the sides of the cube so users are able to create their own font." Via CR. jc-05.20.09
Coulson Macleod's typographic portraits. dw-05.18.09
I'm with Monaco but check Dan's rundown of his top ten fonts for coding. jc-05.18.09
Spectacular scans of manuscripts from the National Library of Serbia. jc-05.18.09
Letters and bars in Amsterdam. Via DesignNotes. jc-05.10.09
"...reducing letterforms to their most basic structural characteristics." Simon Hughes' Helvetica experiment. jc-05.08.09
Flickermood 2.0, a thoroughly modern animated take on a classic text. Via Design Observer. jc-05.06.09
Edible typography, Eatphabet. ms-05.04.09
In honor of Gary's fab first film, Helvetica, here's a collection of logos created using well, Helvetica. ms-04.29.09
Do birds have favorite fonts? Thanks Jennifer. jc-04.28.09
"By the time the letter W entered the Latin alphabet in the seventh century, ampersands had enjoyed six hundred years of continuous use." H&FJ on their middle name. jc-04.27.09
A lovely and practical typeface, especially in the lighter weights, Sofia from Mostardesign. jc-04.27.09
"Adanac is an iconic font representing aspects of Canadian culture and history." SD, look at lower case p. ms-04.27.09
Everything or absoluteness; All. jc-04.24.09
The Engraved Wood Block Type Museum. Totally fab. Via JSM. jc-04.23.09
"Unchanged since 2002, now completely brand new." Typographica redux. Yay. jc-04.22.09
Ambigrams into Smargibma from The Daily Heller. jc-04.17.09
Is the crossbar of a Gotham Bold "T" thicker than the top bar of a Gotham Bold "E"? That can't be right, can it? I'll just consider that to be the bad song that reminds you how perfect the rest of the album is. bb-04.15.09
Eye on ten type blogs. jc-04.14.09
The Minister on Ralph Beyer, Coventry Cathedral and typography. Sublime. jc-04.13.09
TypeNeu: An Odyssey in Typography. jc-04.13.09
Lovely, Paper-Made typography. ms-04.08.09
"Me, a scanner and insomnia." Modern Alphabets, Ornamental and Plain, 1864. jc-04.07.09
Paolo Antonelli on Oded Ezer, The Typographer's Guide to the Galaxy. jc-04.06.09
Boards of Ed, a profile of Wayne Reuben in the Torontoist. A real craftsman, Wayne does all the beautiful hand-lettered signs in Honest Ed's store. Fab. Check the photo pool too. Thanks Rob! jc-04.03.09
Truck & Type. Like it says. Via Things. jc-04.01.09
MyFonts interviews Eric Gill, who died in 1940. Must be April 1. bb-04.01.09
"Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat." Laminitis, or English As She Is Drawn, by Jonathan Hoefler. Via Typographer. jc-03.31.09
Grain Edit chats with Andy Cruz of House Industries about type, toys and Braniff. jc-03.31.09
"This had been done by hand and therefore wasn't an existing typeface. I knew then that I could actually make this into a font." Jeremy Mickel's story of creating his first font. Via Andy Rutledge. sd-03.23.09
40 Logos created using Helvetica. dw-03.20.09
Big thanks to Jamie "MENS" Dihiansan, formerly of the Under Estimated Crew, currently of our officemates 37Signals, for the Ref graffiti type. bb-03.20.09
Joshua Lurie-Terrell writes the new MyFonts Blog. Click. Bookmarked. jc-03.11.09
The Periodic Table of Typefaces. ms-03.10.09
"Scanned from halfplate glass negatives found in an abandoned Post Ofice warehouse, the envelopes bear the stamp 'London Press Bureau.'" Historic Fonts. Via I Like. sd-03.09.09
So you know, how to draw a letter. jc-02.24.09
Barbican identity guidelines. Lovely. jc-02.23.09
Type Directors Club 2009 Winners. jc-02.20.09
A great resource of design elements, carefully presented and well considered. The Fluid 960 Grid System. jc-02.19.09
The FontFeed on BETC Euro RSCG's new typographic tv spots and posters for the Peugeot Tepee. Here are the spots, I. II. III. Via John of ILT. jc-02.18.09
A typographic haiku contest. I'm in. jc-02.11.09
You thought Shazam was cool? MyFonts' What The Font is now available for the iPhone. Thanks, Chris and Tina! bb-02.11.09
A sweet little photo set from the Musee de l'Imprimerie in Lyon, France. Via ILT. jc-02.09.09
From designer Mike Giesser, Weapons of Mass Reduction and Weapons of Mass Seduction. Fab. ms-02.07.09
Just how old school do you rock your old school? Rubylith Porn from the Photo-Lettering & House Industries Corporate Archives. mj-02.02.09
Taking Akzidenz Grotesk to the streets. Tobias Battenberg, a projector and a camera. Via a big beautiful "Week In Type" at ILT. jc-01.31.09
Anyone remember this beast? This machine taught me that that lettering style I saw everywhere was called "Helvetica." Thanks, machine. bb-01.29.09
Kris Sowersby's type family National is a well-chosen TDC winner. I am especially fond of the Medium Caps and the lowercase "g." Via ILT. jc-01.26.09
Some shots of The Letter Museum in Berlin. sd-01.26.09
Paul Shaw's voluminous, annotated survey of architectural typography, Lettering Grows in Brooklyn. Via c77. jc-01.26.09
An especially green week for type at ILT. jc-01.20.09
Andrew blows the cobwebs off of 1+1=3 to talk about Slumdog Millionaire's titles, which seem to have been modeled after a typeface Andrew himself created a few years back for the Melbourne Immigration Museum. sd-01.19.09
Letterpress printing porn. Via Nice Red Shorts. jc-01.09.09
Mr. Simonson specs some type. jc-01.08.09
Amazing typographic mobiles from artist Ebon Heath, Stereo.Type. Via NotCot. ms-01.04.09
"After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well." A font that uses 20% less ink and available for free, the Eco-Font. ms-01.02.09
House Industries relaunches their site with radical redesign. jc-12.30.08
Ambigram logos. dw-12.23.08
"In the Concorde station of the Paris Metro, the tunnel for line 12 is decorated with tiles spelling out the text of the Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a foundational document of the French Revolution." Code is Wall. ms-12.20.08
Is Web Design 95% Typography? mst-12.16.08
Typographische Mitteilungen. Felix "was able to acquire a whole pile of somewhat earlier issues, for a couple of euros each." Nice find. Via Quipped. jc-12.15.08
An interview with type designer and typographic illustrator Seb Lester at I Love Typography, the newest member of The Deck, our ad network for web, design and creative professionals. jc-12.11.08
Nicely curated typography inspiration showcase at Designm.ag. jc-12.04.08
Reversi, a nice experiment with game tiles and type, from stefanb. jc-12.01.08
Heller on French typographer extraordinaire, Charles Peignot. jc-11.24.08
The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway by Paul Shaw. Required reading. Via DO. jc-11.19.08
Jon Tan's thoughtful essay on Mr. Aves sitting in a tree... jc-10.21.08
From Daniel Adolph, Garamond Powerlines. ms-10.20.08
Some really great examples of typography art. ms-10.17.08
Sunday Type at iLT is always worth a scroll for inspiration, even when it comes out on a Wednesday. I totally love the capital G in James Puckett's new display face, Recovery. jc-10.15.08
Field-Tester Anne Holub writes, about punctuation, "I like the way the French see it --Like acid rain falling from the sky." jc-10.14.08
"We see film posters every day. But have you ever stopped to think about the lettering they use? Sebastian Lester has.". ms-10.10.08
Mark Simonson on the typography of "Mad Men." jc-10.08.08
Bone type by Bjorn Johansson. se-10.03.08
Helvetica Revival Monopoly. Not bad, but International Typographic Style Monopoly would be better. Via Glass bb-10.01.08
A great roundup of airport signage. Via Core77. se-09.29.08
A lovely collection of found type from ILT. jc-09.29.08
LetterCult launches with an interview with type and logo designer extraodinaire Doyald Young. jc-09.25.08
I am personally offended by this thread at Typophile. jc-09.24.08
A great source of book designs, such as this: Moskau oder Konnersreuth?. ahl-09.23.08
Sandwalls Happy Families, illustrations for a line of 1950s soft drinks. jc-09.22.08
"...there's a crisis happening in the banking world. All the big household names are affected. It's slowly engulfing us all... Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to introduce the Kerning Crunch." jc-09.19.08
Nice roundup of 22 creative alphabets. dw-09.17.08
Nice print of all 709 glyphs of FF Meta Serif Pro, ordered by their widths. Via AisleOne. dw-09.16.08
Gorgeous photoset of race numbers. Via Grain Edit. se-09.16.08
For your typographic and lettering inspiration: typewriter ribbon tins. ahl-09.15.08
If you need to see a lot of Japanese page layouts, you may enjoy clicking through these. ahl-09.15.08
Because it's true, Type is Art. Go play. ahl-09.11.08
Jules Vernacular. dw-09.10.08
"Ultimately it is the process. What the the printer loves is the doing of it." While in our archives, I just revisited this beautiful short film about letterpress filmed at Firefly Press in Massachusetts. se-09.10.08
"So as one of the few typographer-turned-attorneys in America, I figure that if I don't do it, nobody will." Typography for Lawyers. se-09.10.08
For your inspiration, a collection of typography artworks. ms-09.10.08
BeautifoolTYPE. Via pica + pixel. ahl-09.09.08
As if we needed more proof that they're pretty sharp over at FontShop. Erik Spiekermann, Yves Peters, Jürgen Siebert and Stephen Coles have launched a sponsored, but independent new typographic group blog called The FontFeed. Bookmarked and subscribed. jc-09.08.08
Peacay on the most delicate art. jc-09.08.08
I always say, "if you want authentic-looking typewriter type, type it on a typewriter and scan it," but Trixie HD just raised the bar for digital typewriter typefaces. bb-09.08.08
Photographs of classic car logotypes and badges. se-09.02.08
"Living, breathing moss graffiti, spreading verse and image around the city." se-09.02.08
Bring typography into your home with these type coasters. Via Design Milk. ms-09.02.08
For your inspiration, a collection of lovely typography. ms-08.29.08
I can't imagine how long it took to get these shots so perfectly aligned. The very cool Alphabet Truck, via SwissMiss. se-08.28.08
Depression Press has a nice Flickr set, Typecase. ms-08.27.08
Somehow I missed H&FJ's post about pencil typography, which links to the MoOM-listed Brand Name Pencils. Always worth a revisit. se-08.26.08
The Ministry of Type takes a look at Faber Finds, the printing service where each book receives a completely unique, automatically-generated cover design. se-08.25.08
A box of 64 wooden Type Cubes to play with for some typographic inspiration. se-08.25.08
