THIS WEEK FROM THE DESK

The sophomore release from FJT, Retina, is an expansion and total re-engineering of the Retina family initally drawn for the Journal in the early 2000s. It's thorough, expansive, and a really great workhorse for broad text and tiny-number typesetting. Fast Co. also has a great interview with Tobias on the process here. 

One of the most intriguing part of this post actually, is the little sneak preview of Exchange—a seriffed face continuing the 'defensive typesetting strategy' of Retina due out in 2017. Can't wait!

An interesting read about the introduction of Movement and motion into the art of poster design via the AIGA.

OHno Type Co's Type Video for Vulf = On Point Font Marketing

An AIGA article on Women in typography popped up early this week, and although I wish they would have used more recent stats about type conferences (2016 TypeCon was almost exactly 50/50 in speaker representation.), and pointed to a few more recent female type designers currently in the industry (there are lots!), the article is very in depth and spurs on further reading into this important and timely issue. 

It’s not just women in the industry that need to feed their experience into work and use their position to readdress the status quo, but everyone across the gender spectrum.

I love the name, springing form "No Tofu", the affectionate term for that box that appears in place of missing glyphs (See video!).

Monotype and Google debuted their Noto collaboration this week which aims to have complete digital representation for every language and writing system out there. I don't know how many font families there are out there that have over a million glyphs, but I'm pretty sure this project will surpass that if it hasn't already. 

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THIS WEEK FROM THE DESK

James Edmondson at the helm of OHno Type Co released Vulf Mono this week, a monospaced family of four weights and italics designed for and with the band Vulfpeck. It's a real gem with undulating curves, vibrating crossbars, stark deep cuts, and even a set of musical glyphs. Plus, it's well priced and available to the public. If you were wondering how to get some character into your font menu, this is it. See and buy Vulf on the OHno site, or read more about the process in James' post about it on Medium. 

Vox indeed goes deep on the world of comic book fonts with some drool worthy printed pages. 

Playtype is fantastic, and this poster is proof that when type and design team up, good things happen.  Buy this on their site here. 

I'm still not sure how I feel about this 'swiss style' of graphic design. It lies somewhere between the Yale School of insanity and classic Robert Bringhurst. Nonetheless, this feature of Futur Neue's latest expression of graphic design is intriguing and worth a look see on It's Nice That. 

This subtle spread from French Designers BB Bureau floated past the desk this week via Ello, and it's a great conversation starter on the ideas of typography and magazine layout. It also lead me to learn of the existence of Kiblind Magazine, which is available to online some very nice spreads online. Wish I had known about this zine sooner. 

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FALL IS HERE

One question I get a lot is "Why are you in Denver?" Many folks assume that a type design studio would prefer to be operating out of the design industry's magnetic poles: New York or San Francisco. And although those people would be right to think that, they rarely know about the best reasons for setting up shop in Colorado... the number one of which is happening now. 

Fall is here and in Colorado, that means change. Change in the winds, the temperature, wardrobes, but most exciting of all: the mountains. Every year around this time, the aspens turn gold, the pines become more fragrant, and the mountains are draped in a tapestry of wild painted colors. 

This is my favorite time of year. The best way to experience this—if you don't find Colorado on your travel calendar any time soon—is on Instagram. I've tagged a few of my favorite Coloradans' images and accounts here to take you away from the cement cities for a second and into the fresh air of the Rockies. 

A photo posted by DRAM (@dramapothecary) on

A photo posted by Travis Ladue (@travisladue) on

A photo posted by Mike (@coloradoalpenglow) on

Fall time in Colorado always reminds me to experience change with an open mind, and that there's so much more out there that you're not experiencing in your daily routine. May your transitions into new things go well this season. We have a lot of new things coming up in the Studio and Shop. Be sure to check in on the website now and again.  

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THIS WEEK FROM THE DESK

It was announced this week that Dan Rhatigan has joined the team at Adobe. Congrats Dan! Read the interview with Typekit here.  Hope to see some amazing things coming out of Adobe soon, Dan. 

Nebiolo's 1960's masterstroke type family has been revived and updated for the modern context by David Jonathan Ross and Roger Black.  A beautiful revival with a beautiful site. Very cool to have another stylish variant on the "Neutral Sans" roster. 

This fascinating video and accompanying story (via Eye Magazine) crossed by the desk this week and its mesmerizing. To sell upholstery fabrics, upholstered shapes were dropped and captured on high speed. Simple and fun. Although it's from 2010, it still ignites some creative sparks.

I've always been a fan of Gratuitous Type. Do pick up a copy of the latest issue. It's fun.  

I've been slowly working my way through these videos to catch up on everything that happened at ATypI in Warsaw this year. See all the videos available here. 

A fascinating in-depth look into Rosetta's latest type additions to Neacademia. It's a good study of pen, historical printing, and legible types of old. I hope this sells big, I'm intrigued about how classical printing type revivals perform in today's sleek-sans digital type market. How crazy is that Small Text zzo lig? 

Print Magazine released a list of 7 new and exciting typefaces recently released. Its a good list featuring work from HvD, Nina Stoessenger, Shiva Nallaperumal, Maria Doreuli, and Roxane Gataud. Check it out here. 

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THIS WEEK FROM THE DESK

ATypI is underway in Warsaw, Poland this week, and right out of the gate there was some earth shattering news for the font industry: Variable Fonts. Open Type Variable Fonts are the collective promise of the industry's future on the web. Through an unprecedented level of collaboration of big players like Apple, Google, Adobe, and Microsoft, Variable fonts will allow for entire families to be packed into one font file for faster rendering online and new forms of expression through type in design. There's still lots to read about and learn about this new format, but it is going to be very exciting. Read John Hudson's release details here. 

Studied, crafted, and sharp, Greg's first release—Robinson—with Commercial Type went out this week. Great work, Greg, I look forward to seeing how this is used out there in the real world. 

Lucas Sharp debuted his new foundry Sharp Type on Village this week, with the headliner being Sharp Sans—the public version of the type he developed for Hillary Clinton's election campaign. It's extensive, with lots of hidden alternate character gems. Check out the extensive write up and buy on Village.

An absolutely fantastic short read on the power of design from the New York Times Magazine, with a special focus on Design's role in the "recent bathroom kerfuffle". Share this with your friends. Design is an understanding that can be harnessed by everyone for better. 

Loving the typographically focused identity for Teatro Donizetti, based in Bergamo, Italy. Way to get a third color from the paper. Read and see more on It's Nice That. 

 

 

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THIS WEEK FROM THE DESK

Every once in a while, the conversation on emojis gets stirred up again. This time, it's Microsoft's turn, releasing their new approach to Emoji's, designed by Always With Honor.

It's refreshing to see some new and fresh approaches to emojis from Microsoft, especially their new family maker feature... Lots of info worth checking out on both the Microsoft blog and AWH site. 

Newly Crowned by Print Magazine's 15 under 30, the Yarza Twins have been on everyone's radar including ours. Batavier, their latest type revival is an interesting study in uncovering a quirky display face from history and raising it to make a statement in today's font landscape. 

This is a detailed yet interesting read from Richard Fink on the case of wether webfonts are good or bad. (via A List Apart.)

Type Pin Type Pin
Sale

We put the new Type Pins up in the Badson Shop this week. Handsome, Smart, Nerdy... type nerds, rejoice! 

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