Milieu Grotesque’s new type specimen is now available —reviewing the great selection of typefaces from the Berlin—Zurich foundry.

INFO

Milieu Grotesque is a Berlin-Zurich-based, independent publisher and distributor of typefaces and related publications. Set up by Timo Gaessner and Alexander Meyer,

Type Specimen Catalogue
by Milieu Grotesque, 2013
DIN A4 / 32 Pages, Offset Print,
incl. Round Sticker
5.– CHF

Illustrations by Maiko Gubler

The latest issue of limited edition typography 8 Faces is now on sale, available exclusively from the brand new 8faces.com.

Issue 6′s stunning cover artwork (designed by Stefan Weyer) is entirely blind de-bossed, so there’s no ink at all — you have to tilt it towards the light to see all of the details.

This issue features interviews with Simon Walker, Dan Rhatigan, Seb Lester, Nina Stössinger, Grant Hutchinson, Mike Kus, and Eric Olson and Nicole Dotin of Process Type. It also includes essays from Christopher Murphy, Leo Koppelkamm, and Typekit’s Tim Brown, and an introduction by Craig Mod.

Each copy comes with a free type catalogue from Rosetta and a free PDF edition, available for immediate download. The physical edition will ship from 6th May onwards and only 2000 copies have been printed.

The new website was designed and built by Trent Walton, Reagan Ray, and Dave Rupert at Paravel, with 8 Faces founder Elliot Jay Stocks.

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Thanks to 8 Faces | Elliot Jay Stocks for the latest 8 Faces issue #6 images + information

8faces.com

Grist and Glue are new font releases from Alias —  Thanks to Gareth Hague / Alias for the images and font development info below

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As their names suggest Grist and Glue share an idea. Broadly that is making stencil letters using simple shapes.

Grist was designed originally as a logo proposal for art-pop band Fischerspooner. It was one of a series of ideas exploring ways of taking an upper case serif font and making it ‘graphic’, so like a logo rather than a typeface. I tried this in various ways – by making the serifs thicker, or making the serif oversized and angular. These generally weren’t very successful.

The most successful version stripped out the thin stress of the typeface and added a circle as an occasional serif. This made a dotting effect when set as multiple words. This was presented, to be rejected and a more neutral serif typeface used in what became a very untypographic series of record sleeves (also discussed elsewhere and on alias.dj).

Having written a blog post and reminding myself about the project, I wanted to develop this serif stencil circle typeface further. As it happened during the Fischerspooner project and in a fit of enthusiasm I had drawn a complete A-Z.

What I liked about the idea originally was that the typeface was made up of these big, dramatic shapes, either the circle or bits of circle or these swashy triangles or rectangles. There were no small fussy shapes, so it could be cut out and used as a stencil. The serif was a useful connecting device and the letters were, generally, readable.

As I developed the character set rows of circles became diagonal lines or dashes, so accented characters, or currency, hash or @ signs (etc) became these codified, braille-like shapes. I enjoyed designing them. As a headline typeface they were free of at least some of the rigours of clarity, and able to rely on impact.

As I was designing these – particularly @, © – I noticed that I was removing the seriffy connecting swash and the characters were getting more simplified and abstract. It was or could be a separate idea, and I developed the typeface Glue from these.

It is more clearly a typeface from a limited set of graphic shapes. It is modular, but its grid forces the shapes to work fit together in non obvious ways making non obvious shapes. Its limited modular structure means that shape arrangements are recycled, with an A flipped to make  a 7, or X flipped to make a Z – I’m rather proud of these typographic firsts, I suspect they’re my only ones.

So it is semi abstract, but readable. It expects the reader to try quite hard, expecting them to decide for themselves whether its design makes it worth the effort.

Grist and Glue are available from FontShop.

http://alias.dj

http://alias.dj/blog

Renowned type design studio Fontsmith has today launched FS Emeric, a new typeface that represents the culmination of over two years’ work by Fontsmith’s type design director, Phil Garnham.

The original brief that Phil set himself carried a bold ambition — a sans serif typeface that was capable of adding a fresh new voice to the classic modernist fonts.

