I love this quote by John Hudson which just popped up in a discussion about type classifications:
Tinkering with the wheel alignment of a car that might turn out not to have an engine seems pointless, especially if you haven’t even decided where it is to which you wish to drive.
This actually fits all design processes. No, life in general.
I’m trying to help with type questions as much as time allows me – via email, on typophile or elsewhere. So why not share some on here too?
“When licensing fonts do you usually buy a whole family, or just select weights? I’m thinking especially in the case of some ••• supermegadeluxx families, I just can never afford to buy the whole family, yet normally my preference is to, thus I don’t buy those huge families but smaller ones.”
I hardly ever get whole families. First because of price, yes, but also because I never need so many styles. Sometimes so vast a choice rather confuses me than helps selecting fonts. It’s also kind of a great exercise for typographers to try get by with as few styles as possible, at least that’s what I love to challenge me with. In the case of ••• it’s also super customer friendly because you get reduction in price per total number of fonts in a purchase, regardless from which family (see my blog post from last Dezember for details). So the price of a single font drops from 40 to 30 $ pretty fast.
Start with a number you can afford, carefully pick styles and see how far you get with those. You can always come back and buy additional fonts later. Also, there are so many ways to emphasize or distinguish in typography apart from changing the weight or style, plus you can combine fonts too of course. So my advice is: get some 2–4 styles of a timeless workhorse (e.g. Miller, Starling, Amplitude, Benton, Titling, Salvo) and add some spice with an occasional display style or wacky font.
So one of the results of my two days web-interlude with the genius Florian Hardwig is a site that looks more basic every day. Not that this wordpress-theme got any simpler or managable, the only thing I’m capable of is removing stuff it seems.
Although I’m not happy with the general design and admin, I feel a great pull to revisit persitantly. To look at IbisRE, my wonderful loan from webtype. This will continue for at least 29 more days. After that I’ll have to make do with visiting FontBureau’s website every now and then, which uses Ibis for all body copy (apart from the news section) since shortly as well. Anymore sites you know of? Send them my way (or, even better, donate an obolus for the yearly webtype-fee so Ibis and me don’t have to part in the first place).
Yesterday my good friend Kurt died at the age of 88. I got to know him 1995 in Weimar when I invited him to give a lecture at our university. Prior to this we had coffee and cake at our squatted student’s abode, ranted about architects, designers, this, that and the world and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy the untidy (not to say seedy) atmosphere in our house. So we stayed in touch. I owe him a lot and will miss him terribly.
Für die interessierten Deutsch lesenden möchte ich hier seinen Vortrag von damals posten. English speakers might just have to enjoy some old photos I found. Due to Kurt’s very creative use of language google translate probably won’t make much sense out of his text.
Fare well, dear friend. Though I wish you peace, I cannot imagine you resting :)
Der Meister auf unserem Forum Typografie in Düsseldorf, 2/2007
(post auf dem Spatium blog über seinen Vortrag dort)
Kurt + i auf der TypoBerlin 10/1996, still aus Historische Videoschnipsel
(Video seines Vortrags auf der TypoBerlin website)
Ist Wertewandel das Deckwort für Ratlosigkeit?
Anmerkungen zu den gestaltenden Berufen
von Kurt Weidemann
Mehr lesen
Tja, der Beitrag liegt immer noch hier rum. Und ich hätte auch gerne noch ein paar Dinge anmerken wollen zu Einkaufswagenerlebnissen, Schriftmustern, Testworten, Rechnungsstellung und Auslieferung. Aber gerade zum Thema Distribution habe ich mich neulich auf Twitter wohl etwas zu weit aus dem Fenster gelehnt, so dass ich von einigen Seiten was auf die Backe bekam.
Apropos Backe: irgendwie habe ich im Moment kein rechtes Händchen fürs Schreiben über Schriftdinge, zumindest nicht auf Englisch. Das führte letztens immer nur zu Missverständnissen. Vielleicht hat es auch etwas mit grundlegenden kulturellen Unterschieden in Diskursdingen zu tun. Jedenfalls scheint mir Deutsch gerade bisschen weniger Minenfeld.
In case someone actually still wants to buy fonts this year I better hurry up with my report. Alright, what more did I buy?
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Okay Type:
They (Jackson and his cat) have some really super fonts in the making, but only Alright Sans is ready for licensing yet. I had kept track of this interesting amalgam of a sans for quite some time already as it gets mentioned almost every day on typophile. Not purely humanist in style and proportions it combines open forms with the regularities of a classic grotesque and daring slanted a’s and g’s as alts in the italic. Makes me think of good ol’ Syntax and the Ideal Italic again.
Due to my (meanwhile) mission to get as many different families as possible, I just boughts five single weights at MyFonts because one can only get the whole family on Okay Type’s website. (Why?)
