Type–ology 101

ARTC 4305.252—Typography III—Spring 2014

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From Voltcafe.com:

Published twice yearly, Volt magazine is unbound, printed on organic recycled B1 size paper using vegetable based ink and hand folded by 10 people over 3 weeks. Volt magazine is a labour of love showcasing highly original content brought together by a group of photographers, stylists and writers united in their desire for creativity and authenticity.

Volt magazine’s online presence, Volt Café was launched to convey information and images in an engaging and stimulating way. Volt Café has been designed to be a dynamic site that works  on any format, easy to navigate and able to display larger format images. You can download past issues of Volt magazine to print your favourite stories.

Amongst the key sections on Volt Café we are very proud of the fashion and beauty editorials – Volt magazine has always been very image-led and we strive to maintain the same high quality on Volt Café. Volt Café endeavours to bring you features and interviews with established fashion designers, artists and filmmakers – but equally as important we believe that young talent is the future. Thus the section Volt Introduces is dedicated to highlighting young creativity.

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From Pentagram:

Architecture and urban design have become important tools in the fight against obesity and related chronic diseases. Practical changes to the design of buildings, towns and cities—locating stairs for visibility, creating networks of well-marked bike lines, designing streetscapes that are inviting for pedestrians—can help encourage physical activity and make the built environment more conducive to healthier lifestyles. Pentagram’s Luke Hayman and team have been involved in several projects related to these initiatives, including the design of the Active Design Guidelines, issued by the New York City Department of Design and Construction in 2010, and the creation of the graphic identity for the Center for Active Design, a new non-profit organization announced yesterday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The Mayor has signed an Executive Order requiring all City agencies to use active design strategies when performing all new construction and major renovation projects. These strategies are currently highlighted in FitNation, an exhibition at the Center for Architecture in New York. Hayman and team have created the graphics for the exhibition, extending their design for the Active Design Guidelines and the recent FitCity conferences into playful supergraphics that illustrate the different ways environments can help people stay physically fit. The exhibition was designed in collaboration with Abruzzo Bodziak Architects and is scheduled to travel following its run at the Center.

ABA’s design for the main gallery features a distinctive pattern of “fins” that extend from the walls and activate the space. Hayman and his team have placed typography on the bas-relief panels that form words when viewed from certain perspectives, including a colorful display in the Center’s storefront window that forms the word “FIT.” In wall displays, the fins are used as a grid to organize the exhibition content, similar to Hayman’s layout for the original Active Design Guidelines. Typography is set in Akkurat.

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MSLK’s newest urban intervention, Choose Better Products, was at the Figment art festival this past weekend. Large graphic spills containing hand-painted illustrative typography challenge viewers to think twice about the contents of the products they use everyday. Choose Better Products focuses on Triclosan, an ingredient found in seemingly innocuous items such as soaps, body washes, shampoos and toothpaste. Triclosan is linked to birth defects, immunotoxicity and infertility and is potentially very harmful to the environment as it enters our water supply.

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Source: Issue 03. Issue C—Color. Gratuitous Type.

Elana Shlenker is an independent graphic designer and art director residing in Brooklyn. Gratuitous Type features many interviews from creative folk from around the world. If you’re a lover of type, print and new design done right then you must check out one of the three published issues.

Gratuitous Type appropriates conventions of pornography magazines to frame its otherwise innocuous subject matter. Extending this concept to its covers, each installment plays with strategies of censorship. For this issue, a dust jacket printed with a one-color image obscures its full color companion below, while a die cut “C” offers a suggestive glimpse of what’s underneath. More info here.—Elana Shlenker

As mentioned by Elana, the dusk jacket, noted—as a cover letter in the magazine—features a striking cameo by the GT Haptik family in the form of a die cut of the letterform C.

GT Haptik is a Grotesque typeface with a very special characteristic: Its uppercase letters and numbers are optimized to be read blindfolded and by touching them. Because of that its glyphs are monoline and geometrical. Optical criteria become secondary. This gives the typeface a weird but also very charmful touch.—Grilli Type

FontFont's Super Grotesk, designed by Svend Mital, graces the cover as it makes up the logo. The medium weight also dominates other display fonts as the main heading inside the publication. Beyond display, the medium and regular weight mingle appropriately with other body text, performing so well during the transcription of the interviews. 