Marblehead discusses good typography online and in the process mentions a couple of our favorite projects. Thanks for that. jc-08.23.08
Richard posts up 10 beautiful photos of meaningful type. se-08.22.08
"The problem of unsightly text is often caused by a designer's failure to use neutralizing techniques. Some of them require time, and some just simple attention. Here we'd like to speak about punctuation in a number of complex situations." -Art Lebedev jc-08.21.08
Darden Studio has relaunched its website, a gorgeous array of things typographic. se-08.20.08
Pebble alphabet. dw-08.19.08
The Beautiful Signage of Old Vietnam, a typography tour in the city of Hoi An. sd-08.18.08
Ampersands for print and web. And if that's not enough visit the ampersand blog. dw-08.15.08
Test your movie poster knowledge: Can You Guess the Movie From Just One Letter? Via Transbuddha. sd-08.14.08
Visualcomplexity on Quentin Delobel's infographic on Josef Muller-Brockmann and the International Typographic Style. Yowza. jc-08.13.08
The Minister on Guilloches. So cool. jc-08.11.08
Marian Bantjes' modular print-on-demand border awesomeness. bb-08.11.08
With Georgia in the news, take some time to check out their distinctive alphabet, also seen in these photos of Tblisi from Chick in Kiev. bb-08.11.08
Typography Friday by Eric Shoemaker. Bookmark to enjoy, possibly with a round of FDLs. jc-08.11.08
PVC pipe font and poster. ms-08.11.08
Just so, so beautiful. The Journal of Urban Typography. Via me3dia. se-08.07.08
The & Blog, via p+p. bb-08.06.08
Astounding arabic calligraphy drawn with light by Julien Breton aka "Kaalam." bb-08.05.08
Plenty of typographic goodness here to get your week started. se-08.04.08
"The problem with being a fontwhore is that you begin to recognize some of the tired, overused fonts that no designer seems to want to let go. If you see them, let out a scream and shoot them on sight." 7 fonts that should die. ms-08.04.08
Enjoying this set of early 60's letterhead from a Bell Telephone pamphlet, via Kottke. se-07.31.08
John Boardley received his Field-Tested Books Book in Japan and included it in Sunday Type, his weekly round-up. jc-07.30.08
Great type discussion started by Jason Santa Maria, who is Trade Gothic. jc-07.25.08
Typographic Tree Columns. jc-07.25.08
Chicago Type, an archival project by Shawn Hazen. Thank you for reminding us how cool this is Theo. jc-07.22.08
"Anybody can design letters, but numbers are hard." Erik Spiekermann interviewed at design mind. Via Design Observer. jc-07.22.08
Trailer for Making Faces, a documentary on cutting metal type with Jim Rimmer. Via I Love Typography. jc-07.21.08
Parts of a character, an interactive public art project ms-07.18.08
1+1=3's Vive le Cycling Typography. sd-07.18.08
Here's the Watchmen trailer everyone is talking about. What interests me most is the Futura Extrabold Condensed in all-caps, set tight but not touching, 1983, Fallon McElligott Rice style. Weeee. Smelling a comeback and I for one, am all for it. jc-07.17.08
A brief history of Avant Garde. Via AisleOne. dw-07.14.08
So you know, Comic Sans: One Good Application. ms-07.14.08
So you know, typography is sexy. ms-07.12.08
Prominent typographers and their handwriting. ms-07.11.08
"Struggling to understand what could possibly be good about Comic Sans, Valerio - together with partners Hugo Timm, Filip Tyden and Erwan Lhussier - found that the doggedly goofy font's irregular forms made it one of the easiest typefaces for dyslexics to read." Then they designed Serious Sans (scroll down). se-07.09.08
Iron & aluminum. Stylish & beautiful. jc-07.09.08
For those who really love typography, the Helvetica wall panel. ms-07.07.08
NYC's Florent, noted for their great advertising and design, says goodbye with one last typographic joke. bb-07.01.08
Typeface The Movie. Not to be confused with Helvetica The Film. jc-06.30.08
It's always interesting to get the story behind the birth of a typeface. se-06.27.08
Testing support for kerning and OpenType features in Firefox 3. Via the Ministry. se-06.23.08
Mark Simonson's take on the typography of Indiana Jones' maps. A good followup would be the number of poorly-done knockoff "Raiders" logotypes in electronic/toy/furniture store ads lately. bb-06.17.08
She's got it. Type, all over her body that is. And now she's going out. Clipped from Quipped. jc-06.16.08
Type in the Toronto subway. Thanks Stephen! ms-06.13.08
Typography for children, among other articles at fonts.com. se-06.12.08
Typographic photo of the moment. Bearwow's "Planet Jr." Via Typographer. jc-06.10.08
We have 1, 2 and 3 on hand at the studio so who's up for a try? jc-06.09.08
Nadine Chahine's always interesting Arabic Type blog. se-06.09.08
A Brief History of Type, Part Four: Modern (Didione) Mandatory reading, there will be a quiz later. Also, parts one, two and three. jc-06.05.08
I won't be able to read a word but that doesn't keep me from lusting after A Concise Account of Typography by Pytor Kolomnin. jc-06.02.08
The sad thing is, I had this same idea once, but my implementation was way lamer. bb-05.30.08
Cinematypography. Via Swiss Legacy. dw-05.30.08
Face to Face interview with Swedish typographer Stefan Hattenbach. jc-05.29.08
The Ministry of Type on Fraktur mon Amour, a blackletter compendium. jc-05.28.08
The Finger is Oded Ezer's new typographic art project, an imaginary landscape of Hebrew letters. Sweet. jc-05.27.08
"Analogy is a typographic clock which explores the numerical and spatial qualities of digital and analogue clocks." From designer Jesson Yip. ms-05.27.08
Show your love, the San Serif tee. Arial not included. ms-05.20.08
Everything you could want to know about the corporate identity of Fabrica Italiana Automobili Torino from Cartype. jc-05.19.08
Fontstruct (reg. req.), a new project by FontShop. Thanks, Paz, for reminding me to test it out! se-05.12.08
In case you need to typeset any British roadway signs this weekend, the typefaces are available. jc-05.10.08
For SD, Apostrophe Atrophy. dw-05.05.08
The One Day Poem Pavilion by Jiyeon Song. jc-05.05.08
A promotional brochure for the typeface Haas Unica, developed to "correct" common issues with Helvetica and create what The Ministry of Type calls "the ultimate archetypal sans serif." jc-05.05.08
"...the only thing I was sure of was that I didn't want a real job. I had this idea that I would do lettering for people and they would pay me for it." An interview with Jim Parkinson. jc-05.02.08
Refound while looking for something else. The typography of Santa Monica apartment building names. Groovy. jc-04.28.08
JSM's photos from a walking tour of New York City typography with Tobias Frere-Jones. jc-04.28.08
Gorgeous vintage type specimen sheets of "Vette Annonce" from Lettergieterij 'Amsterdam' (Amsterdam Type Foundry). Be sure to click through all the pics. se-04.24.08
So you know, A guide to web typography. ms-04.24.08
INVDR's Fontbots. bb-04.22.08
Kris Sowersby's Hardys is a typeface created for Constellation Wines of Australia. It's beautiful, but unavailable for licensing until 2011. Aw. Check the sketchbooks while you're on the KLIM site too. jc-04.19.08
Cameron Moll and Veer's Justin Lafontaine on techniques for designing with type characters. (Thanks for using our work as a reference.) jc-04.15.08
A potential typographic FOTA, Soho Gothic, has just been released, complete with a very odd video promo. (And would the video be different if they had sketched things out using Field Notes? ) se-04.15.08
Typesites features our Seed Conference site. Thanks for that. jc-04.15.08
So you know. A brief history of the ampersand. jc-04.14.08
See how smarty pants you are by playing the Rather Difficult Font Game. via MeFi. ms-04.14.08
Adventures in Kerning, Part II by Mr. Hoefler. jc-04.09.08
The taxonomy of animal logos from Corey Holms, creator of the Sony PSP typeface Passport and many other things. jc-04.08.08
"...really wanted a hamburger after this." Linzie Hunter's Lettering Sketchbooks. jc-04.08.08
A font for hipsters. ms-04.08.08
Great, long piece for your weekend reading by Jean Francois Porchez on the development of the Paris Metro typography. Thanks Anil. jc-04.04.08
A Logo Is Worth 1000 Words. Zagat looks at the way in which Louise Fili approaches restaurant logo and menu design. se-04.03.08
"I produced a series of A3 posters displaying upper and lower case 72pt. Halbfett Haas Grotesk in one colour and upper and lower case 72pt. Halbfett Helvetica in another." Cha-ching. Via The Helvetica blog. jc-04.02.08
"On April 1, 1977 the Guardian published a seven-page supplement devoted to the previously unknown island state of San Serriffe." Typography humor, via I Like and 30gms. sd-03.31.08
Thanks for asking Allan, it's Hoefler Text, who I have been seeing on and off for years after a torrid affair some time ago. jc-03.31.08
David Earls and Yves Peters have brought back Typographer.org. Bookmark immediately. jc-03.30.08
"Grammar nazis are so last century. Welcome, friends, to the brave new world of the typography nazi." Christopher Phin on the ten typographic mistakes everyone makes. jc-03.29.08
The Type Directors Club announce the 2008 TDC2 winning entries. ms-03.29.08
Tapewriter, a "fence font" by Autobahn from Holland. Via Design et Typo. jc-03.27.08
Tasty 3D type treats. jc-03.24.08
ABC3D, an alphabet popup book by Marion Bataille. dw-03.21.08
Missed this somehow. Atlantic Mag video interview with Michael Bierut about typography and lots more to accompany an article about typography by Virginia Postrel. jc-03.18.08
Nick Sherman's detailed and illustrated proposal for a Senior Degree Project, A Modern Day Specimen Book. Given how smart this is, it's too bad he didn't pursue one of his other ideas, "Development of typographer trading cards." Clipped from Quipped. jc-03.18.08
What do the ABCs look like in your country? se-03.18.08
The Type Junkie. jc-03.17.08
For MS, who was having a frustrating day with them yesterday: Typographic Expression of Anger. Via bblinks. sd-03.11.08
Type 2007, Typographica's fourth annual review of new typeface design. jc-03.07.08
The Making of Champion Script Pro. bb-03.04.08
Whip-smart, simple animation by Philippe Apeloig featuring the New York Times' Style Magazine "T" mark. Via Design et Typo. jc-02.28.08
Gelvetica, Tomatica and Heldentica. jc-02.27.08
Hoefler & Frere-Jones, who are responsible for Obama's favorite typeface, comment on the type chosen by Hillary and McCain. Via Design Observer. se-02.26.08