As Phil explains:
“The timeless alphabets of the fifties have a deliberate neutrality, born out of an unfaltering mechanical solidity in each line and curve. FS Emeric has been designed to share this sense of structure and universality but it also introduces a new approach, intuitively informed by a sense of today, one of progress and optimism.” As a result, FS Emeric enjoys a connection to the familiar typefaces that have shaped the world of graphic design for so many decades, while also exhibiting a characteristic humanity that adds energy and personality.

It is available to purchase from fontsmith.com in 11 weights with italics, which together form a ‘Superfamily’.

The launch campaign for FS Emeric was developed by Exeter-based brand design studio Believe in®, whose Founder and creative director Blair Thomson said: “Our goals with the campaign were twofold — to demonstrate FS Emeric’s potential and to show off its extraordinary range and versatility. We’ve tried to capture a sense of possibility, so it feels expressive while preserving a pure typographic approach.”

The campaign consists of a striking type specimen booklet, an ambitious series of limited edition screen – printed posters and a campaign microsite at www.fsemeric.com.

The specimen booklet tells the story of the typeface through a range of brand applications, including packaging, signage and screen-based design. The finished booklet is beautifully crafted with a wraparound cover, printed in 4 spot colours with2 foils on GF Smith papers.

For the poster series, 11 leading design studios from around the globe were invited to create a limited edition A1 poster using one weight of FS Emeric. Believe in® designed an additional campaign poster, and all 12 have been screen-printed onto 175gsm Colorplan and hand numbered by Dan Mather in London.

Participating studios included Pentagram, Build and Bibliothèque in London, Manual in San Francisco, Studio Dumbar in Rotterdam and Lundgren+Lindqvist in Gothenburg.

Check out  LL Circular — Lineto’s / Laurenz Brunner’s beautiful new geometric sans serif.

A family of 8 cuts currently ranging from Book to Black weights, with corresponding Italics.

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Thanks to Laurenz Brunner for the images / info

LL Circular pdf Specimen

http://lineto.com/

http://laurenzbrunner.com/

With the revision and the extension of the typeface T-Star up to version 3.0. Type Foundry Binnenland have published and designed ‘The Giro type specimen’

It presents the wonderful story of the first cycle race in Italy (Giro d’Italia) and provides some background information about the typeface.
Download The Giro Typespecimen as pdf

Buy the specimen here

T-Star Typeface more info

Pencil to Pixel NYC by Monotype

3—9 May 2013

The forthcoming exhibition by monotype brings together the past, present and future of a unique typographic institution.

Spanning over a hundred years, the expertise and craftsmanship of monotype has shaped the way in which we see and read the everyday world around us.

Tribeca Skyline Studio

205 Hudson Street

Penthouse, New York 10013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWDhhCGywI0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nP-bkqiah4

To book a guided tour or reserve a ticket

Free Admission

http://penciltopixel.eventbrite.com/

https://twitter.com/byMonotype

http://www.monotype.com/

Petrobras Launch New Corporate Font Designed by Dalton Maag

Petrobras, one of the largest energy companies in the world, has unveiled a new custom font designed by Dalton Maag as part of its corporate identity.

The energy company has a presence in 28 different countries, and is a household name in Brazil, with more than 7,000 petrol stations across the country. This is the first time during the 60 year history of the company that Petrobras has had its own, unique font. The new font family ties the brand elements together to form a consistent whole, unifying their identity across the company.

Dalton Maag were approached by The LED Project, based in São Paulo, to help them with the typography for the new approach to the Petrobras identity. The Dalton Maag team in Brazil worked in collaboration with the London studio to produce a total of 40 concepts which were then discussed with the LED Project and narrowed down to six for presentation to Petrobras.The new font, Petrobras Sans, is a confident sans serif typeface with a firm construction that suggests the solidity of a multinational business, whilst including a softer human side. The terminals taper smoothly to create a more organic feel to the letter forms, which also adds individuality to the design. This difficult and interesting balance was created to reflect the human talent which Petrobras feels is one of the keys to the success of the company. Classic principles of typography were then used to make sure that every letter was legible even in the smallest sizes.

Fabio Haag, Creative Director of Dalton Maag Brazil, said: “All of us Brazilians at Dalton Maag are especially proud of being part of this project, and helping to create the new voice of Petrobras. The biggest challenge was to create a typographic concept with the unique personality of the brand, while keeping it extremely legible so that it would perform well at display and text sizes. It had to work for the complex range of applications used by Petrobras, from TV commercials to the gas stations and everything in between.”

http://blog.daltonmaag.com/

http://www.daltonmaag.com/

 
A geometric sans serif typeface influenced by Bauhaus and the early modernist era. Precise circles are optically adjusted to create a clear, natural typeface with great legibility. Details include 540 characters >with alternative lowercase a, e and g, 5 variations of numerals, manually edited kerning and Opentype features.

The regular and italic weights are available as FREEWARE which is great news for many people who have enquired about sample fonts to test out in their projects. The rest of the family is still in the development and will include 9 weights with Italics.

Made by Jonathan Hill — The Northern Block

Hecho en Los Angeles

Lux Typographic + Design

Lux Typo is based in Los Angeles, a place where convergence is a way of living. Street food and the visually arresting trucks that deliver it are symbols of this phenomenon. From small vendors with carts of bacon-wrapped hotdogs to that of large food trucks peddling fusion cuisine, they line the streets into the early hours of the morning. As a backdrop, one takes in the contradictory, obnoxious and absurd, but ultimately leaves inspired. It is one slice of an ever evolving lexicon that is “Hecho en Los Angeles”.

Hecho en Los Angeles is the current catalog from Lux Typo. It features commissioned work for clients such as Johnson and Johnson, Kellerhouse Inc., and Universal Music Group as well as fonts available for licensing through Village  - http://vllg.com/

http://luxtypo.com/

Note: GDT Gothic developed with Kellerhouse Inc. www.kellerhouse.com/

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Thanks to Greg Lindy / LuxTypo for the images and information

Fatype is very pleased to present the latest addition to our growing catalogue of typefaces: U8, a new geometric sans serif, with seven weights, designed by Anton Koovit.

Anton started U8 as a research project about the Berlin subway system signage and particularly the U8 that connects the northern borough of Reinickendorf with Neukölln in the south of the city, through the Alexanderplatz junction. His goals were to restore a piece of history, to research a link between the DIN and Bauhaus, and to translate the lettering of individual handcrafted station signage into a formal typeface. Apart from the regular weight’s upper and lower case, glyphs such as numbers, and other weights, had to be created by the designer, allowing for his contemporary interpretation. The result is an early modernist typeface, with wider proportions than most common geometric sans, a strong character, and a clean design. Initially intended for display purposes, U8 has proven to work well in text sizes.

Italic styles will also be release in a few months.

U8 is available at Fatype.

Grilli Type / GT Pressura / GT Walsheim / GT Haptik

Swiss type foundry Grilli Type keep on producing beautiful typefaces — check them out

http://www.grillitype.com/

Grilli Type Information

About Grilli Type:
Grilli Type is an independent Swiss type foundry. We offer original retail and bespoke typefaces–high quality products with a contemporary aesthetic in the Swiss tradition. This tradition is reflected in the visual but also the technical standard of our fonts and our service. Together with our designers and collaborators we aim to create useful, high quality typefaces that stand the test of time.

About the founders:
Noël Leu is a graphic designer living in Zürich, Switzerland. He likes typography and Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he hopes to see as the next American president, or as master of the universe.
Thierry Blancpain is a geography buff and a Zürich-based designer. He likes curves and cats. At night he works hard to take over the world.

About GT Pressura
Inspired by type stamped on shipping boxes, GT Pressura uses the visual effect of ink spreading under pressure as a stylistic device. The condensed sans serif alludes to a scientific background but with its rounded corners shows a soft and friendly side in larger sizes.

About GT Walsheim
Inspired by the lettering of Swiss poster designer legend Otto Baumberger from the 1930s, GT Walsheim is a friendly but precise typeface. Unlike other geometric sans-serifs, it sports warm curves and wears a broad smile. This allows for use in both large and small sizes.

About GT Haptik
GT Haptik is a Grotesque typeface with a very special characteristic: Its uppercase letters and numbers are optimized to be read blindfolded and by touching them. Because of that its glyphs are monoline and geometrical. Optical criteria become secondary. This gives the typeface a weird but also very charmful touch that plays well not only in display sizes, but also for short text use.

