Admiration for innovative typographic pairings (& playing favourites)

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Hello TypoCurious friends,
February's Musings are all about favourites; I am featuring some friends, some familiar faces and a few of my favourite publications this month. Another thread follows hybrids and unusual pairings, or perhaps more accurately, the bringing together of seemingly disparate entities to innovate in design.

Type design demands familiarity and recognition. The nature of reading binds type designers with constraint. It is infrequent we see letterforms that are radically different, so when a new face provides aesthetic innovation while still being legible, the type community reacts abuzz with excitement and admiration at the designer's ability to find new territory within their constraints.

Yet, this excitement is exactly what Faune a new typeface from French designer Alice Savoie demands and deserves! The project was a commission of a type family by the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (an organisation known for supporting graphic design and typography through its collection and events). The brief called for a 'new creation'. Alice (with Faune) delivered!

Faune's foundations are built in the animal kingdom. Specifically, Alice explored the plurality of the animal world (she articulates the intent and narrative beautifully on the Faune microsite) or you can read more about my excitement for Faune, An incredibly intelligent typeface and an unexpected pairing here.

I make no secret of the fact I am a huge fan of my friend and collaborator Craig Black, I promote his work here all the time because he is doing such rad stuff. So I have been thrilled that Craig is featured as a keynote speaker at this years Design Conference. I am thrilled that TDC are bringing my talented friend down under!

Having spent the first years of his career in leading design agencies in London before starting up as a freelance designer in Glasgow, Craig is also the Lead Designer at Thirst Craft, a specialist drinks packaging design agency that builds creatively rare, brands that excite and delight the senses, that attract awards, attention that clients love and consumers covet.

I also got a little insider info that my fabulous friend Maria Montes will be taking the main stage during this years conference to talk about her lettering, illustration and type design. So I was thrilled to see conference organiser Matt Haynes teasing at another Type Designer in the line up and hit him up to get the inside scoop about fellow Kiwi Kris Sowersby is rounding out a trio of type talent about to hit Brisbane May 09-11.

This line up builds on Matt's commitment to bring type and lettering luminaries to Brisbane. I am super excited for what is shaping up to be an epic event. I have secured my seat and I highly recommend you do the same as this is a conference not to be missed!

As well as speaking in Brisbane, Craig and I are going to team up with Design Assembly on a very special event in Auckland in May (stay tuned for more info!)

Enjoy the Musings below (it is a bumper list this month as there has been so much going on in the world of type).

X Np

why is crediting important?

Typetogether implores "Give us some credit" in this important discussion around attribution in type design, calling for an industry standard approach to acknowledging leading and development contributions in the design process.

Drawing better looking curves

Does tweaking bezier handles to smooth your curves make you crazy? Dennis Hotson shares practical tips on perfecting your serpentine forms by demystifying the math behind the drawing tools.

Journey into spacing

FontSmith continue their knowledge share series with Fernando Mello taking a deep exploration into the art of spacing in font design, including how to start spacing a typeface, the influence of ascenders and descenders and the simultaneous contrast issue.

Two champions of type design

David Jonathan Ross and Nick Sherman wrap up the 2017 typographics conference discussing their thoughts about contemporary type design with type.today's Ilya Ruderman. This insightful feature is packed with useful tech and resources too.

In the minefield that is typesetting, rules are there to be broken.

Typesetting tips discussed in this creative block feature; “Traditional typesetting used to be quite a fixed mechanical process,” says Luke Tonge , “In our fluid digital times, thanks to computers, we type with total ease, so achieving consistency across countless devices and platforms is the new aim.”

Start With The "h" a Glyphs Mini Tutorial.

Type designer Tyler Finck published a 16 minute video tutorial to get started with type design (using Glyphs Mini). Promising to have you making letters in no time. I confess, I havent watched this tutorial yet, but it comes highly reccomended by the League of Moveable Type's Weekly Typographic...

Design DNA

Noticeable and distinctive, the R carries so much personality. Offering the type designer freedom with its flexible skeleton. In this Grafik letterform piece Monotype designer Terrance Weinzierl argues why the ‘R’ is vital.

The Alphabet Lithographs of Jean Midolle

Writing for Letterform Archive, Dan Reynold's showcases an enigmatic portfolio of lettering styles which continues to fascinate designers and historians.

Typogui.de A Pocket Guide to Master Every Day’s Typographic Adventures

The fluid digital environment we operate in today means we all arrange type multiple times throughout the day; (typography is no longer just for designers & printers) Typogui.de is a great resource for typocurious, encouraging us to consider not only what we write but also how we write and how others will read it.

Fontsmith's latest footnotes is outstanding. This (the second issue) is jampacked with great content like Skin deep – typography and tattoos. Emily Gosling investigates different styles of typography in tattoos "while a picture is said to speak a thousand words, sometimes words are exactly what people want on their skin, and so typography and tattooing are disciplines more interlinked than ever."

