Coffee Table Typography number 38 heading Coffee Table Typography heading Issue number 38 Sep 2017 writing hand ️ I've previously left you with some thoughts on analog memories and records, from having just started my Polaroid project. Since then, I've also ditched my digital note taking (I still love you, IA Writer) and committed to a very physical, sturdy, notebook. I mention this because looking back at previous entries, I can't help but notice my handwriting, and how much it tells about where and how they were written. It's easy to tell at a glance what the writing conditions were like for each entry: sloppy and squiggly? probably writing on a bumpy bus or taxi; slanted and misaligned? probably wrote it on the subway journeys; clean and straight? most likely at my desk at home, with a cup of coffee on hand (and the coffee cup stains... oh, how I've grown to like them. Celebrating the imperfections). I remember reading link The Missing Ink , by Philip Hensher, and thinking about how we don't, in fact, know what our best friends' handwriting looks like. Do you? It makes me wonder about what a mood slash environment adaptive digital typeface would look like. We'd call them Moody Variable Fonts. In actual type news, check out link subfont if you're looking to subset Google Fonts glyphs into webpages. And do not miss link Typekit's new visual search , which works fantastically well! Kudos, Typekit. Also, someone made a link font out of piss , and it looks... interesting. maple leaf IN OTHER NEWS, I left the gorgeous and raw Berlin life to the (surprisingly warm as I write this) North American life of Montreal, Canada. So if you're around, please do say hello! Also, I'll soon be switching my newsletter delivery system from Tiny Letter to Revue. Hopefully the contacts' transition will be a smooth one, but keep an eye out on your Spam folder in 3 or 4 week's time just in case something goes wrong. Enjoy this week's selection heart suit ️ hot beverage ️ Ricardo M. heading Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic To get missing image descriptions, open the context menu. heading heading link Paul Mc Neil selects and dissects his six favourite faces TYPEFACES BOOKS Paul Mc Neil, author of link The Visual History of Type (which, by the way, looks like a fantastic book with more than 300 typeface reviews), writes for It's Nice That a condensed version of his favourite typefaces' reviews. In this article, he writes about: The Aldine Italic (1501), Block (1908), Bremer Antiqua (1922), Patrona Grotesk (1931), Found Fount (1989) and Lÿno (2010). As you can see, Paul really went through a lot of trouble to encompass the history of typefaces through 5 centuries. Here's his full review of a favourite of mine, Block, since it had a significant impact in Berlin's graphic design: Although geometric sans serifs are commonly thought to have originated in the 1920s with groundbreaking designs like Jakob Erbar’s eponymous typeface from 1922, there is no denying the brutal geometry that underlies the uneven edges of Block’s monolithic letterforms from 1908. It was created for the Berthold Type Foundry by Hermann Hoffmann, a German type designer with a background in newspaper work. Block’s origins can be seen in contemporary advertising from Berlin, in particular the lettering of Lucian Bernhard. His exceptional hand painted posters for commercial clients such as Bosch and Manoli are precisely replicated in Block’s distinctively thickset characters, wonky contours, colossal x height and stunted descenders. Like the lettering it references, Block achieves maximum impact with minimum means. In between starting this entry and finishing it, Paul's book somehow sneaked into the wish list. Keep reading for the other Paul's reviews and journey through typographical time. link Keep reading right arrow heading Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic 00d 048b 6 ddf 3 4017 99cc fea 69f… heading heading link Type Thursday: Learning To Design For Print INTERVIEW PEOPLE On a recent interview for Type Thursday, Marina Joyce (author of Designing for Print) shares her journey into and through the world of typography, and specifically, the world of print design. In the process, she curates a few very thoughtful tips for anyone wanting to dive into that world. Even if you're not looking for a print dive in, you'll find plenty of motivation and inspiration to give and share. When asked about how the whole thing started, Marina says: I thought to myself; I like printing. I know how to run a company. So… sure! And so I bought a print shop. Passion doesn't always have to be the driver. But in Marina's case, it was also the fuel. For those of you (I should say us, because, well...) often stopped in the tracks with impostor syndrome, or not going any further because we don't know how , Marina has some great advice: In the beginning, I just had to take fake it until I made it. Customers and prospects would call and I would go pick up a sample and say Sure, we can print this . Then bring it back to the shop and my Pressman would say No we can’t . Then scramble to find a solution. I would call binderies and describe the sample. Literally going It is 8.5 x 11. It has two staples but not through the spine. Through the front to the back and the bindery person would say okay, it is side stitched. That’s how I learned. As for the printing tips, I'll just leave you with the last one, which also serves for those of us in the digital design world where the Web is the medium: And this one is important. Your monitor is not a proofing device. When you are designing for web, you hit preview and see the error immediately. When you are in In Design and hit preview… that is not a proof. Proofing systems vary from printer to printer so get with your printer when you are between projects and learn about what they can and cannot do proof wise. Find out what their proofs represent. Are they G 7 or Gracol certified? That can make a difference! Variable fonts carry with them a broad range of possibilities and can open up entire design spaces of creative options to type, graphic and web designers. These aren’t human readable at first they exist as mathematical representations. However, there are proposed approaches to help us visualize and manipulate variable fonts. By exploring user interface patterns, we can better understand how to illuminate the exciting spaces within a variable font. At