Credits

GT Haptik:
– Exhibition Kunstszene ZürichDesign by Buero146, www.buero146.chPhotos by Sandro Fiechter
– Alla HornDesign by Marcus Hollands, www.marcushollands.comPhotos by Cydney Holm

GT Pressura:
– Treibhaus PosterDesign by “Ilg, Trüb”, www.ilgtrueb.ch
– SergeyMonograph on the occasion of the exhibition Sergey Bratkov, Glory Days, Fotomuseum Winterthur, 7 June – 24 August 2008Design by Moiré, www.moire.ch
– Keith TysonFor Parasol unit,Design by Moiré, www.moire.ch
– Die Totale AufklärungCatalogue for the exhibition Total Enlightenment. Moscow Conceptual Art 1960–1990Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 21 June–14 September 2008 andFundacion Juan March Madrid, 10 October 2008 – 11 January 2009Design by Moiré, www.moire.ch
– OpenData.ch LogoDesign by Thierry Blancpain, www.thierryblancpain.com

GT Walsheim:
– GMAADesign by GVA Studio, www.gvastudio.com
– TOKOAustralian Publishers Association Best Book AwardsDesign by TOKO, www.toko.nu
– DieselDesign by SMFB, www.smfb.com
– InfotagDesign by Feixen, www.feixen.ch
– Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction B-MoviesAwarded with the Most Beautiful Swiss Books award 2011Design by Noël Leu, www.noelleu.com

Aktiv Grotesk eight new weights

Dalton Maag have today (18/01/13) released eight new styles/weights of the superb Aktiv Grotesk font: Hairline, Thin, Exta Bold and Black, with matching italics. The launch coincides with the font’s use in the English National Ballet brand new identity and campaign.

Dalton Maag Press Release Information

The English National Ballet are launching a radical new brand and advertising campaign that uses Dalton Maag’s Aktiv Grotesk for their new logo. The campaign, by creative agency The Beautiful Meme, features stunning photography of English National Ballet dancers wearing couture garments by Vivienne Westwood.

Dalton Maag’s Aktiv Grotesk was modified to create a unique logotype for the ballet company. The starting point was Aktiv Grotesk Bold, with the spacing and leading of the individual characters being refined to create the perfect typographic balance for the words “English National Ballet”. The most major modification was to replace the standard Aktiv Grotesk “g” with a new two-storey version for greater aesthetic appeal. Aktiv Grotesk was chosen for its clean lines and modernity, which challenge the traditional image of ballet.

Ben Haworth, Creative Director of The Beautiful Meme said: “The decision was made quite early on to deviate from any visual preconceptions of ballet predominantly including script or baroque serif typefaces. We wanted a brand typeface that would reflect and support Tamara Rojo’s artistic vision of communicating a core truth that everyone in the Company has something to say.

Aktiv Grotesk seemed the perfect vehicle to profess the English National Ballet’s new bold and confident position. It’s an exquisitely drawn typeface that has the creative quirks and character to distinguish from other more clinical grotesque fonts. Its clean and contemporary feel also has a degree of neutrality which is key for future collaborative projects across a wide range of the arts to enhance the vision of the ENB being the UKs most creative company.”

Bruno Maag, Creative and Managing Director of Dalton Maag said: “The dancers must take center stage, and the stunning imagery makes this clear. Our Aktiv Grotesk font supports this ambition clearly and cleanly. The choice of a bolder weight is inspired, as it avoids the fashion trap of using very thin styles so often seen in brands related to fashion and art.”

The brand campaign was was shot on location in London, East Sussex and in Holborn Studios by Guy Farrow working with the Vivienne Westwood team. The dancers were choreographed by English National Ballet’s Associate Artist George Williamson.

The Vivienne Westwood collections were chosen specifically to emphasise the non-conventional but classical image. The couture garments used within each image were specially selected from both Vivienne Westwood’s extensive archive and paired with pieces from the latest Spring-Summer 2013 collections to continue the idea of mixing modernity with tradition. Both the clothes and the images created symbolise this feeling of British avant-garde and are seductive and elegant yet commanding. They reference historical dress and British culture, whilst most importantly celebrating the human form.