Graphic designer Angharad Hengyu Owen on textual shapes and wandering poems

I bought a copy of Um Poema Errante / A Wandering Poem, late last year and have been keen to interview Angharad Hengyu Owen (the designer) and Christian Marques (poet) since, as it is breathtakingly beautiful and brave in it's experimentation. Its Nice that beat me to it publishing a profile on the collaboration and resulting book.

Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature

Letterer Jess Cruickshank recently shared this treasure trove resource of high resolution reproductions of childrens books , you can explore by title or production date, once you select a title you can flick through covers and internal designs. It is lettering inspiration gold.

I know I have featured Marcel's Letters a couple of times before in these musings, but wanted to take Steven Heller's interview with Historian, Author and Type Designer Carolyn Porter as an opportunity to feature Typographic Detective Tale again... (it is one of my favourite books of 2017), "Marcel’s letters are filled with the best and the worst of humanity; words of hope and love share space with descriptions of life inside a labor camp. As each letter was translated, he became more real. Marcel was no longer just a man who had lovely handwriting."

Pop Stars

French illustrators Icinori have just created a beautiful new limited-edition pop-up art book, using three-dimensional paper structures to bring their distinctive, precise and characterful images to life.

London Kerning

Glenn Fleishman started out as typesetter, trained as a graphic designer, and has spent most of his career mostly writing. His new book London Kerning is a jaunt around London, visiting letterpress printers, designers, archivists, historians, and contemporaries to discuss the work of type designer Berthold Wolpe (1905–1989), who helped shape the face of lettering in London.

Continuing with Glenn's work, Robin Rendle recently wrote about Font of Type "an interesting bit of typographic ephemera from Glenn Fleishman... It’s a folio (which is a roundabout and rather fancy way to say a folded sheet) and it’s all about the poet and printer Walt Whitman." Robin's adventures in typography newsletter are always insightful I would highly reccomend subscribing here.

Typographic 70

Designed by Mirian Brüggen (who was awarded a Commendation in the 2017 ISTD Student Assessments). It includes contributions by leading designers and educators from the International Society of Typographic Designers and beyond. There are a limited number available to purchase exclusively from the ISTD shop

A Guide to Design Book Publishing (for the Non-Rich and Non-Famous)

Writing a book is so time-consuming that a minimum wage worker would earn more per hour and would have better sleep. So why do we keep on doing it? Anne Quito talks to designers about their passion to publish. (with images from Unit Editions)

Freehand: New Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico.

Typography can embrace functions beyond the the purely communicative. From type designers to expressive illustrators, each graphic designer has his or her own way of crafting or applying typefaces. This new directory is a tour through leading designers sketchbooks to reveal their personal creative processes.

Pete Rudledge has been drawing and illustrating since childhood. In volume 02 of TYPOgraphJournal (where Pete is profiled) he writes; "I have a pretty active imagination and always enjoy expressing this visually." Pete Illustrates and publishes artwork as alter ego Mr Smudge, and I am obsessed with his latest series of artworks which overlay photographic Trump transfers onto paint chips with apt colour and names like Fools Crown, Mexican standoff, Elusive and Cheesy Grin. Bloody genius!

Eat Lead

An exhibition, (featuring some of my favourite letterpress artists) curated by Hackney-based letterpress studio Pixel Press, aims to inspire artists, designers, printers to continue with this old tradition and bring to the fore the paramount role printers have played and continue to play in this process, showcasing exploration and creativity with letterpress printing techniques.

A historical account of women’s responsibilities in the design & development of type

Women’s pivotal role in the development of type design is little known. The University of Reading's Professor Fiona Ross and her team aim to change this, with an in-depth study of women within type-drawing offices, 1910–90 (Skip to page 11 of the PDF to learn more about this ongoing research).

Paper Works

Grafik talks with paper consultant Alyson Hurst of G . F. Smith, about sustainability, industry trends, and exciting developments in the world of print...

Anthony Burrill supersizes his “positive propaganda” for new show

“I enjoy the restrictions of working in letterpress, it makes the design process focused and gives the finished work a particular look and feel,” Anthony explains to It’s Nice That... Anthony was keen to see his work at another size, Screen printing offered the ability to scale up - not only in proportion but also in the messages intent.

Extending the most heartfelt of congratulations to the enigmatic Sarah Hyndman who founded TypeTasting on 14th February 2013! Happy 5th Birthday TypeTasting and huge thanks for everything you have acheived for our industry in these past few year!

Isabel Urbina Peña

I like podcasts and I totally rate book designer/art director/letterer Isabel Urbina Peña so was excited to see the latest 'Great discontent' installment on Intuition, opportunity, working by hand, and the value of personal time features Isabel alongside, Comedian Matt Ruby and illustrator Ping Zhu.

Typedelic Posters: with mind bending dimension

Artist, Illustrator and Letterer Judith Mayer created a series of vibrant dimensional maze like specimen for Avondale Type Co.

You can get involved too! Submit for the artist series via the Avondale Type Co website.