Time to check back in with the Folk Typography pool over on Flickr. Check this and this. And then there's this. And this. se-02.25.08
The Meek FM Typographic Synthesizer. Via Technabob. jc-02.23.08
Make sure you don't choose the wrong typeface for your gravestone. se-02.20.08
Ironic Sans advances our typographic vocabulary. jc-02.20.08
Comic Sans? Helvetica? Take the quiz and find out your font type. ms-02.15.08
Thanks to Kyle over at Typesites for the nice review. ms-02.04.08
"Friendly without being silly." Archer from Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Cha-ching. jc-01.29.08
Twenty-Six Types of Animals, via Chris Glass. se-01.28.08
Photographer Kjell Sandved has made it his life's work to capture this butterfly wing alphabet. se-01.22.08
"Round drill bits can't cut square corners." This long, fascinating essay on the design and production of wood type by Nick Sherman is full of illustrations and insights. jc-01.22.08
Playing to Type by Virginia Postrel. jc-01.22.08
Tipografia. ms-01.18.08
Early-phase stamp design production material from Bradbury Thompson's typeshop, Photo-Lettering Inc. So cool. Via House Industries. jc-01.18.08
Black Slabbath at Octane. Via Monoscope. jc-01.18.08
Jonathan Hoefler writes, "Found in a London bookseller's, perhaps the greatest book cover in the history of civilization, or at least the winner for best unintended irony." jc-01.16.08
Look Ma, no counters! Speak Up on type trends. jc-01.16.08
Recess! Time to go play on the Playground. se-01.10.08
Some nifty design from Citroen, circa the 60's. se-01.10.08
The Atlantic talks typography with Michael Bierut. Want more? Check out Michael in the brilliant film Helvetica. ms-01.10.08
Coversourcing is a competition to design a book jacket for Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing. Personally, I'm voting for this one. anw-01.09.08
15 great examples of web typography. The list includes some familiar names. ms-01.07.08
Nice photo set of type specimen books from the Hamilton Wood Type Museum. ms-01.05.08
Helvetica Never Goes Out of Style. You can get the t-shirt here. But if you really love Helvetica, you should buy the movie. It's seriously fantastic. ms-01.04.08
Lovely little Flickr set of Bauhaus Weimar typography. ms-12.28.07
And today we look at a short history of German graphic design. ms-12.20.07
All you new-look University of Kansas haters: Check out "Trajan is the Movie Font." bb-12.14.07
A nice sampling of the typographic work of Alan Kitching. jc-12.12.07
Abbott and Costello's famous "Who's On First" routine using typography only. ms-12.11.07
Great photoset of typography around Substations in Sydney. ms-12.05.07
"Of my earliest ancestry neither history nor relics remain. The wedge-shaped symbols impressed in plastic clay by Babylonian builders in the dim past foreshadowed me: from them, on through the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians, down to the beautiful manuscript letters of the medieval scribes, I was in the making." Welcome to The Cavendish Gallery of Print and Typography. ms-12.04.07
Typographic Decay. jc-12.01.07
"I, For One, Welcome Our New Robotic Calligraphers." jc-12.01.07
Art of the Business Card - a really nice collection of ideas. se-11.30.07
Time to check back in on Lettermade. se-11.28.07
Opening titles for the recent Typophile Film Festival, created by BYU Graphic Design Students. Via Designer Daily. jc-11.28.07
Yes, the alphabet can be taught with an eye for design. Just get a Typeseat poster for the nursery. The alphabet created out of classic modern chairs, fab. ms-11.26.07
Lovely typographic posters from Tauba Auerbach. ms-11.14.07
For MS (don't ask): Hobo Signs & Symbols. bb-11.12.07
More from Jonathan Hoefler on CamelCase, The One Ill Building. jc-11.06.07
AceJet talks us through the humpy, bumpy world of CamelCase. pp-11.06.07
"...to pick an argument with something that is akin to a typographic national monument might appear unwise." Ben Archer says Eric Gill got it wrong. jc-11.05.07
Wish I were in San Francisco tonight for the Typophile Film Festival 4, promising "typographic eye candy" as well as exclusive cuts from Gary Hustwit's Helvetica. se-10.25.07
A T-Shirt for Vanna. That's a weird list of typefaces, apparently there's some sort of Egiziano craze going on. bb-10.15.07
Vanna White digs Helvetica and its imitators, Pat Sajak can't name any fonts. Via DF. bb-10.15.07
Pinned, mounted and displayed handwriting. Via Reaction. bm-10.05.07
Holigraphic titles extrordonaire. bm-10.02.07
Edouard Hoffmann. (Swiss) and Max Miedinger. (Swiss, 1910-1980). Helvetica Bold, 36 point. 1956-1957. Lead and wood tray. Via Airbag. jc-10.02.07
Ping Mag has a great interview with "information architect" Erik Spiekermann. Mr. Spiekermann talks about typography in the fabulous Helvetica. Do yourself a favor and buy the DVD. It's fantastic. ms-09.27.07
"...subverting, ignoring, and actively destroying a special typographic heritage - quite an achievement considering that the type involved is almost a foot high and permanently sandblasted into subway walls." Inscribed in the Living Tile, by Joe Clark. jc-09.17.07
Marian Bantjes' typographic art for the latest Saks Fifth Avenue campaign is everywhere. Also, check her limited-edition for the Swap Meat, Click me. Read me. Open me. Buy me. Love me. jc-09.17.07
Hoefler & Frere-Jones launch an all new typography.com. se-09.05.07
Ray Fenwick makes things, most of them involve lettering. Via Doug Wilson. jc-09.05.07
The Nonist on the art of master hand-engraver Steve Lindsay including a beautiful video of letterforms being sculpted out of metal. A must see. jc-08.31.07
Regarding the DF/CP investigation, these things matter. "It's Futura Extra Bold," explains Tony. "It was Stanley's favourite typeface. It's sans serif. He liked Helvetica and Univers, too. Clean and elegant." "Is this the kind of thing you and Kubrick used to discuss?" I ask. "God, yes," says Tony. "Sometimes late into the night." jc-08.23.07
The acknowledged master of the form, John Langdon, talks about ambigrams, typographic logo marks that read the same forwards, backwards or upside down. jc-08.22.07
The Serif's readers interview Eric Olson, proprietor of Process Type Foundry, creators of the excellent Seravek family. jc-08.20.07
Peacay writes, "Check Cláudio Gil's La Grafía, a calligraphy blog from Brazil. It's worth scanning back through the archives.'jc-08.17.07
Now you can pre-order a DVD of Gary Hustwit's terrific documentary Helvetica, or reserve a handsome limited-edition box set containing mini-posters, buttons, a photo print, and a metal-type letter. Drool. bb-08.14.07
A video peek inside Paula Scher's Sketchbook. jc-08.13.07
Highway signage and new typography. The Road to Clarity by Joshua Yaffa in the NYT Mag. jc-08.13.07
The Fonts of Summer. jc-08.03.07
There's a lot to like about this Adanac Dingbat set eh? Via Nag on the Lake. jc-08.03.07
AQ chats with Eric Olson of Process Type Foundry about his excellent Klavika. jc-08.02.07
Hello, I'd like you to meet Dan Rhatigan's new typeface Gina (pdf), via The Serif. bb-07.31.07
Viennese art magazine named after the single typeface that is used in each issue. Sweet. Via Another Company. jc-07.31.07
To Ellen, regarding the "Blind Boxes" headline. C'est Didot, de H&FJ. jc-07.30.07
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Helvetica, the Design Museum is hosting The 50 Exhibition. Related, don't miss Helvetica, A Documentary. when it comes your way. It's fabulous. ms-07.25.07
Toypography by Kokuyo. Via Jean Snow. sd-07.24.07
A three word summation of pretty much everything we know about design can be found in this video of a visit to Typography School at the London College of Printing. "Delete the non-essential." jc-07.19.07
Non-geeks ignore. An attempt to improve text rasterization algorithms using only publicly available information, Texts Rasterization Exposures by Maxim Shemanarev. Great. Via Joel on Software. jc-07.14.07
Type the Sky. Very cool. se-07.12.07
The slides and script from a Mark Simonson talk on typographer Adrian Frutiger. Download the presentation, required reading. jc-07.06.07
"...to give dignity and simplicity to the pages on which man records his dreams." A 1942 PopSci article on Frederic Goudy and how he worked. jc-06.30.07
Henry Cline sent us over his collection of apartment name typography in Santa Monica. You can just imagine the fun you'd be having if you lived at someplace like The Tropika. sd-06.26.07
A lot on soccer jersey design and a little bit on soccer jersey typography. jc-06.25.07
I am not a car person, but I am a type person, and there's a lot to appreciate about Cartype by FoTA Carlos Segura. Check out the Fiat logo study or these vintage decal sets. se-06.23.07
Designer/typographer Marian Bantjes just sent us a Swap Meat Exclusive that will be available for sale shortly. Marian, Ross Mills, and Shelley Gruendler will be the instructors at Type Camp in British Columbia this August. "Kern, 2, 3, 4, Kern, 2, 3, 4!" bb-06.21.07
A handful of authors name their favorite typefaces, even favorite fonts, for composing. se-06.21.07
Charles Front's original handlettered "Rubber Soul" type is up for auction today. Via The Serif. bb-06.20.07
Expensive, all natural type specimens from the island of Java? Yes. These cabochons have been cut from large pieces of agate containing iron-stained fractures... What? Go look. bk-06.20.07
The Fontself newsmaker demo generates live news headlines using hand drawn fonts. The ideas behind the demo. jc-06.19.07
AnyType, a photoset of found typography from Peter Bruhn of Fountain. Via Serif. jc-06.19.07
Oded Ezer's "Tybrid." Four 50cm squares combined together to form the Hebrew word for 'Typography'. Beautiful. jc-06.11.07
A great little collaborative experiment from Ben Munson, This Day in Type, A Typographical Calendar. Check the archives by month too. jc-06.05.07
OK, I'm stumped, what is the purpose of the Unicode character "Double High-Reversed-9 Quotation Mark?" bb-05.31.07
An ongoing project that aims to document, appreciate, and recontextualize our vernacular letterforms and typography. "To this end, in 2002 I took a 15,000+ mile road trip across the United States." Via Mira y Calla. vp-05.30.07
Every so often someone shouts out a question about the interrobang. jc-05.29.07
Municipal subway systems employing bespoke typography. Clipped from Quipped. jc-05.29.07