In Vivienne Westwood’s own words: “My clothes allow you to project your personality, and are theatrical in the sense that they are real clothes, well-designed, and they give you a chance to express yourself.”New weights of Aktiv Grotesk are being launched today to coincide with the font’s use in the English National Ballet campaign.

About Dalton Maag

Dalton Maag was founded in 1991, and designs high quality fonts and logos for its clients. With bases in London, Vienna, Hong Kong and Brazil, the company now employs 39 people from ten countries, and handles a wide variety of projects, many of them large and high profile. Dalton Maag’s international clients have included such big names as Nokia, Ubuntu, the FA Cup, Toyota and BMW. A speciality of the company is our expertise in non-Latin scripts, including Devanagari, Arabic, Cyrillic and Hebrew.

http://www.daltonmaag.com/

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Thanks to Thalia Teasdale | Dalton Maag for the images and information

Capline Jeremy Tankard Typography

The origins of the Capline font lie in a commission for the UK-based company Peel Hunt. The original typeface has two parts that combine. Each part is set in a different colour and the two overlay and lock together to make a whole. An inline version was designed for possible use when more than one colour was not an option.

Capline develops this inline version. The detail is increased from a thin inline to a thick inline across five stages. The question then arises ‘when does inline become outline?’. The change to the inline gives the lettershapes different visual weights across the family. The Heavy font has a thin inline, whereas the Thin font has a heavy inline. The Regular font is visually balanced to appear even.

The only element to change across the typeface family is the inline. The outside shapes, spacing and kerning remain the same. This allows the fonts to be layered which in turn gives rise to a multitude of visual results.

One technical issue was hinting. A slightly unorthodox approach was taken. In the thinner weights the stems are hinted as is usual, yet in the heavier weights the inline is hinted.

Capline is available from  Monday 21st January  (There are three discount codes available)

http://typography.net/

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Thanks to Jeremy Tankard for the images / information

Monokrom is a small independent type foundry based in Norway, founded by Frode Helland and Sindre Bremnes. Offering high-quality, original designs with a Nordic touch.

https://monokrom.no/

Maison Neue | MilieuGrotesque

‘Maison Neue’ is the thoroughly reworked version of our early ‘Maison’ typeface family. While the original version was constructed on geometric principles, ‘Maison Neue’ has now been meticulously redrawn. Paying particular attention to harmony, rhythm and flow, the new typeface also accounts for up-to-date display and reproduction technologies to create a distinctly contemporary grotesque, with a classic touch and a friendly appearance. The whole family contains 12 styles thus far; each includes an extended Latin character set and a variety of OpenType features.

Info

http://www.milieugrotesque.com/typeface-maisonneue

Jeremy Tankard | TypeBookTwo

Info

The second book showing our collection of typefaces is now available. As with the first book, TypeBookTwo will be included with all direct font purchases.

The two texts included have been written by Neil Macmillan and Jan Middendorp.

In the first text, Neil reminisces on the years leading to the digital revolution in typesetting. In the second text, Jan discusses ideas that directly affect the practice of type design today.

The idea with the TypeBook# series came as I finished moving all the types to OpenType in 2004. As a way of displaying the types and to offer something more than a simple showing of type.

Each TypeBook# also includes two articles that discuss some aspect related to type and typography. The format is hardback, same size the King Penguin series of books. 80 pages plus endpapers

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Jeremy Tankard Typography Ltd

http://typography.net/

http://typography.net/books

Monotype’s highly anticipated ‘Pencil to Pixel’ exhibition runs from 16th November, 19th— 23rd  November featuring Monotype’s rich archive of original artwork, type drawings, equipment and publications.

The exhibition is free and visitors can also book a free guided tour via Eventbrite

http://www.penciltopixel.org/

http://monotypeimaging.com/

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Monotype started to produce typefaces for its type-casting machines back in the late 19th century. The production process at the time started with a set of technical drawings to establish the design and dimensional characteristics of each letter in a typeface that would eventually be cast in lead. Initially, designs were based on existing foundry typefaces in common use in the printing trade at the time, but within a few years new designs were developed, some based on historical types, some completely new designs such as Gill Sans and the iconic Times New Roman, which started as a bespoke family for The Times in the early 1930s before achieving widespread popularity in the following decades.