Carrie Hamilton talks to Elizabeth Carey Smith about finding her “type peeps”

Explaining that the Type Directors Club is “the only place in the world that I know of where an audible gasp can be heard among the audience when the speaker is explaining, say, the difference between tabular and proportional figures. I love all my design colleagues, but the TDC are my peeps, you know?”

Once again I am unashamedly playing favourites here profiling my friend Jamie Clarke's latest release (just launched on Myfonts ) which extends his Rig family. Fastidiously constructed as you'd expect from Jamie, Rig solid is another mindbendingly admirable exploration of depth. The ‘Medium Lines’ are a triumph - Jamie credits E. Sanderson's, Projected Letters as his historical inspiration behind the lines style.

Meet Meret Pro

A straightforward typeface (with 16 styles and 8 weights) for newspapers by Nils Thomsen. Meret is at home in tight columns and dense leading, and is optimised for contemporary reading environments. I find the italics particularly exciting, the x maybe matter-of-fact but it still dances on the baseline.

Phones, Pencils & Fax machines

James Aspey, uses his iphone to record things which can inspire or ignite unusual letter forms before developing them as ideas in analogue sketches on grid paper. While attending a three-day workshop held by Hamish Muir, James created New Europa, which rejects curves and embodies sharp angles. It's user generated specimen was produced on fax Machines before being bound.

Grafik Letterform Total Recall

Luke Freeman sings the praises of Roxane Gataud's award-winning first typeface. It's a bold and confident design which certainly ticks all the boxes.…if only he could remember its name.

An exploration of the border between text and abstraction.

The extremely vertical structure, the regularity of its shapes and counter-shapes make it an almost kinetic titling typeface, perfect for any incisive editorial layout. Designed by Lucas Descroix, The name and height pay tribute to Grandmaster Flash and while it most certainly invokes 80s-90's hiphop genres I also see aesthetic musical references to piano keys and funk. (I love it!) TDF is a terrific foundry and the quality of the typefaces they are publishing is excellent!

DreamTeam

Lining up on the start line is Resistenza's (yet another favourite foundry of mine) DreamTeam! This multiline-display fit font's long limbs, nimble movement and shifting weight make it the perfect aesthetic athlete for your next project.

Dave Foster draws typefaces and lettering for design studios, type foundries, brands and individuals around the world. Blanco is the brilliant first release from Dave's new foundry FosterType! Learn more (and buy Blanco) at https://www.fostertype.com/ or read more about Blanco's development in TYPOgraphJournal vol04

When Street Graffiti meets medieval (Luxeuil) calligraphy

Designer Jean-Baptiste Morizot articulately explains his process of bringing together these two unlikely styles in his new typeface trickster

Atahualpa, a reverse contrast face which elegantly sways

Originality, not obtrusive at reading, is one of PampaType’s main objectives, with Atahualpa, PampaTypes founder Alejandro Lo Celso has most certainly delivered.

Structure is easy to change, but an aesthetic is hard to translate.

Kris Sowerby's latest offering Pitch Sans emerged from a process he describes as conceptual due diligence. Will the refined letters of one style supply the raw ingredients for another? Certain fonts are stoic, content to remain alone. Others more readily offer up details and structures that can be adapted.

Aravrit brings Hebrew and Arabic together
Liron Lavi Turkenich's experimental writing system hybridises the languages. Each new letter is composed of the top half of an Arabic letter a the bottom half of a Hebrew letter while maintaining legibility for readers of each. (So very smart)!

Letterheads 2018: London Calling

An international cast of signwriters and lettering professionals will descend on London this August for the city's first ever Letterheads 'meet'.

Meet the designers who shape the world of type today

Fontstand was started by type designers who wanted to simplify font licensing and allow high-quality fonts to be used not only in high-end projects but also in any daily work. However, there is another important intention—to bring the type users and type designers closer together. On April 21, 2018, Fontstand is hosting an international typography conference.

Typographics is a design festival for people who use type.

The annual event series, now in its 4th year, takes place June 11–21, 2018, and is devoted to contemporary typography, with talks, workshops, and tours focusing on where typography is today and where its future may lie. It will be held at The Cooper Union in New York City.

How pretty is Kawerau?

One for the urban designers and placemakers... (not type, books or print but very lovely) I adore this project which maps the urban form of small towns in New Zealand.

An unexpected typographic tour hidden beneath the city’s railway track

In a storage unit beneath the tracks of Berlin’s transit system sits an unexpected collection of objects that reveal the city’s urban history—if you know how to read them. Piled on top of one another like a sculptural rendering of a concrete poem is a mountain of three-dimensional letterforms: this is the collection of the Buchstabenmuseum

This months Musing headings are all set in Alice Savoie's Faune, A typeface family designed by Alice Savoie, A series of original illustrations by Marine Rivoal, A commission by the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, In partnership with the Groupe Imprimerie Nationale Learn more about Faune & Download your copy here.