‘I just like the typography, honest.’ -wkd

Found via whatkatiedoes

“Every initiative we pursue,’ starting February 1, reads the press release, ‘will be guided by our core value to treat customers as we would like to be treated — fair and square.”

In just under a year, JCPenney rebrands again. Out is Helvetica, in is Gotham. Also in is a whole new approach to store organization and product pricing.

Brand New article here, press release here.

Changes start tomorrow. Bold design move, bold ad campaign.

‘Originator of Type Fashions’

American Type Founders’ complete 1912 specimen book. 1348 pages.

Entire book posted online here.

The industrial revolution changed the size of font offerings. What were once posters or broadsheets from small type foundries, ‘type specimens’ became elaborate volumes – today collected as rare editions.

more
Since 2007, Open Library has been digitizing rare type specimens. Available to read online or as PDF downloads.

I found out about them just this weekend – font specialist Laurence Penney had posted links on his Twitter feed. These are them:

Caslon, 1785
Binney & Ronaldson, 1812
Montreal Type Foundry, 1850
Boston Type Foundry, 1860
Fann Street Foundry, 1874
Cincinnati Type Foundry, 1882
Allison & Smith, 1889
Cleveland Type Foundry, 1895
Inland Type Foundry, 1897
Toronto Type Foundry, 1899
Keystone Type Foundry, 1906
Barnhart Bros. & Spindler 1907

and
One of my favorites, here’s a link to Bauer’s offerings from 1900.

Found via Hoefler+Frere-Jones, Lawrence Penney, Oded Ezer, Nina Stoessinger, Falstaff & Fakir and Kris Sowersby

‘It includes 134 glyphs – both Latin and Cyrillic script plus two different manicules and various arrows’

Crafted by typedepot and available free: Corki is a beautiful condensed slab serif with Tuscan-styling, pointing hands and other extras.

Snag it here.

Film for the New Zealand Book Council, produced by Colenso BBDO and animated by Andersen M Studio.

And you can snag a copy of Maurice Gee’s Going West here.

Found via Daniel Will-Harris

The work of Dominique Fung.

‘On one occasion, referring to Benguiat as a ‘printer,’ Allen asked him what a good typeface was. Benguiat had an affinity for Windsor and suggested it to him that morning. He’s used it in every film since.’

Woody Allen and the Windsor typeface. Since 1977. Story here.

‘Metric is a geometric humanist, sired by West Berlin street signs’

Metric is Kris Sowersby’s companion type to Calibre. Design info and specimens here. Pictured, Metric Black.

‘Elefans began many years ago as a reimagining of the infamous Gill Sans Kayo. It basically started by asking ‘what if Kayo didn’t suck”

Jackson Cavanaugh’s Elefans typeface. Preview here.

Thanks for your reads in 2011. Up next, more boldness. Looking forward.

Pictured is an image from an upcoming project I’ve been working on as of late – which with some luck and spit, should see the light of day in the next few months. Click to view larger. Powered, of course, by Gill Kayo.

‘the story of the rise and fall of Black Horse Disco, a youth club set up in the centre of a large working-class estate in North London’

Knuckle Sandwich. Cover photographed by Red Saunders, a.k.a MC Redman. Powered by Gill Kayo. Details.

The Clash: What’s My Name

Found via The Pelican Blog

Percy Sledge. Powered by Gill Kayo.

Percy Sledge: Any Day Now

Found via Buro Destruct

Kriminal-Serie Kommissar X No. 1281. Powered by Gill Kayo.

Found via mickey the pixel

Kriminal-Serie Kommissar X No. 1168. Powered by Gill Kayo.

Found via mickey the pixel

Logo I created for Normandie, adapted from Gill Kayo.

Follow Gill Kayo on Twitter here.

‘The Swiss firm boldly embraced the face’s strong character, making it the singular voice of the Schauspielhaus, a theatre in Zürich’

The work of Raffinerie – theatre branding using the oft-maligned Gill Kayo typeface.

Detailed article by Stephen Coles here.

The work of Australia-based design firm Toko.

Website here, store here. (Unfortunately, the gill ultra bold. tee is sold out)

Dynascript is the latest font from the great Michael Doret.

Details here, buy it here.

These vintage Santas are just a tad older than me.

Them, with their cartoony script lettering, would grace the table every year – with or without the requisite salt, pepper, for which they were created. Made in Japan.

Below, track from the ultimate 1960s Christmas album.

Ray Conniff: Twelve Days of Christmas

Reading glass case with outlined Helvetica. Genuine 1970s soft plastic.

Some light reading. Graphics designed by the Saul Bass studio.

Found via Spokane7

Typography photograph by Richard Roche/Gentle Pure Space.

More here.

Cole’s – photographed by Heather John. Foodinista post here.

French Dip showdown here. Bunch-o-recipes here.

Typeface: Bang-bang.

One of these days I’m gonna make it up to Seattle and visit bauhaus books + coffee. Just because I have to.

