Jim Rimmer in Vancouver, BC has done something that no one else has done before:
He’s the first person to release a font both digitally and in metal at the same time, which is quite a feat. Since all of the metal typefounders are old, they don’t typically get into the whole “computer” thing. And vice-versa.
Here’s a video produced by Richard Kegler of the P22 Type Foundry:
I never posted this before, but I figure it’s never too late. This typeface comes from the handwriting of Juan de Yciar of Spain, circa 1600 C.E. The book that these scans came from is in the Library of Congress, and it is easily one of the greatest looking pieces of handwriting I have ever seen.
Over 80+ pages of this scribal penmanship, beautifully illuminated and decorated, with gilt images and touches of flair throughout. It would seem to be appropriate for a great Spanish love story, but it’s actually quite mundane 
Since it is Spanish, there were quite a few letters that didn’t exist, such as the maguscule and miniscule K, which is a sound that it taken care of by the letter Q in that language. (And look at that Q! That’s the non-swash variant!)
Overall, there are something like 400+ glyphs, including a tremendous amount of ligatures and swashes that are all coded in Opentype. I’m still working on just the basic latin character set and the spacing before I can unleash it into the wild.
I’ve recently been working on a font similar to Trajan, based off of the letterforms found on the cover of Joy Division’s Closer album. What I thought would be fun would be to add Greek uppercase letters to match, and eventually Cyrillic.
This is not about that font.
But in my research, I came across a super cool Greek inscription that, to my eyes, is heavy metal before metal was heavy (Did that make sense?) I thought that it would be fun to start digitizing this example as well.
I don’t know how many letters I’ll need to build from scratch, but it shouldn’t be too hard, as everything is built out of similar parts. Look for it sometime, uh, whenever.
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.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Starting Monday, July 30, I get to help volunteer for NerdfestTypecon 2007, which is coming to Seattle this year. My roomate is giving me the hardest time about being excited for this, but so what? It’s gonna be fun.
The following speakers will be attending. Let’s see if I can recognize even a few names…
22 out of 86? That’s 25% baby!
Not bad for off the top of my head, eh? I’ve only met a few of them personally, but I recognize the others. Out of all of them though, Matthew Carter is clearly the Top Dawg. He’s one of the few living greats among type designers, including Hermann Zapf and Adrian Frutiger who are amazingly still alive and Robert Slimbach of Adobe. It will be so cool to meet him!
Anyway, I get to help lug around boxes and set up tables, etc. At least, that’s what I figure I’ll do. I know that Sii has set me up with a Mariner’s ticket to the Red Sox, so that will be awesome. Since I live here, maybe I’ll get a chance to lead some people around? Who knows?
Typecon 2007
August 1-5
Crown Plaza, Seattle
I was just looking at the stats for this particular post, and I noticed that a lot of folks were searching for info about the cover. For all of you, there is good news. I found out the origin and everything with some help of some friends, and I am close to completion of a new typeface based on the design.
For more info, please go the Typophile.com discussion “Joy Division Closer Font“.
If I get enough requests, I’ll publish the font at MyFonts.com.
I always loved the cover of Joy Division’s “Closer” album. The stark simplicity of the design, the evocative photograph of a memorial tomb at Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno , and of course, the elegant Roman typeface used for the cover and inside covers.
I tried hunting down the typeface used, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. (I haven’t posted it to Typophile yet…) MyFonts.com has a few close matches (Like Friz Quadrata) that would satisfy most people, but they were not quite right.
I was stoked when I found out that Peter Saville, the designer for Joy Division and New Order’s albums, had a website where he posted the fonts that “he” had designed for their use. He had one specifically labeled “Joy Division Closer” font. Unfortunately, the font Saville, or whoever is running the site had posted was totally bogus. It was another font called Helios SSi that someone had slapped a new name on in total violation or the original designer’s moral and copyright laws.
Shame on you! I don’t think that Saville would have done such a stupid thing, because he was a featured guest on Typeradio.org, and you have to be a real type nerd to have been involved in that.
It doesn’t even match the album cover, more the pity.
My new project is Typestudent.org. I created the site because there was a need for student-oriented resource for type and typography. For instance, I want to catalog all of the various student discounts available to students such as software/hardware/fonts/etc.
I’m working on the site infrastructure and forum construction right now. There are only a few people signed on to help out so far, but that’s because I want to iron the kinks out before I announce it publicly.
It’s gonna be sweet.
Woo Hoo! All of the best type designers and typographers from around the US, Canada and the world will be converging on my fair city in August! The convention will be held from August 1-5 here in Seattle, and it’s gonna be a blast. Since both Adobe and Microsoft have their main type departments here, and the InDesign team for Adobe, it should be a real treat.
Membership at SOTA, the group that puts on the convention, is now available for registration after a hiatus. You should sign up!
Ascender, the company that distributes Microsoft’s core fonts such as Georgia, Verdana and Tahoma, has a great offer available right now.
The Creativity Font Pack is a nice selection of OpenType fonts available for $20. You’d think that the selection would be a bunch of cheap shareware fonts, but no. They actually licensed a few typefaces that are really nice. There are a few stupid display faces that are throwaways, but the remaining selection is nice.
Just look up the names to see the value. The Font Bureau typefaces are usually over $40 a piece. Today Sans is $35 a piece. Coquette? $29.
These are a few of my favorites, in no particular order: