New Fontstruction: Technobabble

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My new Fonstruction, Technobabble is available for download on Fontstruct. It’s really a continuation of what I’ve done with some of my other Fontstructions, Transmission and Power Grid. Technobabble is a scifi-inspired typeface with angular elements and has a complete upper and lower case.

Just a reminder that you have to sign up for an account to download the fonts. (You can download all of my Fontstructions on the Sketchbook B page.)

So what is technobabble? In science fiction, technobabble is the psuedo-scientific terminology that “explains” the technical issue the characters are having. Usually, it gets them into a problem or provides a seemingly miraculous solution. It’s found in varying degrees through most science fiction, but it’s especially prevalent in Star Trek.


Only at TypeCon...

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I took this shot a few months ago and completely forgot about it. At TypeCon 2009 in Atlanta, there were two meetings happening in adjacent rooms. one meeting was the type critique that was open to attendees. The other meeting was a planning session for the web fonts panel the next day and was private. The rooms weren’t well marked so someone in the web fonts panel meeting grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote a quick sign…


Only at TypeCon does a quick handwritten sign look like this… If you haven’t heard the panel discussion, audio is posted online. It really was an interesting look at the challenges behind getting a workable web fonts model…

Filmotype and the CBS Wall

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I had planned to release a series of reflections on TypeCon 2009 immediately after the conference, but instead ended up in bed with pneumonia…

TypeCon featured lots of great speakers and projects about current typeface design, experimentation and challenges facing the community. And there were several sessions of note about historic preservation of some of type industries forgotten treasures.

The Filmotype

Stuart Sandler from Font Diner and Font Bros detailed the forgetton history of the Filmotype. The Filmotype was a portable photo typesetting machine that became popular in the 1950s. (Portable might be generous. The thing looked like it weighed a ton…)

Basically, it was used to set headlines without having to send the work out to a service. To support it, the Filmotype Company created hundreds of alphabets to their clients. Stuart has published a book on the Filmotype and purchased the rights to the font library.

He is working with a group of type designers to digitize the collection. Several of the typefaces have already been released.

The CBS Wall (aka, the Gastrotypographicalassemblage)

Rick Anwyl from The Center for Design Study in Atlanta detailed their efforts to restore the CBS Wall – also affectionately refered to as the Gastrotypographicalassemblage. It’s an amazing piece – and an amazing story. Basically, this inticate wall was created for the CBS cafeteria in New York by Lou Dorfsman and Herb Lubalin in a pre-computer, pre-laser fabrication era. It was dismantled and discarded… and rescued. And then sat in storage for decades.

 

The Center for Design Study in Atlanta is in the process of cordinating the resortation of the Gastrotypographicalassemblage. You can visit their site for details on the project.

TypeCon 2009 Thursday and Friday Highlights

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So I’ve been at TypeCon 2009 in Atlanta for the last day and a half. Here are some of the highlights from preliminary workshops and the first full day of sessions.

Historical Calligraphy – This workshop focused on the calligraphic roots of modern letter forms. To demonstrate the process, the instructor, Joey Hannaford – covered the walls with paper and we experimented with letterforms on a large scale with foam brushes and tempera paint. A really engaging way to teach the relationship between historical and modern forms.

A great way to teach the calligraphic roots of modern lettering. On a large scale…

Hatch Show Print – I’ve seen Jim Sherraden’s lecture twice before when he visited AIGA South Carolina. He has expanded his normal presentation and it’s more inspirational than ever. He’s a great guy and the presentation is amazing.

Gail Anderson from SpotCo – Gail gave a delightful talk about her love of type and her history. She also gave a preview of her upcoming book with Stephen Heller, New Ornamental Type, and showed some fascinating typographic videos done by her students. Great presentation.

The “Playroom” – Local Atlanta printer Jessica Germaine brought in her gear to allow TypeCon attendees to experiment with letterpress printing. We were able to use three small presses and a selection of metal and wood type.

Printing my notecards on a small letterpress.

Jessica walked us through all the details and helped with the process. I was able to select and set my type and made some Sketchbook B notecards. I’d never had an opportunity to work with letterpress and the whole experience was amazing.

My completed notecards.

