Caketype is a foundry based in The Hague. They have an interesting version of a typewriter font called “Nitti Typewriter“. The font contains variations on underlining styles, strikethru, character fills and emphasis. They have also designed a clean version, below, that looks like a nice alternative to Orator, Courier or Letter Gothic.
Stephen brought his son to UPPERCASE recently and both were inspired to draw their own ampersands. Here’s Stephen’s (above) and some designs from a budding eight-year-old typographer:
Thanks to everyone who came out to First Thursday! It was a good one. Here are some shots of the current show, curated by Margot at Pitch Design Union. I set out some papers and sharpies so that people could draw their own ampersands, too. The show’s up until the end of the month… come “AND” see it!
“Plenty of white space and generous line spacing, and don’t make the type size too miserly,” wrote Giambattista Bodoni in the early 1800s. “Then you will have a product fit for a king.” The royalty-ready work of Bodoni (“the king of typographers and the typographer of kings”) and hundreds more lettering legends is collected in Type. A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles by Jan Tholenaar, Alston W. Purvis, and Cees De Jong. The first in a two-volume set from Taschen, the book is a lush index of type specimens dating from 1628 to 1900, accented with the borders, ornaments, and graphical flourishes of the day. The evolution of the printed letter is traced through the work of typographers such as William Caslon, John Baskerville, and Claude Garamond, who claimed he could cut printed stamps in “Cicero size” (12 point) at the age of 15. Brush up on your Victorian fonts in preparation for volume two, which will be published early next year.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
A veritable wild kingdom of typographic choices, found via Typezilla.
MyFonts sends out a monthly e-newsletter that is worth signing up for. They feature in depth interviews with the “faces behind the fonts”. This month features Argentinian type designer Alejandro Paul.
“Graphic designers are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the crowd, and type was still officially uncharted territory in 1990s South America. Then came the internet, which brought it all to the surface. Hence the overwhelming exposure of a lot of South American work all at once. And it persisted because the internet suddenly made the whole world an open market for us, instead of the almost non-existent market we’d had here all along. There is also something to be said about the Argentinean design process, which is part of the appeal to the world markets. Argentina doesn’t have the European design history, but we do put all of our being into our work, and sometimes because of that it comes out looking more innocent, more real, more human, with less of a mechanical base.”
We’ll admit to a protracted love affair with Goudy Stout (Jason Castle‘s recreation of the typeface that Frederic W. Goudy admitted to having created in “a moment of typographic weakness”) that endowed all of our high school papers with a festive circus air. Now typographer Goudy and his graphic designer wife, Bertha, are a few giant steps closer to immortality thanks to Goudy Fonts, a new web site that pays “tribute to two former bookkeepers who impacted American design and typography for all time.”
Created by a team of Goudy fans at Ascender Corporation,” the site is much more than a virtual storefront of Goudy fonts and their derivatives. There’s a blog for Goudynews (including a downloadable version of Steve Matteson‘s recent TypeCon talk on the couple’s work) and a slideshow of Goudy artifacts, among them a rather creepy plaster cast of Fred’s right hand. In the collection of historical press clippings, we found a 1933 Time magazine report from a gala celebration in New York City to honor Goudy as the country’s greatest type designer.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Thanks to Nimish Paresh for sending me a link to this project: “The Alphabetography project began among friends and independent artists spread across the country who have an eye for the simple art of letters, fonts, signage and typography. We eat Alpha-Bits cereal, drink alphabet soup and watch Sesame Street for the letter of the day.”
Alphabeasties is a new book illustrated and designed by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss of Werner Design Werks. The initial concept for the illustrations began as “The Wonderful World of Typology”, an animal kingdom made of letters that was used for a promotion for the Type Directors Club’s annual competition poster. Sharon explains what happened next:
“The TDC mailed about 25,000 posters and within a day or two, to our surprise, we received two calls from different publishers saying this would make a great children’s book. Would we be interested in writing a children’s book based on these animals?
Our first response was “we’re not authors” and certainly not children’s book authors, we’re graphic designers. But as we thought it through, we warmed up to the idea. So we decided to give it a try. We did some initial layouts that in hindsight we realize were too clean, spare and far too sophisticated for a children’s book and just not very engaging. The publisher pushed us to make them more fun and playful. We went back with a few revised sample spreads and they said “great! …now do rest of the alphabet.”
The entire book from beginning to end took just under 4 months to get to press. We are currently working on a set of flashcards and an activity book to accompany the book.”
The first printing of the book is already out of stock, but a second printing is in the works. I’ve ordered some for the shop and I look forward to seeing the publication in person. The foldout sections look fun and I love the end papers!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