Monotype’s office in Salfords, Surrey, is on the site that used to be its sprawling factory, which has made it possible for the company to hold onto the complete archive of its Type Drawing Office, even as the company’s manufacturing activities ceased.

The archive records about 80 years worth of typeface development (plus material from other sources gathered over the years), containing detailed drawings for all of Monotype’s hot metal typefaces from 1900 onwards, as well as original artwork, correspondence, production records, and promotional material.

Today the archive is a storehouse of information about many of the world’s classic typefaces currently in common use, as well as being a source of inspiration for contemporary designers both within the company and elsewhere. This month, Monotype is hosting an exhibition of this historical material and forward-looking recent work at Metropolitan Wharf in Wapping. On display will be a selection of rarely seen drawings, artefacts, and publications that capture the history the company alongside examples of the typographic contributions still being made at home and abroad.

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Dan Rhatigan — Type Director, UK Monotype

Rosetta type specimen no. 1 presents eight type families supporting ten writing systems and over 300 languages, each of which deserves an independent specimen. The brochure has 36 pages and covers ten writing systems. Rather than show enormous character sets and fuss about little details and features, Rosetta attempted to tell the story of why each typeface family is special. The brochure was designed by Anna Giedryś, Michal Hořava, and David Březina; three-colour offset printed on Munken Print White 90 and 150 g/m2, ca. B5 (173 × 230 mm). Including a short article by David Březina on the perils of multi-script type design.

See more of the specimen at the specimen mini-web.

http://rosettatype.com/

Thanks to David Březina for the images | info

Karloff explores the idea of irreconcilable differences, how two extremes could be combined into a coherent whole.

At the start we looked at the high-contrast Didone typefaces which are considered by many as some of the most beautiful in existence, and the eccentric ‘Italian’, reversed-contrast typeface was designed to deliberately attract readers’ attention by defying their expectations. No other style in the history of typography has provoked such negative reactions as the Italian.

Karloff, the result of this project, connects the high contrast Modern type of Bodoni and Didot with the monstrous Italians. The difference between the attractive and repulsive forms lies in a single design parameter, the contrast between the thick and the thin.

Having designed two diametrically opposite versions, we undertook a genetic experiment with the offspring of the beauty and the beast, interpolation of the two extremes, which produced a surprisingly neutral low contrast version.

Info | Peter Bilak | Typotheque

https://www.typotheque.com/blog/beauty_and_ugliness

https://www.typotheque.com/

Sometimes a surprise, sometimes as expected – MeM is an interactive type system with a wide range of individual personalities.

- – - – intro

MeM is an eccentric experimental type system created by Elena Schädel and Jakob Runge in 2012. It produces many personalities, each individual and emotive. You will never know which of the alternating letters is going to occur next. Basically, at the heart of it all is MeM: four different weights and letter shapes melded together into one powerful font and shuffled with the sleek usability of OpenType.

- – - – promo

The experimental uppercase font MeM blurs the boundaries between graphic and type design and prioritises style and creative flair over blatant legibility.

The many alternative letters of the typeface and the extremely different styles of the individual glyphs generate a vivid tension of geometric appearance and calligraphic shapes, as well as a contrasting mixture of highly expressive and highly delicate elements – Each letter is a small work of art itself.

It might look like an unique handset type but it is actually a rationalized font system! An automatic shuffle principle rotates the four alternate letters in all common design software to make sure no letter will repeat too soon. OpenType is the kicker, it not only shuffles the letters; it makes them easy to handle via the Stylistic Alternates: bolder and lighter letters can be used separately, or you can even strip down MeM to the four single weights. This gives you a powerful command over the artistic qualities of this unique font. From a complete random shuffle to careful selection of every character, the choice is all yours.

The font supports over 300 characters. Latin character sets from Western, Central and Southeast Europe and with the additional alternates, around 630 glyphs are rotating in the OpenType carousel.

The font is available at YouWorkForThem, HypeForType and MyFonts for $ 40. Further information about design and features on www.mem.26plus zeichen.de.

