In Five Steps to Font Freedom, Adrian of Be A Design Group suggests some ways to improve typography on the web, noting that you don't need to own the fonts in books, movies, newspapers to view works in those media. The fifth suggestion is interesting, even outside of that particular goal:
5. Build Free Versions of the Classic Fonts
If we can't convince the font companies to set their versions of classic fonts free, we will recreate them ourselves. The great fonts are based on designs that are centuries old that can't possibly be protected by copyright law. Although it would be a major task, the collective power of the online community could create quality versions of classic fonts. Little by little, we can build an open source classic font library! Does anybody have a complete set of the original Garamond that I can borrow? Let's get started...
Applying the open source development process to make freely available and modifiable versions of classic fonts like Garamond, Caslon, Bodoni, Baskerville, etc. is a fantastic idea.
Every year around this time, my thoughts turn to Wes Anderson and Futura. As noted elsewhere, Mr. Anderson is consistent in his use of Futura (bold) in his films. The supporting materials for The Life Aquatic (which opens here in NYC on Dec 10) continue the Futura trend, with the font appearing in the trailers and on posters. (A little Helvetica -- or worse, Arial -- has somehow crept onto this new poster, probably slapped on there by some intern when Someone Important noticed that Bill Murray's name wasn't on there.) What I've never been able to find an answer to, Wes, is why the Futura? This Typophile thread (kind of) suggests that David Wasco, Anderson's production designer on Tenenbaums, may have had something to do with it. Or is it a shout-out to Stanley Kubrick, who was partial to Futura Extra Bold? Does anyone know?
Here's a handy tip for all you font lovers out there. If you're going to do something crazy like use Dong Casual, be smart and use Safe Font as well.
Peter wrote in this morning saying that Microsoft was no longer offering their core font pack (you know, Arial, Verdana, Georgia, etc.) for download. Thinking he was a dirty, rotten liar and scoundrel for saying so, I checked the download page myself. They're gone: "Web fonts program discontinued. Microsoft's TrueType core fonts for the Web are no longer available for download from www.microsoft.com." What's going on here?
Whatever the reason, MS makes up for the loss by offering a darn good typography weblog. From it I've learned that there's a new edition of the essential Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works, Andy Crewdson (late of Lines and Splines) is back writing longer pieces about typography on the Web at New Series, and MyFonts.com, a great typography resource/store, gets a redesign.
Public Lettering, a walk in central London explores a variety of typography around London. It reminds me somewhat of The Minneapolis Sign Project.
How to Spot Arial (in comparison to Helvetica). See also The Scourge of Arial: "Arial owes its very existence to that success but is little more than a parasite--and it looks like it's the kind that eventually destroys the host. I can almost hear young designers now saying, 'Helvetica? That's that font that looks kinda like Arial, right?'"
Andy summarizes Walter Tracy on how to space typefaces: "...Tracy outlines a method for approaching one of the more difficult, crucial, and poorly-understood areas of type design: determining how letters in a typeface should be properly fitted. This page is an attempt to summarize Tracy's fitting procedure as described in the book. There are many ways to go about spacing typefaces and this isn't meant to be definitive. But gaining an understanding of the concepts in Tracy's method is certainly a good way to begin understanding what spacing involves."
New episode of 0sil8. It's basically an announcement for the new font I made (see below), but with a little more design. Check it out now (funk soul brother).
It's beta-test time, kids. I need people to test Silkscreen, a new font I made. If you could go download it, install it on your machine and play around with it some in your favorite graphics program (works best at 8pt. multiples), that would be great. And just so I don't get deluged, email me *only if you have problems* with the font (although general feedback is certainly welcome...I just don't want 200 "It works" messages). I'm especially interested in how it functions on the Mac.
After futzing around with this font that I'm making, I have a newfound respect for people who make type. Also, if you have Fontographer for the Macintosh and want to help me out, email me...I might need some assistance converting my font when I'm done with it.
Rats. Amazon is out of this book on using Fontographer to make typefaces. Apparently, it's the only book out there on the subject. Frustrating!
Do you know why an em dash (—) is so named? The "em" is a unit of length...in typographic lingo, an em is the width of a capital M in a typeface.