Jeff Croft's presentation on web typography (pdf). Via Smashing Magazine. vp-05.24.07
"The main vertical wave (called vf on the FFT image) is a line increment; diagonal waves correspond to various repeated font features. The waves can be seen more clearly by emphasizing each one individually, dimming other frequencies and superimposing the picture of the individual wave with the original text." Awesome typographic geekery by Sergei Egorov. Aldine Italic in Fourier Plane. jc-05.22.07
A refreshingly candid appraisal of a major font release from Thomas Phinney, "I'm also pleased to be able to say that I think I have achieved my primary goal of making Hypatia Sans not suck. For a long time in the early stages of development, I couldn't shake the sense that some part of it sucked." jc-05.22.07
The Dainippon Type Organization has created a wooden block toy for mini Mienigers, diddy Didots and baby Baskervilles. Called Toypography, the english word can be reformed to Japanese expressions of the same meaning. Or you can just muck about. Via 30gms, vp-05.21.07
Local note. Tickets for a series of screenings, starting on June 15th, of Helvetica: The Film at the Siskel Film Center just went on sale. Better get on it. jc-05.18.07
Andrew writes, "House in Progress came across an interesting book among the piles of stuff left behind by the previous owners of their bungalow: 60 Alphabets ...and here's a font that was patterned off one in that book." jc-05.18.07
No, There Are Not Enough Typefaces Already. Via Design Observer. jc-05.14.07
Lego Font Creator by Jürg Lehni, Urs Lehni & Rafael Koch. jc-05.08.07
Moon type is a writing system for the blind that uses embossed symbols. It is claimed to be easier to understand than Braille. In any case I find it to have a nice clean cut, and a sense of abstraction. Via Diane.mar's del.icio.us. vp-05.07.07
Justin Quinn makes beautiful typographic compositions, many of which resemble concrete poems, using strings of printed or drawn characters. He restricts himself exclusively to "e," lower and upper case. vp-05.03.07
Lettermade. "Aimed at documenting, appreciating and recontextualizing vernacular letterforms and typography." Sweet. jc-04.30.07
Shawn Hazen, "I'm a graphic designer, and I can't help but snap pictures of cool or quirky type. And there's plenty of it in Chicago." Via The DDC. jc-04.28.07
"These guys from the drawing office referred to themselves as 'letter drawers.' I like this term very much also. It has an elemental sound and appeal to me. So, I like to see myself as a letter drawer." Steven Heller interviews Cyrus Highsmith for AIGA. jc-04.26.07
So you know. Which German corporations use which typefaces. jc-04.26.07
Interesting map of London made entirely of type. se-04.25.07
An audio discussion about a typographic phenomenon. Cristina Paoli talks about Mexican Blackletter on PRI's The World. se-04.23.07
Magne Furuholmen, Oslo. Via Uppercase. jc-04.12.07
1+1=3's 37 Years of Eternity. Amazing story. sd-04.10.07
New limited-edition Zapf book, starring his new Palatino Nova and Sans. bb-04.09.07
A intricate single-use typeface created by Seth Ferris for a poster promoting a Takeshi Murata show. jc-04.05.07
The very latest from Veer Merch. "Ruled throughout with additional quotes in unobtrusive 3 pt. type." Set in Helvetica, of course. This would be a fine place to write a draft of your movie review. jc-04.04.07
"Based on Kurt Shwitters "Thesis on Typography," this is a meld of stop-motion and motion-graphic typography all with influences pouring in from the Dada movement. The underlying idea is that the over-use of graphical elements in a typographical piece may cause the content to become unreadable." "Thèse sur la Typographie" by Julien Vallée. jc-03.19.07
Akzidenz Grotesk, the music video. Clipped from Quipped. jc-03.13.07
Ninety-Five Lessons in Ornamental Penmanship by C.W. Jones, 1914. Via Gravestmor. jc-03.12.07
Idea magazine #321 is a special issue, devoted to the works of Jan Tschichold Cha-ching. jc-03.05.07
A lovely post from Peacay on dictionary iconography and the iconophor, "an iconic letter together with surrounding pictures that start with that letter." jc-03.01.07
There is almost nothing that will bring a designer more unrestrained joy than spending an hour setting imaginary porn star names in Bookman Swash Italic. The winners of Michele's One With Everything Puzzler have been posted. jc-02.27.07
So perfect. Design et Typo recently posted about the variety and personalities of various versions of the typeface Garamond. [translate] Today, with a lovely metaphor and a sublime demonstration, Peter enhances the point using the cello, As Many Differences as Between Two Drawings of Garamond. Me? #2, Yo-Yo Ma. jc-02.23.07
Grow your own typeface. Via 30gms. sd-02.23.07
Manuale Typographicum by Hermann Zapf, beautifully organized specimens from 1954. Posted by Peter Gabor, proprietor of the excellent Design et Typo. jc-02.20.07
"I have a framed poster that hangs above my desk." Me too. Garrett Dimon thoughtful post on Designing for Content and Mr Tufte. jc-02.16.07
It's not worth explaining why, but here's a nice big five. jc-02.15.07
A Brief History of the Stenso Lettering Company and all the sets. We pinched the link from Aaron and agree wholeheartedly when he says "Great. Great. Great." jc-02.13.07
Samuel Bebbington's Frequency of Use Typeface. "...based on each letters frequency of use in the English dictionary, letters with the same frequency are paired by colour." Via Swissmiss. sd-02.06.07
Update. The excellent illustrated interview with typographer Jeremy Tankard linked earlier in the week has now been posted in English too. Thanks Peter and Jonathan. jc-01.26.07
"Transported from Europe to the New World, blackletter was subtly reshaped by indigenous influences. No better is this illustrated than in Mexico." The Mexican Blackletter Typographic Tradition, by Christina Paoli. Via Michael Preidel. jc-01.26.07
"What would it look like if 255 people wrote the same letter in the same place?" Jeff Weir's The Collective Type Project. jc-01.23.07
Design et Typo interview with Jeremy Tankard about type, process and specifically his stellar new typeface, Inuit. Unfortunately, the machine translation is mediocre at best, but you'll still get the idea. Here's some info on the commissioned font itself and Tankard's own site plus a nice PDF on Inuit. jc-01.23.07
"In the summer of 2004, on a day trip to Brighton, I found a stone in the shape of the letter B. We spent the rest of the day searching for the rest of the alphabet." The Brighton Typeface. sd-01.21.07
Kirjaoskus Estonian Typography gallery. I. II. III. Courtesy of Peacay. jc-01.17.07
Typeface of the moment. Cyrus Highsmith's Antenna family. jc-01.10.07
Typemuseum. Great resource, in German, but the browsing needs no translation. Via Paul Corrigan's Stampkit, dedicated to "just about anything that leaves a mark." jc-01.10.07
Custom typeface, Gorgonbox, created by Capacity for a spot project. So sweet. Check their showreel too. jc-01.09.07
Digit feature by Neil Bennett on type in motion. jc-01.09.07
15 Tips to Choose Good Type. Via Andy Rutledge. sd-01.02.07
More required reading. "Tschichold's classicism is reductive. And precise in a way that 18th or 19th century typography wouldn't be. You can tell the difference between a piece of Tschichold's work in the 50s, even though it's using all the furniture of the 18th century you can tell that it's not the 18th century. You can tell that it's after modernism. You can see the difference. And I loved it." This interview with Peter Saville. jc-12.29.06
Ray Fenwick makes things, most of them involve lettering. jc-12.27.06
We've linked their "Forty-Eight Posters" by studio hero Josef Müller-Brockmann before and it's worth a visit if you haven't seen it. The other exhibition they're showing at the site for Dublin's Image Now Gallery is spectacular too, "One: An Exhibition in Mono." jc-12.27.06
I would never impose a career in design on a helpless infant, but if your tot is marking kerning instructions in her copy of "Hop on Pop," these Modern Alphabet Flashcards may help. Thanks, Jill. bb-12.18.06
"The very first interview with the typeface Helvetica. This is the first episode from a new series of interviews where Typeradio travels around the world to meet typefaces and to talk to them." Awesome. jc-12.13.06
Ping's fantastic report on Iranian Typography. sd-12.12.06
City of Sound on Typotecture, typography as architectural imagery. jc-12.04.06
"Therefore I needed an office right next to my home. The only way to have that, was a room in the garden." German typographer Hubert Jocham's new office and his lovely porfolio of fonts including a fave, NewJune. Via Typographica. jc-12.04.06
The Nonist reintroduces us to calligrapher Hella Basu. Oh my. Then, Peacay adds a link in the comments to the "performance calligraphy" of Denis Brown. A great start to the day. jc-11.30.06
Israeli typographer Oded Ezer has created Typosperma. "...to create some sort of new transgenic creatures, half (human) sperm, half letter." Hmmm. jc-11.28.06
Dr. Leslie & The Composing Room. Via Speak Up. jc-11.21.06
The A List. Via Make Ready. jc-11.17.06
Typography from light and shadows and other works by Fred Eerdekens. Via Newstoday. jc-11.08.06
If you're trying to capture the mood of a previously successful film it will probably help to capture the visual identity too. The collateral material for The Good German is typographically schizophrenic. See the landing page and the trailer for two more completely different lock-ups. jc-10.26.06
Spiekermann answers a tough question, "What is the one thing you think every student of typography should know?" jc-10.26.06
Nejib Belhadj Kacem, "You can watch here the video-alphabets I created." Via Design et Typo. jc-09.29.06
We seem to be in the midst of a "bevy of ball terminals" these days, typographically speaking. They've certainly been piling up on my desktop lately. se-09.19.06
Type ID Pop Quiz V2.1, Because the old "Type ID Pop Quiz was too hard and only fun for obsessed type nuts." From Bram. all-09.07.06
Part 3 of Peter Gabor's excellent illustrated series on Edward M. Gottschall's Typographic Communications Today is up at Design et Typo. [translate] Spend some time in the archives too, especially those posts where Peter opens up a book and flips through it for us. jc-08.31.06