- – - – docu

The concept of MeM emerged at the end of 2011. At this time Elena Schädel was researching the subject of social trends. She experimented with capturing the essence of a particular trend through the language of lettershapes. One of these trends is the “selfness” movement, which is expressed through extremely different, sometimes even spontaneous characters.

The development of these expressive vector graphics into a complete font may be questionable, however, the visual power of the letters and the wealth of character variants was an exciting incentive for Jakob Runge to embark on a daring type-collaboration: The planning of an experimental font with programmed random mechanism.

During the transfer of the design idea into a functional font and the attempt to achieve it through programming a natural variance, it was imperative that the artistic style of Elena Schädel should stay – just with a few necessary augmentations.

The different disciplines of the two designers was a good foundation for the creative and technical implementation: Despite the experimental design, it took many hours Skype conferencing to select variants, adjust shapes, add symbols, and space the letters.

- – - – web

www.mem.26plus-zeichen.de

- – - – video

http://vimeo.com/memfont/how-to-use

- – - – pdf

http://www.mem.26plus-zeichen.de/MeM_manual_and_specimen.pdf

- – - – shop

http://www.youworkforthem.com/product.php?sku=T3676&affId=136315

http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/26plus/mem/?refby=26plus

http://www.hypefortype.com/mem.html/?acc=17e62166fc8586dfa4d1bc0e1742c08b

In summer of 2008, a typewriter font named ‘Lettera’ quietly made it into Lineto’s library. Although unannounced, ‘Lettera’ caught the eyes of many, and been very successful. It has been in use in numerous magazines, books, websites and identities.

‘Lettera’, named after Mario Belini’s iconic typewriter for Olivetti, is based on different Olivetti typewriter font, named ‘Candia’, originally designed by Joseph Müller-Brockmann in the early seventies, and was in production for only a few months, until it was discontinued and ignored.

THE BACK STORY:

I came across an old basic specimen of that typewriter font and developed it into a four cut family, with a bolder weight and two corresponding Italics. The specimen from which I based my designs was a rather poor quality scan in a small size that left a lot of room for interpretation. When the scan was magnified to a high percentage, its poor quality suggested a detail that resembled a ‘reversed’ ink trap in many of the characters, which became a significant design detail in the development of ‘Lettera’. Later on, when a different specimen was discovered – it was realized that those details never existed in ‘Candia’, but they were kept as part of ‘Lettera’.

THE NEWCOMER:

After a long contemplation, and numerous requests by users of ‘Lettera’, I set out to test a proportional version of ‘Lettera’, but given the backwards process of developing a proportional font out of a monospaced one, this task was approached with a great deal of skepticism, concerned that the style and character of ‘Lettera’ will be lost and a proportional version will become another plain grotesque face. However, it didn’t take too long to prove quite the opposite.

The result is a six cut family that is also available as OpenType with extended Latin support, including Cyrillic. ‘Lettera-Txt’ has great legibility in body text, and its rather normal and familiar appearance at first glance, does not resemble anything else as you go on reading. Round and upright, with quite unusual proportions.

In addition to the release of ‘Lettera-Txt’, I also introduced two new weights for ‘Lettera’: ‘Bold’ and ‘Bold-Italic’. That makes for quite an extensive family with six proportionals and six monospaced cuts. An additional ‘Black’ weight, with a corresponding italic, will be available in early 2013 (‘Lettera-Txt’ only).

More Information

http://www.lettera-txt.com/

http://www.kobibenezri.com

Thank you to Kobi Benezri for the images / copy / information

Slanted #19 / Magma Press Release Information

Slanted # 19 – Super Families organized a big family celebration. We are engaged in this issue with the large families (depending on the case, font families), and put their pedigrees an amazing range of variation of the day. They are characterized by a variety of cuts, which spread open to the extremes – a spectacle of Hairline to Ultra Black with compressed to extended because for everyone. In addition, immediate relatives are also represented in Sans Serif, Semi Serif, Slab, Rounded, etc..