And available now thru them is the Bauhaus + I Want You shirt, designed by Christian Petersen of DUMB EYES – as a cross promotion with I Want You magazine.

Design for Australia-located coffee shop Kaffe by Felix Lobelius.

Found via The Dieline

Leshko’s Coffee Shop, Ave. A. NYC 1979.

The photography of Michael Sean Edwards. Flickr here, website here.

Found via Dangerous Minds

This includes the one pictured above (in its travel option); as well as my best-selling Font Me Typography mug, below.

Input code HOLIDAYSALE4 at checkout. Plus, free shipping on orders over $50. Visit my store here. Zazzle has a new special every day for the holidays, some limitations apply (of course).

December’s books are gonna be:

Simon Garfield’s Mauve – followed up/balanced out with Darrell Hammond’s autobiography God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m Fucked.

Photo found via Strange Little Girls

Final project from my beginning typography course at American River College: Futura Condensed Extra Bold, crafted as iced chocolate cake by student Lilie Matyuk.

Food-based type is always a tricky undertaking, but luckily we had Teresa Urkofsky teaching next door – in the culinary classroom. Teresa had recipes and techniques ready to advise.

‘So there you have it, a home baked poster’

The typographic work of Anna Garforth. More here.

“Heroin’ has 3 holes for pepper. ‘Cocaine’ has one hole for salt.’

The work of David Shrigley. Shakers available here, website here.

Found via Me And My Big Mouth

I love canning stuff. And it’s getting to be the time of year to cram some stuff into bottles.

Pictured, logo design by Roger Estes for Marisa McClellan’s Food in Jars blog.

An image from long ago. The reality is much different today.

Graphic found via Laura Serra

‘And so was born the ‘shop-at-a-glance’ concept’

An ill-fated design experiment from 1965: Ralphs remodeled with departmentalized, color-coded graphic icons. Article here.

I use a lot of color coding in my own work – but with the assumption that the end user will need other organizational tools to find their way around. ‘Shop-at-a-glance’ never quite caught on; tho I’d love to see what data Ralphs collected as part of their process.

Found via Pleasant Family Shopping

‘Great design. Straight from designers.’

Here’s some picks from the Supermarket this year.

‘the terror of suffocating to death in a closet’

May visit a few stores today just as a behavioral study.

Title card and trailer for Black Friday (1940).

Found via nineteenfortyone

Thank you card in progress. The work of Brian Hurst.

The work of alexandraferguson.

Found via Nina Moon

I’ve been drawing some form of type since the 1980s. And have been teaching type for several years now.

It’s hard to ‘go digital’ when introducing typography, since letterform history goes back hundreds (and thousands) of years.

So I still use 15th century era handtools in my introductory type courses.

Good fonts still contain elements from long ago – and today, all we really do is recreate what was once done with broad pens – using digital tools.

font games!
To get a taste of how ‘us professionals’ render type these days, check out Mark MacKay’s brilliant Shape Type (pictured above) and Kern Type. Both are nutshell adaptations of today’s process – kerning being a majorly overlooked, but necessary typesetting skill.

digital type tools
Fonts today are vector-based, so a mastering the basics of Adobe Illustrator is the start.

Beyond this, there are a bunch of applications on the market for drawing fonts. FontLab is the big one, Fontographer is the old one with the easy interface – and TypeTool is a barebones student-discounted alternative. Unlike Illustrator, these font tools take into account how letters are drawn, with built ins that make it easy to adjust edges. Karen Cheng’s Designing Type is also a must resource to have.

And I do all my logo drawings directly in FontLab – after multiple sketches in pen and ink. It’s just easier that way.

Shape Type found via Mark Nutini

The work of Amsterdam-based collective Champagne Valentine.

Reel features Stefan Hattenbach’s first typeface, New Global.

‘Screen-printed in Tokyo on beautiful, red Plike paper with gold, white and black inks.’

Just released: Limited edition typography poster designed by Swedish type designer Stefan Hattenbach, set in his own Tarocco Bold.

Available here.

Video for Rui Abreu’s Orbe font. Available here.

‘Designed by Suomi Type Foundry, Titillation is a rounded, tall and modern styled sans’

Tomi Haaparanta’s Titillation font. Available here.

‘Exciting, Neue, Romance! Adventure!’

‘Love Boot’ prints, cards and postcards.

Vintage, repeating playbill poster design featuring type and boot dingbat from my Jeanne Moderno fonts.

And  . . .  Save $10 on your order of $35 or more at my store. Restrictions apply, go here for details/to get the discount.

(The prints come out really nice too)

Got a whiff of Burberry Body yesterday.

Sweet and floral with a hit of musk and absinthe. The fragrance was developed by Michel Almairac with overall design headed up by Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey.

Campaign features Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (doing another trenchcoat tease), photographed by Mario Testino.

‘Give a Wall Street banker enough rope and he will hang himself’

The work of Miami-based street artist Above. Video by Peter Vahan and Hermes, location provided via Primary Flight and White Walls Gallery. Article here.

The posters art of the Jason Malmberg.

New portfolio website here.