"Out of the kindness of my heart, I've honored their last requests for final showings. Let's put these faces to rest." Via Stylegala. dw-08.25.06
"Just for fun, I've decided to share my first published writing on the subject of typography. It appeared in the April 19, 1977, issue of Metropolis, the Weekly Newspaper of Minneapolis." Let's Talk Type! Via Chris Glass. sd-08.11.06
Milk, butter, eggs, swashy ligatures... FontShop goes to the supermarket. jc-08.10.06
Helvetica, a documentary film by Gary Hustwit. Via Typographica. Not to start another contest or anything but how about The Sword and the Stone Serif or Back to the Futura Extra Bold Condensed? jc-08.08.06
A long, thoughtful, illustrated survey of Painters and Letters at Design et Typo. [Translated] jc-08.07.06
A recent discussion about robbing the typographic past to design the present notwithstanding, I really want to find a place to use this 1970 Dodge Charger brochure as a reference for something. Tons more where that came from at The Old Car Manual Project. jc-08.04.06
30's film of Frederic Goudy creating a typeface. Part of a series of films at TypeCulture. Via, the always observent JSM. jc-07.27.06
Typographicus Rex. jc-07.19.06
Matthew Carter and his Georgia. jc-07.18.06
"As a way to train the eye, we suggest that designers (and customers) take their own photo and distort it along with the font. When the distortions become visible on the face, it's time you stop disfiguring the font." This sound advice from Artemy Lebedev reminds me of a fave CP quote by we-don't-remember-who about computer typesetting. "Just because you can make your headline into the shape of a fish doesn't mean you should make your headline into the shape of a fish." jc-07.17.06
We like to check in on the Folk Typography Pool now and again. se-07.11.06
Shock of the Neue: Graffiti Fonts By Graffiti Writers by Ping Mag. sd-06.30.06
Jeremy Tankard was commissioned by Arjowiggins to create a new typeface to accompany a new line of uncoated papers. The result is the modern and lyrical Inuit. The 'making of' Flash presentation is spectacular, as is the final product. Not available for sale yet, but we have our credit card out already. jc-06.30.06
Verlag, a new sans serif from Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Based on originals commissioned by The Guggenheim, the whole set is sweet but the lighter weights are sublime. Cha-ching. jc-06.14.06
Design et Typo posts pictures of the new, French typography magazine Ink, from Patrick Lallemand and Pierre Delmas Bouly. Darn, sold-out already. jc-06.13.06
America's big green highway signs are about to become more legible. jc-06.07.06
Itchy Robot's Found Typography. Via Make Ready. jc-06.07.06
"Dude, why so many ligatures. Are you crazy?" Pochoir, a new stencil font from Jan Gerner, well-thought out and nicely executed. Via Make Ready. jc-06.05.06
Rudy VanderLans' excellent 1996 article at the newly redesigned Emigre, Copping an Attitude, on digital typography and its discontents. jc-06.05.06
If discussions about French punctuational convention and its propriety in an non style-guided American academic text isn't your idea of fun, then never mind. jc-05.23.06
Need some silence, empathy, or just a little pause? A bit of sustainable innovation? Well, all of those are now on sale - at the FLOWinstitute's FLOWmarket. Open up a can of unconditional love. gm-05.22.06
Kevin Kelly discusses the literary fate, technical strategy, and long-term consequences of scanning and digitizing every printed book: NYT Magazine. gm-05.14.06
'Tis the season: Fonts on Football Jerseys. sd-05.12.06
Pretty much everything typographic. Via Typographica jc-05.10.06
John Langdon's title designs for The Da Vinci Code won't be used in the film, but he certainly put some time and thought into them. Via Stan. jc-05.08.06
Sketchbook on the Book: Isaiah 40. Plotting text on a topo map. Make sure to download the project and mess with it. Beautiful. Other experiments can be found at Chronotext. Via Bibliodyssey. jc-05.08.06
Found on the way to somewhere else, "Type, Lettering, and Calligraphy, 1830-1940 (and Beyond)," James Mosley's fine preliminary reading list for a course at Virginia. jc-05.08.06
PDF of the Daily Racing Form's Derby Past Performance Charts, which have always struck me as an arcane but efficient and lovable example of information design and typography. jc-05.05.06
Can't resist the pun or the frosty letterforms. I Only Have Ice for You. Via our partner in the Dear Cell Phone User cards and other things, Mister Draplin. jc-04.25.06
Found while hunting for something else. A nice collection of comic fonts and lettering. Via Botched. jc-04.25.06
"If you've ever bought a raffle ticket or been handed a claim check you've likely experienced crash numbering first hand." Crash Numbering Kit, free from PSY/OPS. Via WDIK. jc-04.24.06
Mark Simonson's article Let's Talk Type! is not at all recent, and that's the charm. jc-04.05.06
Veer rounds up this years' typography-related April Fools' jokes. It's a beautiful thing to live in a world where typography-related April Fools' jokes are plentiful enough to need rounding up. bb-04.03.06
"I must say that it was the first book I ever read in English and it took me about six months to finish. But I then became very curious about the Latin alphabet and I taught myself western calligraphy." A very thorough interview with Akira Kobayashi in Ping. sd-03.24.06
Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography. Be sure to visit the gallery. Via Speak Up. jc-03.20.06
Sunday afternoon research for a super-secret project finds Typebox's fine, quick, illustrated survey, Typographic History at a Glance. I'm glad to have found this while searching but I actually found my answer another way. I asked Mark Simonson. jc-03.19.06
Stephen at Typographica sends this photo set to accompany, Auto Type, the one we linked to the other day. Here's Chromeography. sd-03.15.06
So you know. The underappreciated and misunderstood Swung Dash. From an Antipixel post. jc-03.15.06
Photo set of the moment: Auto Type. Via Byrdhouse. sd-03.10.06
Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality Traits and Uses. jc-03.09.06
& jc-03.08.06
Bennet Holzworth of Be A Design Group shares a nice shot of his collection of wood type, but even better than that, who can resist a big ol' beautiful scan of the alphabet? Via El Burlador. jc-03.08.06
e-a-t (experiment and typography) out of the Czech and Slovak Republics. jc-03.04.06
Caligraft, crafting new computational calligraphies. pk-03.01.06
Following up on last weeks' Bradbury Thompson thread, Stephen points out that Sol Hess' Bodoni No. 26 is a closer interpretation of Alphabet 26 than Filosofia. Thanks! bb-02.27.06
People who like this sort of thing will find this exactly the sort of thing they like. 18 Monospace fonts comparison screenshot. jc-02.22.06
I don't believe there's a digital version of Alphabet 26, but IIRC, Zuzana Licko claimed it as an inspiration for her Filosofia Unicase family. bb-02.20.06
What the article below doesn't really make clear is Alphabet 26 was created in 1950, making it that much more ahead of its time. Bradbury Thompson was kind enough to allow me to interview him for an hour or so when I was a student (I'll look for that interview), and I count him among my biggest design heroes. bb-02.20.06
"It is misleading for a letter, or for any graphic symbol, to have two different designs. Confusion might set in when school children are taught to recognize words even before they have learned to recognize different symbols for the same letter. To remedy this, Alphabet 26, a plan based upon the logic of consistency, proposed that of the 19 letters that have dissimilar symbols 15 letters should use the uppercase designs and 4 letters should use the lowercase designs. The other 7 letters already have identical symbols." jc-02.20.06
Newsdesigner has sample pages and a quick interview with the Creative Director behind the new Sunday LA Times Magazine, West. jc-02.09.06
Regarding wood type Mike writes, "Briar Press is a really beautiful web site devoted to letterpress, and they even have free, antique ornament woodcuts for download. Lovely, just lovely I tell ya." jc-02.03.06
Wood Type Impressions. Multiple versions of a variety of letterforms, fonts and characters as hi-res tifs. Plus, a superb links list of topical resources. jc-02.03.06
Ricard Marxer Pinon's computational calligraphies explore how particles swim around the edges of serifs, among other things. kb-02.02.06
Cristina Paoli's Blackletter in Mexico project. Via Speak Up. jc-01.30.06
"These were geeks, yes, but type geeks. They hold a special place in this town." jc-01.28.06
A.R.K is an anthology of projects designed by Atelier René Knip. Turn the book over and it becomes A.B.C, a specimen of alphabets made for those projects. Brilliant. Catalouge of images from the book here. jc-01.27.06
The Folk Typography Photo Pool. Sweet. jc-01.27.06
Cool new game at Typophile, Type Battle, this week set the word 'battle' as a slab-serif blackletter. jc-01.21.06
A tasty peek at Fontsmith's custom typeface for ITV. Via Design Observer. jc-01.19.06
"...a possible, but extremely unlikely font choice." jc-01.19.06
New from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Numbers. Great, great idea. jc-01.17.06
A new Chip Kidd interview in which he describes his dream to design the cover for Ulysses. tmn-01.13.06
Type Something. jc-01.11.06
Typographica's Fave Fonts of 2005 Part 1. jc-01.06.06
The gallery of calligrapher and typographer Mouneer Al-Shaárani. Spectacular. Via La Cueva. jc-12.23.05
Typeface: Baskerville Old Style Music: Notorious B.I.G. Via Design Observer. jc-12.15.05
Interview with Gerrit Noordzij by Robin Kinross. "I always thought about letter-making as a child already. When I was about two or three years old I tried to copy the letters of a newspaper, at the edge of the newspaper itself. At that time the margins of newspapers were much bigger than now, and you could really draw on them." Plus a partial draft translation from The Stroke. jc-12.12.05
"If, in some bizarre alternate history, chatspeak abbreviations like LOL had become popular long before there were computers and character sets, they might have, over time, become new symbols," An amusing exercise at Typophile. jc-11.22.05
For jw: "When Japanese authors are appraising the merits of different objects, they often use geometric symbols like circles and triangles." sd-11.15.05
