Just over a year ago, a brand new foundry appeared on MyFonts — Hoftype. In twelve months the foundry published an astounding array of useful, elegant and original text typefaces. The man behind Hoftype is Dieter Hofrichter, type designer in Oberschleißheim, near Munich in southern Germany. Hofrichter’s career as a professional type designer began in 1989 when he was hired by H. Berthold AG. In the company’s famous studio he worked with the late Günter Gerhard Lange, the most exacting taskmaster in post-war German typography. This issue of Creative Characters was co-edited with Berlin-based type designer Dan Reynolds, who asked most of the questions and transcribed the answers. Many thanks!
Just over a year ago, a brand new foundry appeared on MyFonts — Hoftype. In twelve months the foundry published an astounding array of useful, elegant and original text typefaces. The man behind Hoftype is Dieter Hofrichter, type designer in Oberschleißheim, near Munich in southern Germany. Hofrichter’s career as a professional type designer began in 1989 when he was hired by H. Berthold AG. In the company’s famous studio he worked with the late Günter Gerhard Lange, the most exacting taskmaster in post-war German typography. This issue of Creative Characters was co-edited with Berlin-based type designer Dan Reynolds, who asked most of the questions and transcribed the answers. Many thanks!
In the American typographic landscape P22 takes a special place. Having started out as a maverick art project, they morphed into a foundry specializing in typefaces related to art and history. They became known for their spectacular, award-winning packaging. Then a series of unrelated font projects crossed their path, which they decided to accommodate in separate labels: IHOF (International House of Fonts), Lanston Type, Rimmer Type Foundry, and Sherwood Type. They also publish books and music CDs, and are co-organizers of this year’s TypeCon. All of this is accomplished by a surprisingly small staff, led by Richard Kegler and Carima El-Behairy, husband and wife. Meet one of the type world’s hardest working couples…
He’s arguably the most widely read type designer in the world. Verdana, Georgia, Tahoma, Skia: all ubiquitous, all his. Miller, one of North America’s most popular news faces — his initiative. Bell Centennial, drawn for AT&T, has been used in millions of phone books. His typefaces are all across the stylistic spectrum, from elegant renaissance oldstyles via meticulous scripts to indestructible sans-serifs. Having started as an apprentice at age 19, he has been in the business for the best part of six decades and is still passionately interested in the latest technological developments. He revels in working with demanding technicians and challenging projects. Here is our long-awaited interview with Matthew Carter.
It’s that time of the year again. Festive scripts reign, supported by a cast of restrained text fonts and sans-serifs. That, basically, sums up what the December newsletter is about: a joyous dance of swirls and swashes to end the year in beauty — and a parade of all-purpose typefaces to enter 2012 with a set of brand new tools. Charm meets usability in this last Rising Stars newsletter of the year. Enough said. A big hand for the month’s most successful new fonts.
January is a packed month at MyFonts. Following the ever-popular Fonts of the Year newsletter, we go back to the future with this edition of Rising Stars, our choice of best-selling new typefaces. Attention all bargain hunters: we probably never had this many fonts at such breathtaking introductory discounts. Each of our four top Stars can be had at less than $20 for the entire family — make your decision before the end date of each promo!
Dear Reader: Get ready for the longest Creative Characters interview ever. It’s not just that Stuart Sandler is a talented talker, he also has a lot to talk about. He runs and co-directs no less than five foundries and labels that MyFonts represents: the Font Diner, Sideshow, Breaking The Norm, the Tart Workshop and, most recently, Filmotype. He runs a handful of other companies and web shops as well, including Mister Retro. He is enamored with the lettering and typefaces of the 1920s through the 1960s, a period when letter-making was a very different craft indeed. Meet Stuart Sandler, a master of digital retro-americana.
It’s either/or, this month, on MyFonts’ list of popular new fonts. The crop of successful new typefaces is neatly divided into playful, informal script faces, and cool, clean sans-serifs; not much else in between. Apparently, those are the quintessential typographic tools in this day and age, and who are we to complain? Our foundries offer a wealth of possibilities in both genres, and there is a lot of quality out there. In the elevated realm of typographically sophisticated text faces, there is more nuance, as our selection below shows. Happy browsing to all, and for those professionals who come to TypeCon later this month: we are looking forward to meeting you at our booth!
This month marks the second anniversary of our acclaimed series of interviews. Thank you all for your compliments and encouragements! We celebrate the event with a lengthy interview conducted in French (don't worry — we did translate it)…
He is the co-founder and owner of Dalton Maag, possibly the largest independent studio in Europe specializing in custom type design. Educated in Basel in his native Switzerland, he has worked and lived in London for two decades. His company recently developed a huge plurilingual font system for Nokia and has presented their bespoke font for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Following many requests from our customers, Dalton Maag’s superior typefaces have recently become available for retail on MyFonts. Meet Bruno Maag, at your service.
Best wishes for the brand new year from the MyFonts team — all twelve of us. From our respective locations in Massachusetts, Berlin, Sacramento, Bristol, and Siem Reap, we wish you a splendid, happy and successful 2012 wherever you are.