its foundation, this involves making variable fonts aware of their context. A fantastic and inspirational read in its entirety, so please keep reading and say hello to Marina. link Keep reading right arrow heading link Unlabeled graphic c 1d 30391 3794 4370 b 859 ea 9893… heading link heading link A Typ I Conference: Videos of The Conferences So Far VIDEOS EDUCATION link A Typ I, or Association Typographique Internationale , just wrapped up here in Montreal (sadly I didn't arrive in time to attend it), and some of the talks are already online for viewing. At the moment of writing, there's already a lot of talks online, link which you can check here dot Full disclaimer: I haven't had time to watch any of them yet, as my life is still utter chaos, but this is my selection for my next few evenings: link Why I Love Designing for Public Spaces (Paula Scher) link How Not to Draw Accents (David Jonathan Ross) link From stroke to screen, The future of hand lettering in a digital world (Christopher Rouleau) link User Interfaces in Type Design, opportunities in Variable Fonts (Santiago Orozco) link Britain Into Europe! 50 Years of Typographic Persuasion (Paul Luna) link Is harmony possible between East Asian and Western glyphs? (Taro Yamamoto) And the list goes on. I'm absolutely sure that the quality of each one is top notch, as it's usually the case with A Typ I. Let's just say I'm quite happy I'm still unemployed for the next 10 days, as I go through this list. link Read on right arrow heading Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic 68cdf 886 9792 4f 46 b 320 0bec 86… heading heading link When Lines Roamed The Earth: The Gutenberg Revolution (Part I) HISTORY EDUCATION I'm honestly surprised how this 3 part story by Font Bureau didn't make a bang in the online world, or maybe I missed it. This is a fantastic essay by David Berlow on the history, influence and cultural mechanics of the Mergenthaler's machine, as well as how things changed with the arrival of Linotype. What makes this essay so interesting is its focus on the metal revolution, and how it changed the virtualisation of type setting in the early days: Not much about letterpress may strike us as virtual today, but Gutenberg’s innovation of separating the formation of letters from the document they were formed on marked a step toward abstraction. Four hundred years later, it was still going strong, because, among other things, you could tie the text up and store it. There's a lot to make a note of in such a short first essay, though. Mergenthaler’s revolution was in text type, which was the hardest to set and wore out the fastest. Not having to get the type from the case, print, and then put it back in the case, in fact stopping it from coming in the door altogether, was the virtual advance. The type appeared and disappeared in and out of a melting pot. Also remarkably interesting is how different cultures played a role in this revolution, often with its own peculiar needs: A different split of technologies might take place in other markets and other publishing cultures. The Ottoman Empire, which used the Arabic script for publishing in both Arabic and Turkish, got native Muslim ownership of Gutenberg’s invention by the early eighteenth century, and part of the initial compromise between Arabic script publishers and letterpress was the separation of secular and religious publishing: secular texts might be printed, but religious texts would be handwritten by calligraphers, until the mid nineteenth century. ... And although machine parts are fine for some designs, languages, and scripts, they are hopeless for others, or at least they were until the arrival of photographic or digital type. So while a struggle ensued for the right balance between writing, hand setting, and mechanical typesetting in cultures around the world, the Latin script, especially in use for English, hit the sweet spot, both technically and culturally. This essay is not without David's personal remarks from his time at Linotype in the early days, which gives us insight we wouldn't really get from a history book. Keep reading, and bear in mind there's also Part II and Part III. link Keep reading right arrow heading Unlabeled graphic Unlabeled graphic e 47ea 752 991a 47fd bac 4 edc 358… heading heading link A Rough Guide to Making a Medieval Manuscript And now for something completely different: making books. So maybe not that different after all, as hardly anything else goes better with typography than books (and coffee, but you know that already). The amazing British Library has published a short little guide about what goes into making a Medieval Manuscript, so let's pretend it's not the 21st century for a little bit: Tonight, when you pick up your book, observe the legacy of sewn gatherings in the fixings of the pages. Discern, in your fountain pen, the memory of the hollow feather. What follows is a general, Wiki How style overview of how a medieval manuscript would have been fashioned. The craft flourished for over 1,000 years and dominates the material foundation of Western literary culture. You'd start with finding your parchment, which is a remarkably time consuming process and one that has suffered alterations through many centuries, as Keith Houston has shown us in his fantastic book, link The Book dot Next, you'd prepare your gatherings: Cut sheets from your parchment. You may need more than one skin for each gathering of sheets. If you’re making a deluxe Bible, you may need thousands. Fold your sheets into bifolia (Latin for two leaves, or pages). Prick your sheets as a guide for ruling, using a knife or other metal point. By the time you actually set to write your text, you're not quite done with preparations just yet: Prepare your quill, which may be a goose feather and can be sourced from the bank of a lake in late summer when they moult. The wing your feather comes from will be the opposite from the hand you write with. In Latin, penna (wing) is the root of our word pen’. Incidentally, it’s also the root of penne’ pasta which, like a quill, is a hollow cylinder! Keep reading for more details on all the different processes that went into making a single manuscript, with plenty of images to admire. The book binding process alone could easily fill up a dozen pages, especially as it evolved through time quite a few times; the books you hold today in your hands are a result of centuries of trial and error.