Exljbris:
Now while I was there I did what probably everybody does at MyFonts from time to time—getting a couple of free fonts. Not many of them are suitable for professional design work, but in my opinion the typefaces by Jos Buivenga are. I got some complementary styles to the free version of Calluna, a versatile text face (and since Christmas joined by a sans to become a super-family) plus the flamboyant conceptional experiment that is Geotica—a high-contrast Didone only built up of geometric elements. The different fills, swashes and ornaments make it an exciting display venture.
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The Asset:
All those typefaces hopefully complement the ones I got earlier this year:
Eames Century Gothic* Modern: I just had to order immediately, it simply is the impersonation of Erik van Blokland. One can dive deep into the individual shapes for days, the display styles make instant logos (beware, not allowed in basic license), the ornaments and numeral fonts are a playful plus. So enjoyable.
Hard to avoid the typefoundry Bold Monday this year, especially Nitty, which is surprisingly comfortable to type text in and Panno by Pieter van Rosmalen. I started out with the friendly priced sampler and got the full family of Paul van der Laan’s humanist sans Flex later.
Half way through my shopping spree Commercial Type, or rather Christian Schwartz announced the release of Neue Haas Grotesk to be near. Halleluja! Ever since working on the Helvetica Forever project I wished for that to happen. (We actually wanted to type-set the book in this newly digitized version back in 2007, but somehow either it wasn’t ready by that time or they didn’t manage to sort out the legal issues, so we ended up with Neue Helvetica.) I have no idea whether I’d ever use neue Neue Haas Grotesk, it’s just so tempting to get and be it only to show the world how Helvetica was meant to look like. But—maybe later.
Because all of a sudden the tide was turning: the notice of some unexpected debits abrupty shrunk my font-budget by almost 50% (now ~1500 €). But there was still so much left in my FontShop, A2 and MyFonts Carts :/
So these, among others, are typefaces I unfortunately had to skip (I should make a shortlist of nearly-bought fonts at some point):
Freight Micro, Text and Display I’m in love with this extensive super family by Joshua Darden/Garage Fonts for quite some time now. Especially the Micro (Italic) styles have great display qualities, too, although originally designed for extra small text.
Hercules, a quirky Modern/Scotch by František Štorm and also his
Farao, a playful take on the Clarendon genre. I like most of his typefaces although you realise some similarities after a while (the a’s e.g. are typical), but that is the case with other great type designers, too, like Gerard Unger or Fred Smeijers (his g’s and ß’s).
Lavigne got postponed as well, a dulcet text face by Ramiro Espinoza with great ampersand and complementing display styles for even more lavish demeanor.
Relato by Eduardo Manso attracted me with its distinct cursive. The rather low-contrast makes it a designated book face suitable for long-distance reading.
Iowan Old Style by John Downer, a calm, no-fuss text typeface, quite atypical for him actually.
Grot 10 from newly formed foundry A2. I especially like the true italics, which are still rather unusual for an “old-style” grotesque. There have been a lot of these kind of revivals popping up lately, like Plan by Typotheque, Fakt from Ourtype, Embarcadero by Mark van Bronkhorst or the recently expanded Founders Grotesque from Klim, to mention a few. Type expert Stephen Coles even names 2010 the year of the Helvetica replacements.
On that note, let me put you off until the third and final installment with some more shopping-occurrences, my final receipt and conclusion.
Last week I found myself faced with the rare and luxurious task to spend quite some money, quickly, and on something typography related.
I guess I’m not alone with this end-of-year-business-expence problem, so instead of a list with cool things in type 2010 I want to share my shopping experiences here.
As kind of a warm-up I ordered a couple of books and studio-material — easy — followed by some software, but I figured investing in fonts would be a lot less age sensitive and a more sustainable way to spend the remaining rest of this non-recurring source of capital. But what to pick?
I have a good overview and dialog with German and neighbouring European foundries, the classic Adobe Font Folio and ancient URW collection but what was kind of missing were the more independent anglo-american contributions of the past years.
so
So I started my stroll — at Font Bureau. I love them for their varied collection of part vernacular, part sophisticated typefaces, a lot with display styles available, and webfonts of course (but better avoid the “wacky” section).
My cart filled quickly, felt a bit like the old game »Ich packe meinen Koffer und nehme mit …«:
Amplitude: Because I fell in love with the triangular opening at the base of the a. A big fat wide compressed family presumably suitable for almost everything. Not too gruff, yet not too friendly (I got a bit tired of all those numerous humanist sans recently).
Farnham Text + Display: The a again, it won me over ever since I first saw it. I’m into baroque, Baskerville-ish typefaces for quite a while now and Farnham is a very amicable interpretation of the theme. I buy my daily Frankfurter Rundschau just because of this.
Giza: Yeah! Who can resist Nine Five? Now to find the right occasion to use and not only look at it.
Ibis Text + Display: “Very small and very big” are probably the best applications for Ibis. It resembles the feel of Zapf’s Melior and other squarish, almost-slab-seriffed 1950s typefaces I like a lot. Didn’t use it up to now, but Ibis does an amazing job as a webfont, especially on windows. Bold italic!