Emigre is dead. Long Live Emigre. jc-11.09.05
"Andrade" is a new, beautiful serif font from Dino Dos Santos, plus his "Dione," designed in 2003, is now available at MyFonts for just $50. Cha-ching. Via Slanted. jc-11.09.05
Mister Aitch on The Architectonisches Alphabeth of Johann David Steingruber. "Some letters make for more conventional buildings than others." jc-11.09.05
Public Lettering: A Walk in Central London has been updated. Via Speak Up. jc-10.31.05
For All Seasons. "A piece about memories, seasons and using the elements of the textual representation of the memory to create an interactive one." Winner of the 2005 Grand Prix from the Tokyo Type Directors. jc-10.20.05
DB Type, new typography for the German railway system. mf-10.18.05
Mr. Aitch on Johann Theodor de Bry's 1595 Neiw Kunstliches Alphabet. jc-10.14.05
I'm a serial monogamist when it comes to dating typefaces but if you're looking to play around a bit, check The Personals, a typographic dating game. jc-10.12.05
Test your mad kerning skillz. mf-10.11.05
House Industries Show and Tell. jc-10.07.05
Mark Simonson's Son of Typcasting, in which the author evaluates and describes the period authenticity of type choices in the art direction of films. This time, it's the truly awful Gangs of New York that gets the treatment and three out of five stars for use of type. jc-10.07.05
Mark Simonson's Typographica post on the ITC release of Avant Garde Gothic Pro. Slanting aint tilting or to put it another way, "it's not that simple, especially if one wants to do it right." Amen to that. jc-10.05.05
Excuse me, sir, do you have a license for that Helvetica Compressed? Via Microsoft Typography. mf-10.05.05
A conversation about Walker Expanded, "a new graphic identity that functions as a typeface but instead of bold and italic fonts is grouped into related words, or vocabularies, and repeating patterns.": jc-09.21.05
The typography of Chicagoan Silas Dilworth. His eponymous new family will be available soon and we'll be first in line. Thanks Ant. jc-09.13.05
Versa Small Caps Light is the OurType 'bonus font of the month,' which means it's free. That's a nice thing but even if you don't want or need it, you should check out the mechanics of the site and the super smart interface. jc-09.08.05
Detroit Street Typography, so that's where 'Old Miami' is. Via Airbag. jc-09.07.05
Lots of projects and experiments to peruse in the Typeworkshop archives. Check The Shining Type and Manual Pixelism to start. jc-08.25.05
Legibility in context and the development of type for highway signs, Euroface by Bügleichenhaus. "The Euroface project went far beyond testing of basic elements and signs... The 'professor Morozov legibility machine' was internationally introduced." jc-08.06.05
Mark Simonson is not the least bit oblique in this short essay on the subject of Fake vs. True Italics. Via Z. jc-07.29.05
"That 'R' is too small in the bowl, and too long in the leg." It's Type Week in NYC. [reg. req.] kg-07.23.05
You are tuned in to Typeradio this week from TypeCon in NYC, aren't you? Related: Veer's giving away two conference passes. jc-07.21.05
Big Huge Mess. is Jimmy Luu's trail of artifacts including Stairs, "what happens when type decides to run off the flatness of a page." jc-07.19.05
Fifteen years of type for independent minds. jc-07.18.05
The New York Times gives typographers some ink in today's Magazine. Mark Simonson gets a nod, among others. kg-07.17.05
e-a-t (experiment and typography) "is a project which reunites designers from the Czech and Slovak Republics. It is a platform to expose typographic work from both countires and acknowledges the fact that the Czech Republic and Slovakia were once a signle state." Lots of great pix and projects in an genius interface. Catalog available at Typotheque. jc-07.05.05
Proxima Sans Goes Nova. The latest offering from Mark Simonson is a comprehensive package of 42 fonts including a delicious, new condensed. jc-07.05.05
Cameron Zotter "decided to use his vehicles headlights to burn an image on film for a custom typeface." Via JK. jc-07.01.05
History and Future from Holzlettern (Wood Type) Manufaktur Hamburg. Check the spectacular gallery too. Via Slanted. jc-06.22.05
The Helvetica Meditations. jc-06.14.05
Download the previous issues of Czech Typography and Design Magazine, TYPO. Great resource. jc-06.09.05
Nice, well-executed concept for custom wall typography, Wonderful Graffiti. Of course, we have our own version. Via AWLN. jc-06.08.05
Sketchbook from five Russian typographers. Daily Type. Sweet. Via Typographica. jc-05.26.05
Comeback of the Year Award. Typophile. Phew. jc-05.09.05
Eagle-eyed typographers and game show junkies come together for an all-out battle royale. Via Unbeige. sd-03.23.05
Amaztype, a typographic book search tool. Cool. Thanks Rev. jc-03.16.05
Aha, why Mark Simonson hasn't been posting much lately. A nice-looking excuse. jc-03.12.05
"What is your work philosophy? The interpretation of a message should be direct, without delays caused by fancy typefaces, amputated letter-forms, and other ideas ignoring the necessity of legibility." An interview with Hermann Zapf. Amen. Via Chez Porchez. jc-03.07.05
Peter Bruhn from Fountain Type Foundry "purchased a beautiful type specimen, manufactured and signed by the good Frederic [Goudy], a Village Press type catalogue from 1914. The specimen shows the typefaces Kennerly, Forum Title, initial letters and some of Village Press own borders and florals." jc-03.05.05
RoboType is an interactive typographic project that's a gas to play with. Check the galleries too. Thanks to CP alum Jeff Pazen. jc-03.02.05
Manual Pixelism Lausanne, January 2005. "Judge the position of the modules with your own eye. Once you have defined your alphabet, go and apply your font into a manual, physical environment." Via Typographica. jc-02.28.05
My ideal Oscars pool would include a category where you guess which typeface will be featured on the broadcast this year. This year's winner was Mark Simonson's Mostra. se-02.28.05
"Small is more & less is beautiful." Yep. Thierry Puyfoulhoux's tiny foundry in the Alps, Présence Typo. jc-02.22.05
Typographica announces picks for the favorite fonts of 2004. sd-02.17.05
Newsdesigner was news to KG earlier in the week and now it's news to everyone else with a sharp redesign. Very fine. jc-02.16.05
Wow, how come you didn't tell me about this? A weblog devoted to one of my (many) freaky little side interests: newspaper design. Terrific content. And it looks great, too. kg-02.14.05
I have way too much work to do to even think about getting started with fooling around with this page full of awesomeness, Band Typography. OK, well, just a little bit, Du Du Duh. Via Stop Hitting Yourself. jc-02.11.05
A nice typographic summary on the hyphen, minus sign, en dash, em dash, macron and underscore for a snowy weekend, Dash It All from p22's excellent Terminal. jc-01.22.05
Mr. Aitch, proprietor of the incomparable Giornale Nuovo, posts an illustrated piece on figurative alphabets, calligrams contrived from human figures. Tangentially related is Max Bruinsma's essay, "The Erotics of Type". jc-01.21.05
One of my favorite type foundries, Underware adds a new face to their impressive collection. Say hello to Bello. av-12.16.04
"The best way to characterize Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976) is to say he was a pioneer, for he did pave way for new thinking and creativity, boldy trying things that today's generations consider quite natural." A spectacular catalog and overview of his design, typography and poster work. jc-12.10.04
Veer's top twenty best-selling fonts are all script faces. What's with that? Grant Hutchison chats a bit with Typographica about it. jc-11.29.04
Whaddya know? Just found out via an email that Ascender is in the Chicago area. Tons of typographic expertise there. jc-11.29.04
A Java based program, released at last month's Teach Me conference in Venice, that permits web users to type in a word, then change the weight, angle and dimensionality. via Typographica. av-11.19.04
Paula Scher: Type is Image. Via K10k. jc-11.18.04
"I try to be inspired from doing things and not thinking about doing them." An interview with Wolfgang Weingart at the Icelandic National Team. jc-11.09.04
House Industries releases The Ed Benguiat Font Collection which features "Artificial Ed-telligence (patent pending) to auto-magically juggle around otherwise similarly arranged letter combos for a more hand-done appearance." Great. jc-11.09.04
Fountain type foundry has been on a hot streak with their latest releases. Designer Sefan Hattenbach recently released Delicato and Stalemate making me all warm and giddy inside. av-10.29.04
The Federal Govenment has finally given interim approval for Clearview to be used on all Federal roads. av-10.27.04
How to use a Speedball Pen. Great mini-doc from a workshop by John Downer. Via Typographica. jc-10.25.04
Help save the "unique, priceless testimony of the history of the written form:" the the Imprimerie Nationale Petition. From Veer. bb-10.13.04
Not exactly sure how we missed this article when it was first published but Inscriptions in the Catacombs of Paris from the Porchez Typofonderie Gazette is fascinating. jc-10.12.04
LL Bint, A Potato Stamp Typeface. Now that is one HOT potato... lovely. av-10.11.04
"If you were to climb up on your desk, walk around behind your monitor and lean way over so you could see the screen, you'd be able to read 'Wordplay' just as easily as you could sitting in your chair." --John Langdon. Via Creativepost Amsterdam. jc-10.05.04
Belle Lettres at SFMOMA. Hopefully some of this will be posted online. Via Typographica. jc-10.05.04
"What's wrong with you people? I've never heard of font nerds before. Fill me in." An IMDB chat about typography and Wes Anderson films. Related: Royal Tenenbaum's World of Futura. Via Blurbism. jc-10.04.04
Thinking With Type is the companion site to the Ellen Lupton's book of the same name. We've linked the 'Crimes Against Typography' section before, but there's lot's of well-presented basic information here and just enough minutia to keep type-geeks on their feet. Via Typographica. jc-10.02.04
Jason Santa Maria found some letters around Philly. Good thing he he had his camera with him. jc-09.25.04
