I've got to get a move on. I've got to complete this series by the end of this week.
So here's Yanus. It was designed in 1997 by Tagir Safayev at ParaType. It was inspired by Neulin Sans of Ray Gun magazine from 1996. The first version of the typeface was created as part of a corporate identity program for the Russian airline Aeroflot.
And here's Ying. Designed in 2006 by Gert Wiescher.
Not bad, are they?
I know. I know. It's gone very quiet around here. Sorry about that: I'll try not to let it happen again.
Truth is, I'd had an extremely busy spell and for a couple of weeks I simply wasn't around to do any blogging. But I was back at my desk last week, so I should have been posting every day. But I didn't: I'd been struck by bloggers' block.
Maybe it's because I've reached the letter X in this little series on 52 fonts you could use instead of Helvetica. Ever since I started, I knew that X was going to be the difficult one. I should have posted it at least a month ago if I was going to be anywhere near keeping to my declared schedule (of two fonts every two weeks for a year). But I've been skirting round a choice for several weeks: it's not that I can't find fonts that begin with X; it's just that I don't find any of them in any way inspiring.
I wondered 'should I go for a Chinese font?' - something like C Xing. That would say something about the world just now. And, yes, I have typeset Chinese text, but I don't feel qualified to make an aesthetic judgement on what's a good Chinese font and what isn't.
Or should I go for a symbols font: something from the Xmas font family? But I'm never, ever going to use one of those, am I now?
So instead I seem to have landed in Canada: with two fonts by two young(ish) Canadian type designers. I'd like to say that I love them (the fonts that is). I don't, though. But at least they'll get me out of a hole.
This is Xenara, designed by Ray Larabie.
And this is Xheighter, which sounds as though it's something that you might get a spam email about. Designed by Lloyd Springer at Typeart.
So, enough said. I've breached the block. See you again tomorrow (I hope).
Is anyone out there handy with fontographer?
I need some help in compiling a symbols font: nothing excessively complicated, but it might be a nice little freelance job. If you're interested, drop me an email - david(at)celsius.eu.com.
And while I'm here: apologies for the lack of posts. I'm a busy, busy bee, me.
#3 the drop cap
At the risk of appearing sexist, I fear I have to say: ladies, look away now, this is a man thing.
So, men - if ever you get the chance to dabble in a bit of magazine design there are just two simple words that you need to remember: 'drop' and 'cap'. This is your way of establishing your control over the beast; an easy visual shorthand that will declare "I'm a creative fountainhead, me - I'm not just here to sell advertising space".
And remember, size is the only thing that matters. The bigger you make it, the better. It'll give you more braggadocio than Liam Gallagher when he hits a bum note.
And the easy route in is to choose a font designed by Herb Lubalin. But once you're up and motoring you'll want to design your own cap T (hey, how hard can that be?) - and pretty soon you'll be on your way to becoming the next Neville Brody.
And one further word of advice: if you really want to carry this one off, you first of all need to develop the habit of taking your clients to lunch at St John.
In the end I decided against Wide Latin: partly because it should come under L, not W; and partly because there's not very much you could really use it for, is there? (Apart, maybe, for 'Wanted' posters for Cosa Nostra.) So, let's have a little elegance instead.
This is Walbaum, designed sometime around 1800 by Justus Erich Walbaum. Walbaum came to typography via the unusual route of confectionery. He taught himself engraving while making his own pudding moulds while working in a pastry shop. At night, he started engraving music types. Eventually he set up his own foundry in a town called Goslar.
In 1802, just before his town was to be incorporated into Prussia, he left for Weimar. Here he established another very successful foundry. His classical types were very popular for a while until fashions changed. His name then disappeared until the 1920s, when the typeface was revived as Monotype Walbaum.
And now, Warnock - which is a little more modern and comes in more weights and variations than you can shake a stick at. It was designed in 2000 by Robert Slimbach (who's cropped up in this series twice before, here and here).
Warnock Pro is a new Adobe Originals type composition family named after John Warnock, the co-founder of Adobe Systems, whose visionary spirit (according to Adobe) has led to major advances in desktop publishing and graphic arts software. A full-featured, state-of-the-art OpenType family - with Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek character sets in a variety of weights and optical size ranges - Warnock Pro is a classic yet contemporary composition family that performs a wide variety of typographic tasks with elegance.
So, just X, Y and Z to go (but they're going to be the toughest six to find, methinks).
