the portfolio of steve mackley
As I learn the vagaries of Hindi form my wife and her family, I am always considering the opportunities for developing Indian fonts. Of course I ‘ve been beaten to the punch. The Indian Type Foundry—whose earlier Devanagari companion to Fedra Sans typeface, Fedra Hindi looks great—has posted some updates on its facebook page. Kohinoor Latin and Multiscript (including Tamil, Gujarati, and more) looks impressive, especially given the range of weights shown for Tamil.
Typotheque has just announced Plan Groteseque by Nikola Djurek. From their press release:
Plan Grotesque is a sturdy, unpretentious typeface for text of any kind; it is a functional workhorse, but has enough character to be distinctive at larger sizes. Plan Grotesque has distinguishing closing terminals, and unlike Grotesque typefaces of the previous century it comes with a true italic. Plan Grotesque comes in a comprehensive range of weights, widths and display versions (Normal, Condensed, Stencil,Stencil Condensed). It has friendly, subtly-modulated strokes and is more refined and economic than traditional grotesques.
More info can be found at: http://www.typotheque.com/fonts/plan_grotesque
Plan Grotesque also include a staggering range of numerals across all weights—seven in all. The typeface includes: ranging, or OsF (Old-style proportional Figures) for use in running text. Lining figures for use with capitals letters, because their proportions match the height of caps. Tabular (both Lining and OsF), Superior and Inferior figures, and special numerator figures for usin in fractions.
James Puckett of the Dunwich Type Founders has written and article for I Love Typography about the design process for his typepface Armitage. The link to the full article is here: Designing Armitage.
I am always fascinated by these glimpses into the font design process. To be able to see the inspiration for a typeface, as well as the choices made by the designer are always appreciated.
Armitage is available from FontSpring and MyFonts.
http://www.fontspring.com/fonts/dunwich-type-founders/armitage
http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/dunwich/armitage/
The Guardian Collection by Paul Barnes &amb Christian Schwartz is now available from Commerical Type.
What is the Guardian Collection:
A large family intended for editorial design and situations requiring complex typographic hierarchy, Guardian was designed for Mark Porter’s groundbreaking 2005 redesign of The Guardian. As a text face it exhibits a rational and clear disposition, lending a serious air to the text, while the display components capture a wide range of moods with their comprehensive range of weights.
Currently made up of 4 related families – a Headline size in both Sans and Egyptian; a Text size in Egyptian; and an Agate Sans – this superfamily was designed to fulfi ll every possible typographic need throughout the daily paper: serious news headlines, expressive features, readable text, tiny financial listings, information graphics, and everything in between.
Now at $1200 for the entire collection, this is clearly intended for a larger institutional buyer. Yet without the Agate San, you have a very robust and more affordable superfamily that is easy to recommend to a client. Plus I am always taken in by well executed slabs/egyptians. In particular, I am enthralled by the alternate R in Guardian Egyptian Text.
The always interesting Zuzana Licko has designed a sans and modern companion to the prolific Mrs. Eaves.
At first blush, these look stellar. In particular the Sans appears to keep the trademark openness and low x-height of the original. I should have a more in-depth review upon purchase of this typeface.
More info at: http://www.emigre.com/EF.php?fid=213
Hoefler & Frere-Jones have just announced the availability of their newest font family: Tungsten. Tungsten (I love that name) is a flat/square-sided sans. To me it is evocative of the sign paintings seen at the local butcher/grocer growing up in central Pennsylvania. It is available in 4 weights: Med, Semi, Bold, and Black. I wold also be remiss is I didn’t mention the support for what H&FJ calls its Latin-X® character set. What is Latin-X? It is an H&FJ OpenType font whose character set covers more than 100 languages throughout the world — including all of Central Europe. A nice trend that I intend to emulate in my own type design efforts.
H&FJ describe Tungsten as such: (via their blog)
A few years ago, we started wondering if there was a way to make a flat-sided sans serif that was disarming instead of brutish, one that employed confidence and subtlety instead of just raw testosterone. It was an unusual design brief for ourselves, completely without visual cues and trading in cultural associations instead: “more Steve McQueen than Steven Seagal,” reads one note; “whiskey highball, not a martini” suggests another.
The result is Tungsten®, a tight family of high-impact fonts in four weights: muscular and persuasive, without sacrificing wit, versatility, or style. Now starting at $99.
Wow, I go on one small Seattle vacation and return to a bevy of typographic bliss. Firstly, Semilla. I mentioned Sudtipos before. Quite frankly this Argentinean foundry have the finest collection of script faces around. Semilla continues this tradition.
As a designer enamored with the mid-century, I envision this a yet another tool in the arsenal to replace the “brush script hell” that many clients try to foist. Semilla is upbeat, approachable, and optimistic. I am fond of the upbeat feel of the typeface overall. Also with Opentype Script faces a key design choice is including discretionary ligatures. Semilla has plenty. Check out the fl and fi swashes.
Semilla is available via Veer.
FontShop has just posted a story on the FontFeed about the creation of FF Unit Slab. For those interested in gaining insights into developing font super-families it is a great read. Plus, it highlights the work of some of most respected contemporary type-designers—namely Erik Spiekermann and Christian Schwartz with Kris Sowersby.
I just saw that FontFont has released an OT update to Nick Shinn‘s Oneleigh.
For those unfamiliar with Mr. Shinn’s work I definitely recommend checking out his type catalogue (via Fontshop). Mr. Shinn’s catalogue is quite impressive and daunting to the neophyte type designer like myself. I am particularly smitten with his Modern Suite—the Figgins Sans and Scotch Modern. It is one of the nicest super families I’ve seen, plus Scotch Serifs are becoming trendy.
Enough bald flattery. The point of this post is the OT update to Oneleigh. Oneleigh’s opentype features, I believe, highlight what will eventually be the norm for font development. Many fonts now include proper small caps, but features like discretionary ligatures, lining figures, ordinals, and proper fractions are becoming expected. The Oneleigh OT update has all these and more. Definitely worth checking out.
From Chicagaoland’s own Ascender
Ascender Corp announced a license agreement with Letraset to distribute the renowned Fontek Digital Typeface collection. There are over 350 Letraset fonts in the Fontek range, which are renowned for their innovative style and popularity among graphic designers. Ascender Corp can license the Letraset fonts to software developers, hardware manufacturers and digital content publishers looking for attractive script and display and text fonts. In addition, the Letraset fonts are available for purchase and instant download from www.AscenderFonts.com.
Letraset press-type is wondrous and maddening thing for anal-retentive types like me. It’s nice to see these faces available digitally.
My name’s Steve MacKley, and I’m a creative director & designer with leadership experience in graphic, type and interactive design—plus a solid grounding in IA, strategy and research. My industry experience includes online retail, consumer electronics, as well as pharma / healthcare. I also have a strong interest in fonts and type design. Oh and I shouldn't forget to mention my bike infatuation.
