Recently in Type Category
A few years ago there seemed to be a bit of lull in the introduction of new typefaces. Perhaps not surprising, given the hundreds of thousands already available, ranging rom the classics, through contemporary releases and on into experimental offerings from individual designers and small font shops. But there's no doubt about it—we're now in the golden age of typography, with an avalanche of new releases upon us. And this will only increase, as the use of webfonts picks up speed.
House numbers are one of those things you don't really think about until they're brought to your attention—and then you can't stop thinking about them. This happened to me recently after reading about a new line of numerals designed by typographer, designer and FontShop founder Erik Spiekermann. Apparently he had an aha! moment at one point during a visit to the US, since his observation is that, "In the USA, streets can be quite long, and house numbers often run into five digits. The choice of numbers for this purpose, however, is pretty limited. What you see attached to most walls would not pass for professionally-designed figures."
Veer
Veer recently cameup with an imaginative setting for its exclusive Jukebox Collection. Jukebox is the name designer Jason Walcott has chosen for his collection of fonts that evokes "the golden age of sign painters and Madison Avenue. A treasure trove of typographic Americana." For its latest promotion, Veer created a number of faux vintage album covers to show off some of the faces, an example of which is shown above. Click on that image to view all the covers.
Last week I took a look at the web font offerings of FontShop, Monotype and other commercial suppliers. I indicated at the time that while it was great to finally be able to use quality fonts on a website, the current metered pricing model might cause some designers to hesitate. Several of the vendors offer free trials of various kinds, providing a good way to experiment with the viability of web fonts. But I've since come across a site providing some decent free ones, which could provide a more flexible environment for your tests, since you can host them on your own server. For client work, you'll naturally want to employ top-quality, commercial fonts. But for use in personal projects, these might form a good starting point for building your collection of free web fonts.
Goodbye Verdana. Take a hike, Arial. After suffering through a decade and a half of purgatory, website designers are now finally free to take advantage of the typographic riches of those creating print publications. Bring on the dancing girls! Let the festivities commence! Or has a new nightmare only begun?
I'm sure you meticulously scroll through the entire End User Licence Agreement (EULA) before installing new software. Ditto when downloading stock images purchased online. No? Frankly, I'm shocked. Well, in that case there's little chance that you're familiar with the license terms of the last font you purchased. You didn't know fonts also had EULAs? Fonts are just software, after all, and commercial software simply grants the purchaser a limited ability to use it. Same with fonts. So for designers, knowing what they legally can and can't do with their fonts is not insignificant.
That's right, ATT is back with its take on what's new in the world of fonts, font applications, notable font usage and general fontiness. This time out I'll focus on recent font releases from Fountain, Gestalten, Kapitza, Linotype and Mårten Nettelblad.
It was about half way through the tour of the Château of Germolles that our aimiable and erudite guide—who it turned out was one of the current owners—ushered our little group into a darkened room. The shutters on the large windows were almost closed, allowing just a few rays to penetrate what seemed to be a high-ceilinged chamber. There was just the hint of a smile on our guide's lips as he admonished us to not bump into the walls.
s the browser, as we know it, on the road to extinction? The rise of sophisticated web applications has been making it look increasingly tired of late, in no small part due to the pathetic manner it displays text. Sure, CSS is great, but we're still forced to render text with a tiny set of arbitrary fonts that's looking more restrictive every day. With no one except designers to champion tapping the thousands of available fonts, and type creators themselves spooked about the possible unauthorized use of their creations, what's been missing is a champion of the typographic cause to move things forward.
f the tools of document design, such as InDesign and QuarkXPress, have for years provided pretty much the same functionality, whether employed on a Mac or a PC, the same can not be said of font management. To put it bluntly, font management on Windows systems has been primitive. Happily, recent initiatives by the two main developers in the field have gone a long way to achieving font management parity between platforms.