It's time I got back to my 52 fonts series, and next up is W. I was going to post today and I was just pondering which two fonts to feature and doing a bit of background research, when I came across a little gem of a BBC radio programme from 2005. Called 'From Arial to Wide Latin', it's well worth 30 minutes of your time.
I must admit that I wasn't at all sure whether typography for lawyers was serious or not, since it sounds to be on a par with 'bear hunting for vegans'.
But serious it is, and a jolly handy reference as well. If I were teaching design students (which I used to do, but now I don't), then this would be an invaluable tool for explaining the basics of typography.
Bear in mind, though, that it's American (bless them) - so it advocates the horribly ugly use of the em-dash without word spacing.
(With apologies to all you Germans out there.)
Well, here we are approaching the end of this series. It doesn't seem as though I've been posting fonts more than twice a month, but I must have speeded up somewhere along the line as I shouldn't be reaching Z until November. Maybe X will stop me in my tracks: we'll just have to wait and see.
But here we are at V, and first up is Van Dijck - which, you may be surprised to hear, wasn't designed by the man with the strange 'cockerney' accent who starred in Mary Poppins. Instead it was Christoffel van Dijck, one of the great 17th-century Dutch typefounders, who gave the font its name. Though this modern version of the font may not have been cut by him, it is nevertheless representative of the best designs from the 1600s, and was drawn at Monotype under the supervision of Jan van Krimpen. However, Van Dijck Italic, for which original punches survive, is almost certainly the work of van Dijck himself.
And in complete contrast, next up is Verdana. It's perhaps a given that this series is really all about type that has been designed for the printed page: that's something that can't be avoided. But if I were to be compiling this list at the beginning of the 22nd century, it would be interesting to see how many of them might be fonts that had been specifically designed for reading on screen. And whether Verdana would still be there.
Designed by Matthew Carter, and released in 1996, Verdana was bundled with subsequent versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system, as well as their Office and Internet Explorer software on both Windows and Mac OS. In addition, it was long available for download from Microsoft's web site allowing it to be used by any system supporting TrueType fonts. As a result, it is now installed on most desktop computers.
Well, here I am again. I've managed to escape from that sushi bar in Brighton. I was going to say that the best bit about it was the toilets, but that would give you the completely wrong idea about what I've been up to for the past week. So forget I even mentioned it.
Actually, I was only in there for an hour (the sushi bar that is, not the toilets), and the blogging break was unplanned. But it's nice to see that people have still been dropping by while I've been away, and nice also to see some new names popping up in the comments: welcome all of you.
Now I happened to catch a bit of Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4 this morning (as you do) - specifically an item about a woman blacksmith, Melissa Cole. And, to cut a long story short, Mellisa was talking about craftsmanship and how her craft defined what she produces: and that her customers went to her because they wanted something that was made individually for them, and something that they could look after and treasure. And she contrasted this by remarking on somebody who had asked her to 'knock something up' for them - and that if they really wanted something that was just 'knocked up' they'd gone to precisely the wrong person.
Strikes a chord, doesn't it? Or at least it will if you're a fellow designer. Because sooner or later some client is going to come along and ask you to 'knock something up for them': that is, they'd like it designed, but they want you to do it in five minutes so they don't have to pay for it. (Actually, these clients do display warning signs, as I've told you before: here and here.)
But take my advice: don't pander to them. Tell them to go somewhere else. Because if you start down that route it will only make you sloppy. Because if you want to be a designer, there's only one rule to follow: if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.
All of which preamble leads me to this:
Because this is just sloppiness. And in a building that was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize, as well. I suppose we ought to give them some credit for at least recognising that there should be a possessive apostrophe, and that it goes before the s and not after it (but, hey, this is a library, so if they don't know, who does?).
And if you don't have the faintest idea of what I'm talking about, here's how it's been set in the sign above (with a foot mark)...
...and here's how it should be set - with an apostrophe (and a little kerning doesn't go amiss either).
"God is in the details" it's called.
These seem to be going around the blogosphere, but in case you've missed them they belong very firmly in the 'I wish I'd done that' category of design: typographic trees created by why not associates in collaboration with Gordon Young for the new Crawley Library, which will be opening in January 2009. And there's even a flickr set.
Talking of libraries, I have to go off and do some art direction for a museums, libraries and archives report. I'll try and bring you back something nice (if I don't get arrested for taking photographs).
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