In recent months we’ve been on something of a tour around northern Europe. We’ve taken in Sweden, Siberia, the Netherlands, Germany and now, with another sharp turn towards the top of the map, we’re back in Sweden to meet someone whose enthusiasm for getting in early with the latest technology is matched only by his immersion in the historical techniques of broad nib and black ink. A recent flurry of releases, published through the Stockholm foundry T4, belies the conventional idea that retirement equals a quiet life. Born in 1924, Bo Berndal is now in his seventh decade of typographic activity, resulting in over 200 published typefaces. Amazingly — or perhaps not — making type is still his favorite pastime today.
This month’s Rising Stars newsletter features the most diverse collection of successful new fonts in months. All popular modes of letter-making are represented: sketching, writing, constructing, reviving and standing on the shoulders of giants. There are fonts for entertainment, fonts for seducing potent loved ones or potential customers, and fonts for creating masterpieces of typographic design. There are even fonts for layering and automatic connecting. If you think that sounds dirty, then that’s not our fault.
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.
They may not be a household name on a global scale yet, but in their native Thailand, Cadson Demak are a high-profile typographic consultancy. Clients they’ve designed custom Thai faces for include Wallpaper*, Federbräu Beer and Nokia. They recently had a big hit on MyFonts with Kondolar, designed by the studio’s team member Ekaluck Peanpanawate. Their collection of well-made yet affordable fonts — small but versatile text families as well as witty icons — is growing. This interview is a double bill: for our conversation with Ekaluck, scroll down. First we’re giving the floor to Cadson Demak’s co-founder Anuthin Wongsunkakon. A warm welcome to our men in Bangkok.
Our subject this month is a man with an eye for an unexpected tale and a taste for surprising details. Not unlike his native Sweden’s better known exports, his is a globally focused design practice rooted in Scandinavian heritage. His foundry, MAC Rhino Fonts, has been with MyFonts for just under six months but the story of its name actually predates the emergence of a more famous type of Mac… Meet Stefan Hattenbach, a classically minded type designer with rebellious tendencies.
They’re based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a city that, like Liverpool and Manchester, was a one-time center of the industrial revolution. Jonathan Hill is from Sheffield, where he worked as a graphic designer for the thriving local music industry. After several years in a London studio he moved back to North East England to set up his own logo and type design studio. Mariya Pigoulevskaya came to the region from Belarus in 2006 to study Art and Design and joined Jonathan’s studio after graduation. Their company’s type library is a fast-growing and increasingly popular collection of type families — many of them clean, modern sans serifs with an industrial or tech touch. Getting better all the time: here is The Northern Block.
Over the past year or so, we’ve seen a subtle shift in typographic tastes. While until recently the top 10 of our Hot New Fonts was dominated by witty, wild display fonts and scripts, these days there’s a more serious-looking bunch of fonts up there.
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.
The last few months of 2007 bring a number of new fonts and several new foundries to MyFonts. We are especially excited to say hello to the Adobe Type Library – not to mention many new small foundries: Big Typephoon, Paragraph, Lorenzo Geiger’s Typewerk, Very Good Fonts, Fictilia, Forte Type, WCM, Letrizmo, Perrens, Melissa Lapadula and Typefolio.
Last year Daniel Hernández left his native Chile for Buenos Aires, Argentina — arguably the typographic capital of South America — to become a full-time type designer. His dedication has paid off. In the brief period since his first typefaces appeared on MyFonts, he has become a regular on our bestseller lists. His typefaces are also quite special, with that mixture of novelty, fun and craftsmanship that we have come to know as, somehow, typically “latino”. Having published his first fonts with Sudtipos, he is now part of LatinoType, a successful new Chilean foundry with international ambitions.
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.