The typeface FF Super Grotesk is based on a 1930s design by Arno Drescher which was the most widely used lead-type sans serif face in East Germany – the GDR’s equivalent of the unavailable Futura. Today, the typeface can only be found in old specimen books and early East German printed matter, both of which served as source material for FF Super Grotesk. The original character set was augmented with special symbols and characters, alternatives for lowercase ‘a’ and ‘g’, and oldstyle figures.—FontFont

The semibold Larish Alte by Radim Pesko is also used as display, specifically for the secondary headlines or subjects in longer line lengths. Based on  prints and books by Rudolf von Larisch—who taught lettering and calligraphy at the turn of the twentieth century—this headline, roman font is a must-see with a beautiful, left angle axis (diagonal stress) and serifs that resemble those of transitional letterforms. 

Temerity by Dries Weiwauters is also featured in the body text. It holds its own in the small sizes and in roman and italic styles. This serif is the perfect partner to the FF Super Grotesk; as you move from page to page they switch between filling the page on their own or supporting the other in the captions and vice versa. It is a beautiful dance between these two.

I have to applaud Elana for publishing Gratuitous Type. It offers you a chance to be a part of the print and type world in a colorful, unique and uber-modern presentation. Purposefully-choosen typefaces perform so well while dressed in flashy colors. The offset printing also provides serene, photographic instances. I also enjoy the copy overflowing onto the photographs. Elana really elevates your senses by employing color and dynamic letterforms. I hope to experiment with these methods in my upcoming print endeavors (as well as on-screen projects).

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Source: Issue 02. XXX. Gratuitous Type.

Elana Shlenker is an independent graphic designer and art director residing in Brooklyn. Gratuitous Type features many interviews from creative folk from around the world. If you're a lover of type, print and new design done right then you must check out one of the three published issues.

The display types used are Monod by V.H. Fleisher—a geometric sans-serif—and Bordeaux by David Quay—a condensed, modern Roman. Bordeaux, an insanely tall and slender font, enjoys the space around quirky design elements and is also used for folios. It definitely has rhythm and sometimes Elana makes the copy set in Bordeaux jump right off the baseline. There are plenty of these ecstatic moments. Monod is a bold, powerful display—you'll get to enjoy this one throughout (and you'll love the simple and magnifying effort it portrays on the cover).

Galaxie Polaris by Chester Jenkins is the font used for body copy in bold, book and light weights. Pay special close to the ?—I have to imagine that the publisher and designer of the magazine, Elana Shlenker, was on to something when she chose this typeface. The glyphs we get to see sure are a treat for the eyes. This fun and funky sans was created specially for copy in print and it performs just right in this arena. Elana Shlenker tests the typeface endurance and limits by showcasing it in several colors (ranging from purple, blue, orange and more).

I have to applaud Elana for publishing Gratuitous Type. It offers you a chance to be a part of the print and type world in a colorful, unique and uber-modern presentation. Purposefully-choosen typefaces perform so well while dressed in flashy colors. The offset printing also provides serene, photographic instances. I also enjoy the copy overflowing onto the photographs. Elana really elevates your senses by employing color and dynamic letterforms. I hope to experiment with these methods in my upcoming print endeavors (as well as on-screen projects).

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A beautifully structured combination of typefaces—they join forces in this 88th issue of Colors to present to you fiery and real accounts of global protests. In beautiful strides, they stick it through various selections of paper and negative space colors (from natural, craft browns and whites to paper-colored fonts on black).

Over the past three years, people in more than 80 countries across the world have taken to the streets to protest against their governments. But only in six of the above countries did governments finally fall.

COLORS 88 - Protest tells stories of how protests start, spread, triumph, are repressed and sometimes become revolutions.— Colors

Colophon's Fortescue, designed by The Entente, is a serif font with both copy and display capabilities. This heavyweight champ toggles through various headline and body text as well as all the mentioned papers. At the size presented, the paper holds enough ink to produce intense letterforms.

Miliue Grotesque's Maison Neue is a strikingly classic, but friendly grotesque. This typeface makes its appearances in various font styles, including, but not limited to mono, light, and book weights. The display qualities are striking, even besides Fortescue. That didn't stop the publishers from using it for breaks in the storyline and captions in multiple sizes.

Commercial Type's Graphik, with notes inspired by lesser-known grotesques and geometric sans serifs, is reserved for the advertisement of past issues of the magazine.

These presentations flawlessly deliver the contributors' messages. This is a great addition to anyone's print collection. As for me, like I've mentioned before, don't make too much use of grotesque typefaces. This definitely is attractive and I like the use of Maison Neue. Fortescue is also an admirable serif; I admire it's stature next to a grotesque. This exciting pairing is must see!

Source: (2013, August). Issue 88. Protest · A Survival Guide/Protesta · Un manual de supervivencia. Colors. 

