Daniel John Gayle

I was inspired by all of the activities of Typecon to start working on my own new typeface. I have some of the initial drawings sketched out already, but they’re not anything ready for public consumption yet.

The basic idea is t0 create an almost monolinear serif-ed typeface suitable for text use. It will be a vertically-stressed typeface, but have strong quill inspired diagonals for most of the horizontal strokes. (I.E., the lower case e has a strong diagonal bar.) In a way it is almost calligraphic, but with a monoline form it will be something entirely different.

I don’t intend on creating a billion weights for it because deep down inside I think of myself as a purist. If the Renaissance type designers could live with just a single weight, then so can I. (Italics are another matter. Gotta have italics. Bold? I don’t know yet. I’ll approach that when I get to it.)

As it is a text face, things like proper small caps and oldstyle numerals are essential.

It’s gonna take some time to get it going since I can’t sit down at a computer for 8 hours a day like a proper type designer, but I’ll keep plugging away.

Well, Typecon is over for another year. It was awesome! I posted before how many of the speakers I knew about, so as a test of how successful my networking skillz are, I figure I should revisit the list again.

1. Christine Ahonen
2. Marian Bantjes
3. Ali Basit
4. Jared Benson - Not bad at spinning the ol’ 80s tunes.
5. David Berlow - His award was touching. I had a major part to play in this because I was responsible for the distrobution of his exclusive type specimen. I had him sign it for me. Sweet!
6. John D. Berry - Met him, barely.
7. Roger Black - Former designer of Rolling Stone and about a billion other high profile magazines.
8. Robert Bringhurst - Author of the Elements of Typographic Style. Great writer, kinda seems too sophisticate for peeps like me.
9. Jorge de Buen - Had dinner with him. Great guy from Tijuana.
10. Veronika Burian - Lovely type designer. Met here at the closing dinner.
11. Emilie Burnham
12. Andrew Byrom
13. Leslie Cabarga - Didn’t get a chance to have him sign his book, but I had a few very nice discussions with him. His presentation was very well done, also.
14. Matthew Carter - Had several conversations with him. I even had him critique Jelloween’s newest font! Great guy, very down to earth.
15. Nadine Chahine - Works for Linotype. Gave an awesome presentation on Arabic type design and history. Also at dinner with Jorge.
16. Art Chantry - I spoke with him after his presentation. Lives down in Tacoma, Wa, so he invited me to come visit his studio. This guy is just a good ol’ boy who likes his beer cold and his jeans blue.
17. Karen Cheng - Gave a good presentation about the work she does with her students at the UW.
18. Nancy Sharon Collins
19. Leonardo Vázquez Conde - Leonardo! He and Amy Redmond of the School of Visual Concepts were attached at the hip! His presentation along with Gabriel Martínez Meave was easily one of the highlights of the week.
20. Carl Crossgrove - Hey, he wore my wig. That’s got to count for something. Didn’t get him to sign his type specimen though. Too bad.
21. Simon Daniels - Si wooed the crowds with his “Battlestar Helvetica” t-shirt.
22. John Downer - John was awesome! He’s originally from around here, and he gave a great presentation. He also helped in the type crit with Matthew Carter.
23. Mike Duggan
24. Rodney Shelden Fehsenfeld
25. Laura Franz
26. Jimmy Gallagher
27. Tim Girvin
28. Shelley Gruendler
29. Bruce Hale - NW designer and hand-letterer. I recently met him at my school. Cool guy.
30. Allan Haley - He’s the chaiman for SOTA, so we worked a lot together over the week. Nice guy.
31. Chris Han
32. Bill Hill
33. Cyrus Highsmith - Gave a hilarious presentation.
34. Gary Hustwit
35. Grant Hutchinson - Veer. (He also twitters)
36. Mark Jamra - He made these nice hand pressed bookmarks for everyone’s gift bags.
37. Richard Kegler - P22 Founder. He wore my wig! His wife is also very cool.
38. Akira Kobayashi - Helped critique Jelloween’s font.
39. Kevin Larson - Research guy from Microsoft’s Typography group
40. Mikhail Leonov
41. Karl Leuthold
42. Peter Lofting
43. Emily Luce
44. Pete McCracken
45. Karen Madsen
46. Sergey Malkin
47. Anastasios Maragiannis
48. Frank J. Martinez
49. Steve Matteson
50. Gabriel Martínez Meave
51. Jeremy Mende
52. Edward Mendelson
53. Eric Menninga
54. Susan Merritt
55. James Montalbano - Designer of Clearview Highway typefaces, the new ones being used for highway signage around the US and the world.
56. Carl Montford - NW Letterpress guy
57. Paul Nini
58. Amy Papaelias
59. Jon Parker
60. Mike Parker
61. Carolyn Parsons
62. Joseph Pemberton - A typophile
63. Thomas Phinney - Adobe’s Product Manager for Fonts & Global Typography. Lives here in Seattle. I had lunch with him a while back. Great guy. Hi Thomas!
64. Pamela Pfiffner
65. Will Powers
66. Robynne Raye
67. Amy Redmond
68. Jay Rutherford
69. Judy Safran-Aasen
70. Aida Sakkal
71. Mamoun Sakkal
72. Murray Sargent
73. Dan Shafer
74. Juliet Shen
75. Nick Sherman
76. Nick Shinn - Type designer at Shinntype.com
77. Miguel Sousa - Type designer for Adobe
78. Jessica Spring
79. Cary Staples
80. Michael Strassburger
81. Ilene Strizver
82. Adam Twardoch - Fontlab programmer/guru
83. Jim Wasco
84. Jenny Wilkson
85. Spyros Zevelakis
86. Chris Zodrow

TO BE CONTINUED…

Who’s your daddy, I ask of you?

Here’s the transformation of joe schmo Dan Gayle into the
Typecon2007 1980s party best male costume. Rather than the cocaine and
New Order vibe, or the Flashdance vibe of the others, I instead opted
for the 80s midwestern white trash vibe. (The hat says Happy Days, by
the way…)

It was awesome, because it added about 20 years to me, and no one recognized me at first glance.