Coming Up – I’m looking forward to the next two days of sessions. Lots of stuff on the schedule, including… Armin Vit from Under Consideration will be talking about the TypeCon identity for this year. REM’s Creative Director Chris Bilheimer (and a former AIGA South Carolina speaker) was added to the agenda. Also on the schedule is a two hour panel discussion on web typography with a various foundries and designers. I’ll post more highlights as the weekend progresses.

New Fontstructions: Transmission and Transmission Bold

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I’ve released two new fonts at Fontstruct that I’ve been working on for a while. Transmission is a sci-fi inspired family available in two weights - Regular and Bold. Both fonts have an upper and lower case and a pretty wide range of foreign characters.

A sample setting of Transmission Regular and Transmission Bold. Available at Fontstruct.

A lot of the ideas at work here are pulled from other Fontstructions – specifically Grande and Power Grid – and an unreleased font family that I’ve been working on for too long, Alliance.

All of the usual Fontstruct disclaimers apply: The type sizes and spacing are a little off and you have to sign up for an account to download. Head over to Fontstruct and download both Transmission Regular and Transmission Bold for free.

New Fontstruction: Aiken

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I was in Aiken, South Carolina over the 4th of July Weekend. I had my sketchbook and no computer. And while I was there, I quickly sketched out my newest Fontstruction: Aiken.

Sample setting of Aiken, available at Fontstruct.

It’s admittedly an odd little typeface. And it’s a significant departure from what I normally do typographically. But I’m happy with how it’s come together. And when it’s used in a setting, it really does have a unique feel to it.

Standard Fontstruct disclaimers apply. You need an account to download the the spacing is a little bit odd. But if you want to play with it, head over to Fontstruct.

Fontstruct in Education

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I’ve been playing around with Fontstruct actively for a few months and love the application. I saw this snippet on their blog today and think it’s an amazing idea.

Among many possible topics we are specially interested in the use of FontStruct for education in type design.

FontStruct is great for education because it’s free, it’s simple and it’s a lot of fun. It can be used on any computer with a modern browser and Internet access, independently of platform and without installation of additional software. FontStruct stimulates sharing and collaboration, while respecting the creator’s right to decide about it. Users are presented with a set of flexible and familiar Creative Commons licenses to choose from. Peer-review, user votes and the sought after Top Picks complete the package that makes of FontStruct not just a tool, but an exciting environment for learning how to build fonts and design typefaces.

I think that design programs could use Fontstruct as a really effective part of the type education curriculum. Students could build their own alphabet, publish designs for peers to review, learn about licensing, examine designs from experienced designers. It’s free and students can access it from any home computer. And Fontstruct is very easy to use.

I think it’s a perfect way to get students of all ages to think more deeply about typography. 

New Fontstruction: Power Grid

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I’ve made another Fontstruction available for download. (Actually, it went up last week and I hadn’t had a chance to promote it yet.) This one is called Power Grid and is inspired by early 20th century constructivist typeface designs. The character set is extremely complete, including a large number of foreign characters.

The usual Fontstruct disclaimers apply… you need to sign up for an account and the type sizes and line heights are off.

Power Grid can be downloaded for free at Fontstruct.

Also of note is that Power Grid and my other Fonstructions, Big Thursday, Dingbots and Monsters and Grande have been selected as “Top Picks” by Fontstruct. You can download them all at the Sketchbook B page over at Fontstruct.

TypeTrust offers the REM Collection

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TypeTrust is offering a family of fonts designed by Chris Bilheimer and Micheal Stipe for REM albums and tour materials. The REM Collection consists of three typefaces: Accelerate, Orange and Tourfont. They are available for $15 each or $30 for the entire Collection. I love the fact that they’ve released these formerly project specific fonts.

Chris Bilheimer spoke at AIGA South Carolina in March of 2007. He’s a great guy and amazingingly talented. Although the bulk of his work is for REM, he also works with bands like Green Day and Weezer.

Read all about them and see examples over at TypeTrust.

(And thanks to Marius at Zoo Valdes for bringing this to my attention…)

New Fontstruct: Grande

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I’ve made public a new Fontstruct called Grande. I needed a font for a logo I was working on and Fontstruct was the perfect tool to assemble this geometric creation. Fontstruct is great for this type of quick prototyping and development. Grande is a heavy display face of admittedly questionable legibility, but with a distinctive style.

Download Grande and other Sketchbook B type free from Fontstruct.

The normal Fontstruct disclaimers apply – type sizes are odd and you need an account to download it. Right now, I haven’t done any of the foreign characters, but I absolutely intend to extend the character set and will post back here when I do.

