The Week in Type

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

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

Via typornography.

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

Some nice illustration and lettering from Steve Leadbeater:

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

and this clever t-shirt:

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

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

Via Veerle.

Very clever chair alphabet from Amandine Alessandra:

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

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

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

Thanks, Anton.

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

Thanks, jcapDesign.

Lovely illustrative type from Jonathan Caplan:

Some nice illustrations and spreads from Jihad Lahham:

Via Andre & Vivien.

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

Well worth taking a look it.

Smile type

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

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

What made you go with bold?

Priceless.

I challenge you to find a more bizarre f:

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

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

Like these experiments from Jakob Nylund:

Type links

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

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

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

Free fonts

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

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

News

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

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

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

Quality Free Font

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

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

Thanks to Ivo for the heads up!

The Best of Type

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

Compendium

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

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

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

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

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Call for Submissions

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

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Mightier Than…

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

How did you get started designing type?

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

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No Lemons

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

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

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

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

See you very soon for the week in type.

Deviant Typography

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

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Thanksgiving Type

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

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

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Your Life Work Series (1947)

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

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

Fancy a change of career?

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16745488GpXEWg2Q

Via archive.org