Type design has always been an exacting, highly skilled profession, but that was doubly true in the early days of digital fonts. These faces had to work in highly demanding, challenging environments: CRT monitors, low resolution printers, and in a rapidly evolving newspaper industry. This month we are talking to one of those individuals who tackled the limitations of technology head on. His pioneering techniques, first developed under Wim Crouwel, were later employed by Bitstream and URW, and utilized on road signs and in newsprint, establishing a body of work admired the world over, both for its pragmatic, steely clarity, and its warmth and openness. He has now teamed up with TypeTogether, a foundry run by two of his former students at Reading. It is an honor to welcome Dutch designer Gerard Unger, one of the most original minds in contemporary type design.
The way Dutchman Jos Buivenga rose to prominence on the type scene is quite remarkable. For years, his online friends and fans could follow the development of his typefaces via his website, and download the results at no cost. When his one-man foundry exljbris began selling his first commercial typeface Museo through MyFonts last year, several weights were offered for free. The generosity paid off: Museo became a meteoric bestseller. Eighteen months, five typefaces and one bankrupt employer later, he finds himself a full time type designer — and doing very well, thank you. Meet Jos Buivenga, going with the flow on the river of life.
If the output of Japanese foundries represented on MyFonts is anything to go by, Nagoya must be the number one font city in Japan. Not only has Ray Larabie established his Typodermic foundry here; it is also home to Flat-It, one of our most prolific microfoundries specializing in lively retro and script fonts. Flat-It is run by Ryoichi Tsunekawa, who also created two specialist labels — Prop-A-Ganda and Holiday Type — to celebrate and market letterforms inspired by… well, propaganda and holidays. His taste is eclectic, his skills are remarkable, his production is huge. Meet Ryoichi Tsunekawa, architect of display fonts.
He’s one of those designers who live and breathe letterforms, whose hand-lettered titles and brand names look as if they’ve always been there. Based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Mark Simonson worked as an art director and lettering artist for many years before being able to fulfill a lifelong dream: to become a full-time type designer. Having started out in the pen-and-ink, cut-and-paste era, he has made the transition to digital design with flying colors. Meet Mark Simonson, a contemporary craftsman.
The type industry today is truly a global affair. This month’s newsletter is evidence of that: it features fonts from Germany and North America, but also from Buenos Aires and Ahmedabad, India. Based on the sales of the past thirty days, each Rising Stars is also a way of taking the pulse of the font-loving community. One thing is clear — Spencerian script, the nineteenth-century style that has long been such an important model for American handwriting, is more popular than ever. To compensate for all the flourish, the cool objectivity of geometric sans and slab serifs is going equally strong. It’s June: a month of contrasts.
Unlike most of our interviewees, Crystal Kluge never dreamt of working OpenType magic or getting the most out of FontLab software. Pens, pencils and brushes are her tools of choice. She’d already found her own enchanting style of lettering and illustration when she was approached by Font Diner’s Stuart Sandler, who had spotted her work when shopping for wedding invitations in Minneapolis’ Uptown area. In 2006 the twosome started the Tart Workshop. It’s a dream team: Kluge draws cheerful, sassy letterforms and pictograms, Sandler makes them into smart and usable fonts with a catchy swing. And the beat, as they say, goes on.
In the 1980s, Londoner Rian Hughes was one of the brightest young artists on the British comics scene. He went on to become a versatile designer, illustrator and lettering artist working for clients in the fields of publishing, music, sports, telecommunications, fashion and more. He is also the creator of an ever-growing library of typefaces — hundreds of them, in an amazing array of styles and atmospheres. Most of these have been published by his own type foundry, Device. Besides that, he is a writer and editor, and will be publishing two huge books later this year. Meet Rian Hughes, a designer who wants to do it all.
Based in London, the Kapitza sisters are originally from a village in southwest Germany. After working for pioneering companies in digital media, they set up their studio kapitza in London’s East End and discovered a niche crafting picture and pattern fonts. Working in the intersection between illustration, art and type design, they have become highly regarded in the UK and abroad. A stunning book showcasing the endless possibilities of Geometric, their suite of minimalist pattern fonts, has brought them even more recognition. Joining MyFonts a year ago has proved to be an excellent move for both parties. Meet Nicole (left, above) and Petra Kapitza, city dwellers and nature lovers.
Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, has been at the forefront of graphic design in Latin America for decades. Today, one of that city’s most prominent forces in type design is Sudtipos, a remarkable type collective founded in 2001 by four experienced designers from the world of corporate and packaging design. This month’s interviewee is Sudtipos’ spokesman, who became famous for drawing and programming some of the most intricate script fonts ever digitized. Meet Alejandro “Ale” Paul, a man who likes to raise bars — and we don’t just mean chocolate bars.
He is probably Finland’s most prolific type designer, and his foundry is simply named Suomi — which, of course, is what the Finns call their country. While working with us on this interview, he realized with a slight shock that he’s been in the font game for two decades. Yet his letterforms are as youthful and fresh as ever. His most recent offerings, such as the smart handwriting face Suomi Script and the spirited Suomi Sans, show a convincing mixture of attitude and maturity. Meet Tomi Haaparanta, our man in Helsinki.