"Avoiding the use of language and dialogue, Not My Type takes various typographic faces, symbols and characters and then duplicates, distorts and moves them to create a simple yet aesthetically acute production." Via Adland. jc-09.08.04
The democratization of type design from the NY Times [reg. req.]. Via Kottke. kg-08.31.04
Always astounding, Thirstype continues to sell some of the best fonts online. rs-08.25.04
We were reading Make Ready, "a journal featuring news and observations on letterpress, book arts, design, and typography - slightly carmelized, with a healthy dollop of ephemera" every day already, even before they posted this nice note about Jewelboxing. cp-08.19.04
"London-based designers Jonathan Barnbrook and Marcus McCallion poke fun at the seedier side of the Olympics with a font of 52 satire-filled pictograms." Via Typographica. jc-08.12.04
Introducing Thirstype version 4, with a new type family, Galaxie Polaris. ki-08.10.04
"There's couture type and there's off-the-rack type We design couture type." Jonathan Hoefler from a Commarts profile of Hoefler & Frere-Jones Typography. jc-08.06.04
"One-seventy-second of an inch matters. Color, you do by eye, not by soccer catalog number." A great short clip about Firefly Press. av-08.05.04
A Layman's Guide to the Printer's Anatomy. From the playful Cavendish Online Gallery, a collection of printing-related images and art. Via Make Ready. jc-08.05.04
'The Science of Word Recognition, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bouma'. Kevin Larson's complete paper. via Typophile av-07.28.04
Crimes Against Typography. jc-07.28.04
Quick Cuts, Coarse Letters, Multiple Screens: Film Titles by Pablo Ferro written by Steven Heller for Typotheque. "Ferro was prepared to have the [Strangelove] titles refined by a lettering artist, but Kubrick correctly felt that the rough hewn quality of the hand-drawn comp was more effective. So he carefully lettered the entire thing himself with a thin pen." Lots of great detail here. Note to JtB, "a quart at least." jc-07.23.04
Launching a major meme in 5-4-3-2... I dare you not to send this on to someone. Alex from Aeiou writes, "As I know you like typography, I thought maybe you'd like this. It's a brand new work by French artist Claude Closky and it has to be seen with sound and movement." jc-07.23.04
A Brief History of the '@' Symbol, otherwise known as the clinging monkey or the crazy 'a'. From p22's The Terminal. jc-07.20.04
Misprinted Type 3 from Eduardo Recife is up. Tons of great stuff here including an unmatched collection of one-of-a-kind typefaces. Behold the beauty of "Great Circus." Fear the power of "Trashold." Sign a check as "Max Rhodes." jc-07.09.04
Times (New) Roman and its part in the Development of Scalable Font Technology. Quite appropriate for us this week. Via Kottke. jc-07.08.04
An excellent new resource for swiping typographic links. Mark Simonson's Notebook. Mark's follow up on his Typecasting piece is required reading. jc-07.02.04
Ladislav Sutnar, a retrospective on the work from a great designer. Under toying with design there's a great "build your own town" building block set. His typography and household items shouldn't be missed either. aw-07.01.04
It's Monday, are your eyes sharp? Test them with this Helvetica vs Arial quiz, can you tell the difference? Sadly, I only got 8 out of ten. More coffee for me. aw-06.28.04
If you've always fancied büro destruct, you'll love typedifferent, a place to search for büro destruct fonts. aw-06.17.04
Hand Lettering Basics from The Letterheads. "Circles and 'O's require two elements shown above and below. For the basic gothic letterstyle, the brush is twisted in the fingertips to keep the chisel point of the brush at the correct angle." Via Typographica. jc-06.09.04
meantangerine, mean pixel fonts meant for flash designs. bless. aw-06.03.04
A synthesis of classic forms and new technologies is evident is much if the work of designer Corey Holms and in particular in his typface Brea. jc-05.27.04
"Of course. Now you have located my competition. Copies of myself were very tough competition." From friend of the agency, Mark Simonson's wide-ranging interview with artist and typographer Phil Martin at Typographica. Required reading. jc-05.18.04
Tired of Latin text when using dummy copy for layouts? Try Esperanto instead. Dz land fiksi franjo int, um ont ilia samideano. Kun as na geedzo. Iu hoj helpi eksploda suplemento. Ing centi samideano ch, tra it afro eksploda aspektismo, ien tuta diesa ekstera. Nenia iometo dividostreko je poe. Retro kunmeta ses an, plej neado unu. That and lots more at the new, smart-alecky Ye Olde Lorem Ipsum Generator. jc-05.17.04
I'm pretty sure I'm a Typoholic. bb-05.03.04
Before he became a flashy Hollywood motion graphics ninja, our former intern AV was known as 'The Coudal Kid.' I just ran across this old post of his at Graphic Forums listing a big and helpful collection of type resources on the web. Scroll down to No. 5. Speaking of type resources, happy birtHDay to Typographica. jc-05.03.04
Lots of typographic stuff bubbling up today. Here's a big collection of blackletter fonts. jc-04.22.04
The May/June issue of Communication Arts Magazine contains a great, richly illustrated feature on Hoefler & Frere-Jones Typography. Only in the printed edition, it's well worth a trip to the bookstore. jc-04.22.04
H&Js. Especially Js. jc-04.21.04
Tom Kennedy's new Firehouse is real nice. We're also hot on the trail of a place to use his Billhead and since it's Friday, we probably ought to have a Pilsner too. jc-04.16.04
Knuckle-rapping nuns the world over would be shocked - shocked - to learn that certain individuals are claiming that the old "double-spacing after periods" rule is an anachronism. es-03.19.04
Mildred's House of Signs. jc-03.01.04
Stephen Coles of Typographica has a nice collection of signs and other interesting lettering examples collected during his first two weeks in Stockholm. jc-02.23.04
Put this, from P22. on your list of "things to buy typegeek friends." jc-02.18.04
Sometime you stumble on the most interesting threads. A discussion at Typophile about the Rolling Stone logo and its history and meaning. jc-02.16.04
Werkplaatstypografie. A bit unwieldy but well worth the effort. jc-02.09.04
I hate Courier, too, but 14-point Times New Roman reeks of high-school-essay-padding. I bet Canada uses 11-point Adobe Garamond like sensible human beings. bb-02.03.04
Thanks to Mr. Simonson, the five boxing wizards jump quickly. Via Typographi.ca. jc-01.21.04
Don't take any wooden nickels. The Wooden Nickel Historical Musuem. I'm especially fond of their Civil War, Presidential Quotes and Beer, Bars & Breweries sections. You can bet yer pocket change we'll be placing an order. ad-01.12.04
Let Freedom Ring! Let Freedom Roll! Land of the Free, License Plate of the Brave. ad-01.09.04
The perfect holiday application of type-love and snowflakes. Via Veer. jc-12.23.03
One word about OurType. Wow. Via SVN. jc-12.17.03
Judging a Book by Its Cover - Gold-Stamped Publishers' Bindings of the 19th Century. Big exhibit at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The advent of gold-stamped decoration, circa 1832, was the most important factor in the acceptance of publishers' bindings. Gold stamping brought to the mass-produced book some of the prestige associated with gold-tooled leather bindings of the pre-industrial era. In fact, stamping often imitated the decorative styles and motifs of the hand-finished book. However, gold stamping also developed its own styles and imagery that reflected the period' s taste and culture. rz-12.02.03
I'm actually referring to myself here with this entry, but the article is just too good: The Erotics of Type. rz-11.24.03
From Stuart's consistently excellent Giornale Nuovo, "The University of Sydney library's rare books department is running an on-line exhibition entitled Origins of Modernity which displays example pages, with commentary, from 'over 140 original volumes of the most important works in the emergence of modern thought and culture.' In many cases, it is the books' title-pages that are on show, many of them very fine examples of the splendidly verbose typographical façades one associates with 17th and 18th Century publications." jc-11.20.03
Perfect for that warhead project you're working on. jc-11.19.03
Today's sermon on typography is taken from the gospel according to John. "Interpolation on Why Computer Displays Suck for Reading." jc-11.11.03
The typographic basics from Typeworkshop. Always nice to see something beautifully drawn by hand. Speaking of which, Jim Parkinson updates his portfolio. Via Kottke and Ches. jc-10.29.03
The fonts created for Dodge Magazine are now available for purchase at Pixietype. jc-10.29.03
It's a big win for Cheltenham (and a crushing blow to Century Bold Italic), as the The New York Times discards a few typefaces. kg-10.21.03
Novelist Aimee Bender also writes stories about typefaces in the different typefaces. Via ToT. kg-10.15.03
Out of Helsinki and Amsterdam, Underware is a type foundry offering a slick collection of specialty typefaces and tons of related materials. jc-09.03.03
Some have said 14 year-old Freddy Adu will make soccer a household obsession in the US. Perhaps his new nickname will do the same for vestigial ligature dipthongs. dr-08.18.03
Update: With a new Woody Allen film on its way, thoughts turn to his signature white-type-on-black-background titles, and the fact that none of us know what the typeface is. Here's the call we went with, based on the type used in the trailer of Hollywood Ending. Frederic thinks it's this one, and Scott has beautifully assembled his own thoughts on the matter. dr-08.07.03
Flash fun: the Helvetica vs. Arial showdown. mh-07.23.03
Hamilton Wood Type Museum and Printing Museum in beautiful Two Rivers Wisconsin. ka-07.07.03
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Treasures of the Library kg-06.10.03
Non-type-geeks please ignore this. Really. A Brief History of Fonts Resources and Font Family IDs Scripts and their Ranges. Via splorp. jc-06.05.03
William Adams' comprehensive list of Free Type Books and related material, an excellent resource. Via Typographica. jc-05.22.03
"Illuminated Manuscripts are hand-produced books that include drawn, painted, and gilded decoration on pages made of vellum, a specially prepared and polished animal skin." msk-05.22.03