Meno: An irresistable cursive, like a bacchanal exaggeration of Galliard. Probably tricky to typeset but I definitely want to take the challenge and spend some time with her one day.
Miller Text + Display: Hard to go wrong with Miller, one of my all-time favourites. A versatile workhorse for tons of text with crispy, sexy display styles. Yum!
Prensa: As an admirer of Dwiggins one simply has to love Prensa (and Delicato and Enigma). Edgy, hardheaded, yet very legible and with great display qualities, too. Once again: bold italic!
Skilt Gothic: A better replica, derived from 1920s Danish signage lettering, this new release is a good alternative to DIN or when you want to say “industrial and undesigned”. Cool g and y, both one- and two-storey a’s and lots of other OT goodies (yeah, still rare but finally pro/premium OpenType arrived at Font Bureau, too).
Titling Gothic: Incredible, huge Grotesque families are FB’s specialty, so choosing a sans and picking styles from their ample palette was extra hard. I went for Titling Gothic because it somehow stands in the middle between the eccentric Bureau Grot and the more sane Benton Sans and Franklin. I would have liked Boomer Sans, too, but that sounded difficult to license.
Trilby: Well, what to do with Trilby, posters probably. It’s just so damn cool.
Whitman: I have to admit, it’s not my favourite but it seemed an expedient investment. Maybe it’s the a (again, they are my acid test), or that it is so perfectly balanced, but Whitman is a good alternative for Joanna, often described as a difficult diva. Or Scala.
Zocalo Text + Display: It definitely is the a! Freakish italics, cantilevered serifs in the caps, very readable in text, quirky at display sizes, simply a joy to look at.
so
I didn’t select all those typefaces at once. But after putting like 10 fonts in the cart I noticed a significant drop in price, even though I didn’t get the full families but only individual weights. From 40$ in the beginning the price per font decreased to 35, 30 and finally 25$ only. That’s awesome! And dangerous.
From then on I was lost. I forced myself to take a break, shopped at some other manufacturers and wholesalers and decided to fill my parked FB-cart with as many fonts as possible at the end of my trip.
so
Stop 2: Hoefler & Frere-Jones
They make very good, downright perfect typefaces, no doubt. I like them, really. But somehow everybody loves HFJ and regard them as the authority in quality fonts — it doesn’t make me want to use their typefaces so much anymore. Everybody else is using them already.
so
Stop 3: Process Type
Right on time the nasty* guys at Process Type announced a 25%-off christmas sale. Not easy to keep me from buying something with a wallet so loosely in my pocket. I got Locator, a versatile, uncluttered Sans with cool Q, J and l (a bit like in Neuzeit) and freaky Maple because I couldn’t resist the g and e, r and a are so cheerful in bigger sizes.
so
Intermezzo:
As mentioned earlier I mainly roamed through the collection of the smaller independent foundries and I have to admit “evil”* MyFonts came in really handy during my expedition. I’d rather spend my money directly on the foundry’s site but it can get quite tedious to look up all of them individually, creating an account, providing payment info etc. So I lazily filled my cart at this central market place. Besides MyFonts’ search, mark, save, rate, tag and easy-use test-facilities are just super practical (plus some foundries don’t even sell their fonts on their sites).
While browsing some “new-and-noteables” I went astray and came across an ancient all-time-favourite of mine — and simply melted away confronted with its light italic: Bitstream’s Schadow by Georg Trump, one of my favourite designers anyway. Look at the g!
so
End of day 1. To be continued with some okay type, more hands-on shopping experiences, my in- and out-takes, reciept and conclusion.
so
(We are working on soap bottles at the moment.)
To keep my health! To do my work! To love, to live!
To see to it I gain and grow and give and give!
Never to look behind me for an hour!
Never to wait in weakness nor to brag in power!
Always working, searching for more truth, more light!
Always writing, teaching what I found good and right!
Robbed-starved-beaten-blinded, wide astray!
Back with the full-truth I’ve gained, back to the way [...]
Emmanuel Heilbronner
Typography can look like lettering (Liza Pro, fancy OpenType fonts) but it’s not the same. It can even look like writing (formal scripts or handwriting fonts like FF Mister K), where the major parts of the letter or whole words are formed out of one stroke. In the same way lettering can look like typography (rub-down letters, fine rendering) or writing and still has nothing to do with those techniques.
The key nature of typography is that it makes use of prefabricated glyphs which are set according to abstract parameters. If you send a setting instructions like the following to someone at the other end of the world, he will be able to reproduce the exact same column of text, typographically, but never with one of the other methods.
Typographic parameters are font, size, leading, alignment (justified or ragged), tracking, kerning, line length like for example in:
ITC Garamond light, 14/18 pt, flush left, no hyphenation, tracking 0, line length 140 mm, paragraphs indented by 1 em.
Theoretisch ist Kunst total sinnlos
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