Grande joins other Sketchbook B creations Big Thursday and Dingbots on Fontstruct. You can download all of them - with a Fontstruct account - for free on the Sketchbook B public page.

Read This! Tattoos and Type

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Body Type is a fascinating look at the use of type in tattoos. I heard the author, Ina Saltz, speak at Adobe’s ADIM Conference in San Jose a few years ago.

Her project started when she saw a graphic designer on the bus one day with a word tattooed in Helvetica on his arm. She continued to see and document examples of typographic tattoos.

The result is a great compilation of typographic tattoos. Some are impressive and clever – particularly the ambigrams. Some samples of the images are available on the book’s web site. Ina does an excellent job documenting the meaning behind the tattoos. (I love the writer’s semi-colon tattoo…) It’s a great add to your bookshelf if you love type, tattoos or both.

I’ve added Body Type to my Books section. You can purchase it at Amazon.

Dingbots and Monsters

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It’s a work in progress, but I’ve added some odd little Dingbat Robots and Monsters over at Fonstruct. The standard Fontstruct disclaimers apply… You need to use massive font sizes and the spacing will be irregular. And you have to sign up for a free account to download.

Four of the 26 Dingbots available over at Fontstruct.

I’ll probably add some more Dingbots and, when it’s done, I will eventually bring it over to Sketchbook B for download. But if you want to play around with them, download them today.

Big Thursday released

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I’m trying to get into a pattern of releasing at least one typeface a month. My release for May turned into a seven typeface family and wasn’t going to be ready this month. So I turned to my sketchbook and found inspiration for what would become my May release - Big Thursday.

(If you want to skip straight to the download, it’s over at Fonstruct. A free registration is required to download… Sorry about that…)


Download Big Thursday at Fontstruct.

Inspiration

About 8 years ago when I was working at an ad agency, I had a pro bono project for a Big Thursday Oyster Roast invitation. Big Thursday refers to the South Carolina vs. Clemson Football game that was played on a Thursday in November for decades.

In doing research, I came across the poster from the final Big Thursday game in 1959. And Big Thursday was set in a Barnum-style slab serif. (Some call it Italienne or Reverse Egyptienne.)

I did some sketches and planned to hand letter some type for the invite, but took another approach didn’t need the custom lettering for the final design. Occasionally, I’d come back to the lettering and play around with the concepts, but never finished the typeface.

Fontstruct

I built the typeface in Fontstruct, an amazing online type design tool from Fontshop International. Fontstruct uses a modular system to build and generate type.

It’s really powerful and fun to play with. And you can work quickly. The bulk of Big Thursday came together in only 4-5 hours.

Fonststruct does have limitations. Because you are working with tiles on a grid, slanted letters can be difficult. And the ability to customize spacing or kerning is limited.

If you like Big Thursday, feel free to download the typeface from over at Fonstruct. And while you are there, rate it or leave a comment.

Tips for Setting

The typeface that Fonstruct generates is TrueType and will work for Macs and PCs.

There are also a few odd things about the font file that is generated. First of all, the sizing is off. This is a known issue with the Fontstruct engine, but as a result, you’ll need to use really large sizes and the leading will seem off. It takes a little experimentation to get it right. And often, with display type, you may be better off converting the type to outlines.

Also, if you are using Abobe InDesign or Illustrator, I’d recommend using Optical Kerning. It does a nice job of cleaning up the spacing irregularities.

Valdes Poster Sans finally available for download.

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Valdes Poster Sans is a collaboration of Sketchbook B and Zoo Valdes. If you’ve looked at my projects section, you’ll see Marius is an illustrator (and professor and painter) that I work with frequently.

When working on a project a while back, I mentioned that we should take some of his hand lettering for posters and attempt to convert it into a typeface. The result is Valdes Poster Sans. (We actually have two more faces that we will hopefully finish this summer.)

The face is unique and fun. All caps with a few alternate characters in the lower case. Great for display type. I’ve tried to include as many foreign and special characters as possible.

Get Valdes Poster Sans for free in the downloads section.

Coming soon... and most likely tonight.

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Valdes Poster Sans, the first typeface I’m going to make available for download, should be posted tonight. I’ve started to upload videos and promote it’s pending release. So if you are looking for the font, check back soon to download it.