An enlightening interview with William S. Peterson, from the upcoming issue of Reservocation. "A few days ago, I saw an ad in a magazine in which the 10 pt version of Founders' Caslon had been blown up to a tremendous size in order to emphasize its ragged, "Ye Olde Antique" quality. Designers who abuse good typefaces like that should be sentenced to do community service." jc-05.05.03
"There aren't many things I appreciate more than an interesting sign or a unique type sample. Both are endangered species in today's world of homogenous, pre-fab vinyl lettering and computer-generated crap." pj chmiel's"signs". msk-05.02.03
Susan Kare's new bitmap font packages at Atomic Media are delicious and one is even called "Everett.' Hmm, SE, do you know anyhting about this? While we're on the subject of pixely typography, here's another collection that's a bit awkwerd. jc-04.18.03
Test Pilot Collective organizes their type offerings in a new, easy-to-use interface. jc-02.05.03
OK Mister Typophile, is it Arial or is it Helvetica? jc-02.04.03
Spanish and Portuguese magazine advertising from the '60s and '70s. sc-01.30.03
Our current Fresh Signals guest editor, Stephen Coles has posted an insightful review of House Industries new typeface, Neutraface. The review has sparked an interesting discussion at Typographica, with contributions from the people who created the font. jc-12.23.02
"My eyes are absolutely SHOT from finessing condensed leading," and other witty things to say if you're stuck at a party full of type geeks. Typophile's Small Talk Generator. jc-12.11.02
All-around Typographic virtuoso and former Fresh Signals Guest Editor, Mark Simonson, wins the Typophile Tee Contest with a beautiful hand-drawn entry. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. jc-11.27.02
If you are still working under the illusion that InDesign can't help you work, Adobe's testimonial movies might knock some sense into you. Sure, the flicks are a tad hard-sell; but Fossil, Mabry, Modern Dog and OfficeMax can't all be wrong. As for me, I haven't launched Quark in 9 months and I am a very happy fella. sc-11.25.02
Remembering Etaoin Shrdlu. kg-11.14.02
"Papercut is a modern font designed specifically for use in three-dimensional environments. Instead of taking an existing font and giving it three-dimensional characteristics, Papercut is carved out of a physical shape." Via Typographica. jc-10.23.02
"The object of this group was to go out to Helsinki and find the ugliest and most undesirable shop window, then to re-design the lettering so that the shop would sell more." Via Typographica. jc-10.18.02
Excellent collection of specialty typography at Genuine Letterhead Fonts. Via PixelSurgeon. jc-10.18.02
Typophile is attempting to design a typeface democratically. It's difficult to say how it's going. kg-10.03.02
Fontscape, type families organized by their practical application. jc-09.23.02
Should the orange pixel be white or black? The Smaller Picture at Typophile is a truly collaborative experiment where users participate in the real-time growth of a bitmap alphabet. jc-09.18.02
Aside from their original fonts, which are sweet by the way, the site for type foundry LettError is brimming with interesting stuff like this. jc-09.13.02
Looking for that great typeface used by the Cockshutt Plow Company? Fonts on the Farm. Thanks ToT. kg-09.05.02
Briar Press, preserving the art of the letterpress. Via Typographica. jc-09.05.02
Chalet Comprime, from House Industries. Swanky and perfect. jc-06.07.02
Typographica, has reached into the Great White North for their permanent web address. The site is now fully operational and kerned tightly with information and opininons about typography. jc-06.06.02
Early visual poetry. js-06.05.02
The Roman Senate (SPQR) hasn't updated its logo in almost 2000 years and is looking for designers to submit designs on spec. Actually, it's a contest to promote ATYPI's annual conference to be held in Rome this year. Via typographer.com. mls-05.31.02
I just returned from the Pacific Northwest where I wandered around Seattle and Portland taking lots of photos of manholes engraved with decorative whales and other fascinating public signage. I'm really glad that there are others who do the same thing. One of my favourite cities, London, is examined typographically at Public lettering. Via Zeldman. se-05.31.02
SmoothType. A high-end font anti-aliasing tool for Macs. jc-05.30.02
Phil Martin: Type designer, lounge singer, George Burns look-alike. Martin designed hundreds of typefaces from the late sixties to the early eighties as Alphabet Innovations International and TypeSpectra, many still available. What his site lacks in taste it makes up for in shear wackiness. mls-05.29.02
Feed your pixel-font habit. Here and here. Via Craig Davis. jc-05.28.02
Just in time as usual. The show at MoMA closed yesterday (5/21) but thankfully, the site by forofficeuseuonly is still live. The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934 unfolds before your eyes. Beautifully documented and presented, "'A Slap in the Face of Public Taste' reflects the creative ferment of the early 1910s when stultifying conventions of the past were overturned." PS: Don't miss the "Reading Room" section. jc-05.22.02
A new type blog, Typographica, has emerged in the wake of the demise of Lines and splines. It differs in that it is a group effort (some familiar names in there). It's a bit less refined, but broader in its scope. mls-05.17.02
Andy Crewdson reviews typography in The Sun, New York's nascent daily newspaper, at TMN. kg-05.16.02
One less stop on my daily rounds. Andy Crewdson has apparently pulled the plug on his brilliant type blog, Lines and splines. This is a sad day for type aficionados. At least the archives will remain online. mls-05.13.02
Joe Clark writes about type blogs in an article to appear in the next issue of Print. Linesandsplines hasn't linked to it and I will be a little surprised if it does. mls-05.07.02
Luc Devroye's On Snot and Fonts, the mother of all type link pages. Devroye is a professor of Computer Science at McGill University. Where he finds the time to teach and compile the world's most comprehensive and up-to-date list of type-related links is a mystery to me. mls-05.01.02
I've always loved the way in which a film's title screen needs to combine a typographic logotype with a signature image "logo" of sorts. This collection of Movie Title Screens has some wonderful examples. se-05.01.02
Type from Hoefler, for the WSJ, engineered to succeed in small sizes. jc-04.24.02
A redesigned Porchez Typofonderie awaits. jc-04.24.02
Poynter feature on the man who redesigned the Wall Street Journal. kg-04.11.02
From the intrepid gmt+9 comes an interesting collection found right in our own backyard. The Typographic Signage Project from Loyola's Department of Visual Communications. Delicious distressed and handpainted stuff here. jc-03.28.02
In April, the Washington Calligraphers Guild will begin accepting entries for the 2002 Graceful Envelope Contest. Meanwhile, peruse the winners from 2001 and earlier. ks-03.27.02
"I almost laughed when they showed a close-up of the notice. The headline was set in ITC Benguiat, a typeface which debuted in 1978 and was mainly popular in the '80s." Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies. kg-03.26.02
Doubling down on the last post, also check House Industries Las Vegas fonts. jc-03.13.02
16 beautifully crafted new fonts inspired by Las Vegas signage at the Font Diner. Plus, free icons on the same theme designed by Kate England at The Iconfactory. jc-03.13.02
"Anachronistic typography in movies is certainly not one of the world's pressing problems. At worst, it reflects badly on a film in a subtle way that suggests careless production values to the typographically aware, even when everything else is well-crafted." From Mark Simonson's excellent article, The use (and misuse) of period typography in movies. Via xplane. jc-02.28.02
The Alphabet Synthesis Machine. "An interactive Java applet, the Machine invites you to evolve the letterforms of a personalized 'alien alphabet': the possible writing system of your own imaginary civilization." And I thought it was cool that my imaginary civilization was using Courier. jc-02.25.02
Check out FontShop's webzine TRIBE, full of interesting type-related features including one on 2Rebels and an interesting piece by Ed Fella. se-02.06.02
Buro Destruct's Type Different. aa-02.01.02
Textism has put back up this survey of text typefaces. It's worth a good long look if you're in need of some elegant inspiration. se-01.23.02
"Because we were curious about the way anti-aliasing is working best, we searched for a tool to make manual anti-aliasing. Therefore we built Greyman, a two colour manual anti-aliaser." Slick work from the Netherlands. jc-01.22.02
Bradbury Thompson wanted to eliminate capital letters as a way to reinvent and simplify the alphabet. jc-01.08.02
"Our urbane environment contains such various typographic characters that it can be read like a novel. The Type Museum understands itself as a review of this novel." I translated this much from the German, still unsure of whether they meant "urban" or "urbane", then spent the rest of my time browsing the splendid array of images at Type Museum. Wow. se-10.01.01
In the morning, there's nothing like knocking back a good espresso and gazing at an interesting new ampersand or ligature. I found plenty to enjoy at the Porchez Typofonderie. se-09.05.01
Maeda Studio: "I wanted to design a typeface where I could exactly measure the amount of ink used in any typeset piece. Since each letterform uses up 1 tangram puzzle in entirety, it is trivial to compute the amount of ink used for 'n' characters." jc-05.25.01
Sweet new collection of faces from House Industries: Las Vegas. jc-05.17.01
Minimal site. Minimal fonts. All good. jc-05.03.01
For years, we've wanted to invent a "font-o-matic" that would identify obscure typefaces for us. What The Font intends to do just that. I gave it a test, and it passed admirably. Next I'll try to send it a photo of myself and see if it comes up with my font equivalent. se-03.29.01
Our Underground jones is fed today by this interesting look at the typography, signage, and maps of the London, Paris, and New York transit systems. kg-03.27.01
Typegeeks unite: 2Rebels, T.26, gl:tch, gray graphics. jc-02.06.01
Lines & Splines, a web log keeping an eye on the British Typographic industry. jc-10.15.00
For type junkies. se-10.04.00
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