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TCHO's logo is loosely based on Stephan Müller's FF Container as adap­ted by Ralph Carrois for Erik Spiekerman of EdenSpiekermann. Packaging and visual identity design is credited to Susanna Dulkinys also of EdenSpiekermann. The body type features Erik Spiekerman's and Christian Schwartz's FontFont Unit.

FF Container, created in 1999 for FontFont, is a display font ideal for ads and packaging. FF Unit, created between 2003 – 2014, is a sans font that is adaptable for use in ads and packaging as well as body and small type. 

EdenSpiekermann features these two courageous fonts on TCHO's milk chocolate packaging. TCHO (pronounced choh!) manufactures craft chocolate in San Francisco and is self-described as obsessed with chocolate. Besides chocolate, they go beyond fair trade and believe in raising awareness of human trafficking and slavery.

The adaptation of FF Container allows the square, sans letterforms that make up# the logo to live side-by-side the bold, geometric tessellations swirling in the packaging environment. FF Unit performs its duties so distinctly — it breathes in the tense space with clear legibility. I can say from personal experience: the visuals definitely have a dimensional movement to them. The slim box is visible from feet away and instantly magnetizing.

This award-winning identity and packaging paired with award-winning fonts gives me the courage to adjust and adapt fonts to pair beautifully with vector-based graphics. Mathematical explorations usually result in a cold, stale aesthetic, but this time they provide an mesmerizing experience. In another sense, I always enjoy a good paring of fonts. This one knocks it out of the park. Mmmm chocolate!

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Designed specifically for use by Johnson's Backyard Garden, this typeface is evocative of geometric – square, sans serifs. The weight varies as one, bold stroke gives way to several, slim strokes.

Ryan Rhodes & Caleb Owen Everett of Land designed this logo and identity for JBG — an Austin-based backyard garden turned community supported agriculture operation (CSA). Variations of the logo and the font are used in EDG, packaging and other forms (above you see them on a banner and a label for carrots). Customers at farmer's markets and organic food enthusiasts are the target markets for this operative. It is a break from the stale, corporate design you see in most grocery stores or a bold nod versus the whimsy of most organic product brand packaging.

Like previously mentioned, the bold, geometric takes on a square sans serif are an invited break from the monotony of most of the product packaging we find in farmer's markets. It is functional in that it is eye-catching and it's form is also artistic. The treatment adds the human touch to an otherwise cold aesthetic.

I enjoy the bold and contrasting features of this font and logo. The textural elements elevate the forms and create a whole new aesthetic vibe. The geometry theme is always a pleasure to bored eyes!

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Source: How to Paint Signs & Influence People Vol. 1 Egyptian Lettering by Colt Bowden  (2nd ed., published by Voila! Press, printed 9/2013)

The zine showcases several examples of Egyptian style lettering that are renditions of EC Matthews Egyptian Lettering examples from 1954–1960. This style is used on the front and back covers. The image that displays other font specimens includes William Caslon's Egyptian font (1816), Frank Atkinson's Egyptian (1909), WM Healy Egyptian (1911), amongst other pen and brush lettering examples from the 1930s until now.

Egyptian sans serif letter forms are now widely recognized as Gothic or Block lettering. Bowden, who is a sign painter, created this zine to dispel some of the mystery behind Egyptian Lettering. He also makes the connection between this type of lettering and what students of typography know as Gothic sans serif faces. His assurance is that William Caslon the 4th adopted his font style from the sign writers who painted this style in the early 1800s. Sign writing and painting is not a well observed or preserved occupation and Bowden attempts to shine some light on his personal experience with education and career in sign painting.

Though this is a zine, the covers are kept fairly simple and elegant. The front cover allows for the letter forms to be revered and the back cover showcases a beautiful specimen page of the past. There are no mixes of fonts—only one style of Egyptian letter forms is employed. It is a good variation of one font in many different sizes and weights. The color of the font used alleviates the stark, heavy-weight black, but still calls for attention (after all, it is red). It isn't obvious from the photos, but on-hand you can sense the texture of the letterpress, which justifies the simplicity.

First of all, Bowden does describe the methods and differences between setting type and letters (by hand). This gives me new insight as to how to choose fonts and in determining if weights and heights really help to convey the message or if they are a visual mess. He also delves into spacing letterforms and the importance of optical solutions (in this case). This short publication also allows me a better understanding of Gothic and Block lettering. I rarely venture into Gothic fonts, but with this new appreciation, I am more confident in choosing Gothic faces. Finally, Bowden has made me aware of sign painting history and he alludes to the peaceful energy behind hand lettering. If I need a new hobby, I know what I'll be practicing!