In addition, we are pleased to present numerous essays and reports:
Unit Gothic & Uniform Set Gothic, wood type as precursor (David Shields Austin TX U.S.) About box (Frank Wiedemann, Berlin, Germany), Japanese Graphic Design: Not In Production (Ian Lynam, Tokyo, JP), on typographic super families (Julia tower, Berlin, Germany), as No One, but the cases for all! (Maurice van Brast, Weimar, Germany), Mr & Mrs Eaves: A Type Family (Emigre, Berkeley, CA, U.S.), Beyond the interpolation – Draft Font Family with Superpolator (Stefan Claudius, Essen, DE) and The bowlers Bros by Terry Wudenbachs (Buffalo, NY, U.S.).

A special feature of this edition are the many wonderful photographs:

Royal Families (thanks to Ken Johnston Historical Corbis, Brooklyn, NY, U.S.), princesses and football hero (Daniel Schumann, Erkrath, DE), Alison (Jack Radcliffe, Baltimore MD, U.S.), Life on Both Sides of the Border (Joseph Rodriguez, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.), Stranger Than Family (Matthew Avignone, Chicago IL, USA), The Other Family (Nicola Lo Calzo Paris, FR), A portrait of community life at Castle Tonna (Roger Hagmann, Blankenhain, DE), Salt & Truth (Shelby Lee Adams, Pittsfield, MA, U.S.), caches (Sirin Simsek, Cologne, Germany), Miner’s Families (Song Chao, Beijing City, CN), Portrait of a Family (Todd Danforth, Blackstone MA, U.S.).

In an interview, 10 × 10 families gave us expert answers to ten questions – with Łukasz Dziedzic (Typoland, Warszawa, Poland), Hannes von Döhren (HVD Fonts, Berlin), Peter Biľak (Typotheque, The Hague, NL), Christian Schwartz ( Commercial Type, New York City, NY, U.S.), Nadine Chahine (Linotype, Bad Homburg, Germany), Ian Party (swiss typefaces, Villette, CH), Erik van Blokland (LettError, The Hague, NL), Paul van der Laan (Bold Monday, The Hague, NL) and Yanone (Kromsdorf, DE).

We also spoke with Albert-Jan Pool (Hamburg, DE) on the future of FF DIN and what he thinks of other DIN writings, Panos Vassiliou about his magazine publisher Parachute (Atheen, GR), Andreas Frohloff and Ivo Gabrowitsch (font font, Berlin publication, DE) on the importance of large families in one of the most important international font foundries, Olaf Leu (Wiesbaden, Germany) on the tasks of writing systems, Thomas Marecki (Lodown, Berlin, DE / Blurb, San Francisco, CA, U.S.), the ” The Icons of Lodown “, Philippe Apeloig (Paris, FR) about his work and what inspires him.

The eight-page gatefold shows alongside historic family photos from Corbis something very special: a genealogy of the most modern families, the Indra Kupferschmid records for us.

Slanted Store # 19
Super Families

Publisher: MAGMA Brand Design

Release: 30.08.2012
size: 164 pages
Format: 24 × 32 cm
Language: English, German

http://www.slanted.de/

8 faces magazine #5

8 faces magazine / issue 5 is now available – featuring a great line up including

H&FJ — typeface design powerhouse, revealing all about their web font service

Mark Simonson — type design legend

Trent Walton — web designer extraordinaire

Keetra Dean Dixon — visual artist

Peter Bilak — Typotheque founder

Gerry Leonidas — MA Typeface Design Course Director

Mark MacKay — KernType creator

Also in this issue, there is an introduction by Neil Summerour, an essay on typographic white space by Typekit’s Tim Brown, a mammoth, six-page essay on Octavo magazine by Christopher Murphy, and some beautiful cover artwork courtesy of Erik Marinovich.

Available from 8faces.com

The ‘Little Black Font Book’ is a must have designer desk accessory for 2012.

34 pages packed with typographic inspiration for creatives to find and buy truly unique, hand-crafted fonts. An essential desk accompaniment offering a veritable feast of fonts for anyone interested in experimenting with typography, designers getting back in touch with the classic skill and brands looking to find typefaces that standout that and really add depth to the visual language. The book itself is perfect bound, printed on 120gsm recycled paper, and finished with a matt laminate cover.

LITTLE BLACK FONT BOOK (VOLUME #1)

Available at Amazon ›