Each Rising Stars newsletter is different, but this month’s issue is more different than usual. We feature work from two designers that are new to MyFonts, as well as versatile families from two of our most productive foundries. We are introducing the first new typeface in decades from the living legend that is Mike Parker. And the biggest news is an extra-special collaborative font uniting hundreds of designers: Coming Together, a Font Aid project for Haiti.
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.
Spring is in the air in many parts of the world, and each year that feeling of a new start somehow coincides with a crop of fresh new script fonts. Our newsletter, however, has more to offer than an excess of swashes and loops. From Germany come two of the most interesting sans-serifs to recently hit our shelves. Another German masterpiece is beamed up to us from the early twentieth century via Toronto, Canada. All this and more is possible at MyFonts.
Is it an exaggeration to say that he’s one of the unsung heroes of digital type design? Whenever you read texts on a digital device, chances are you’re looking at a font he’s had a hand in, such as Microsoft’s versions of Arial, Times New Roman or Courier New. Having led the California office of Monotype Imaging in the 1990s, he became a founding partner of Ascender Corp in 2005 and, as their chief type designer, created a huge range of functional type families including the Droid fonts for Google. He rejoined Monotype when they acquired Ascender in late 2010 and recently published the wonderful Massif Pro typeface. While he excels in making useful digital type, he is by no means a pallid geek: he balances supple curves with steep slopes, and nodes with knots-per-hour. No ODS for Steve Matteson, our man at the top.
His typefaces are as varied as the places he’s lived in. Is that the reason why his foundry is called Schizotype? No, he says, the name was pure serendipity — as was the way in which his love affair with lettering and type began. He came to MyFonts as a hobbyist type designer offering a bunch of carefree and less-than-perfect fun fonts, but quickly honed his skills. He began putting out ever more sophisticated and increasingly successful typefaces, from luscious scripts to idiosyncratic yet usable text types. Meet Dave Rowland, calling from Koh Samui, Thailand.
His typefaces are as varied as the places he’s lived in. Is that the reason why his foundry is called Schizotype? No, he says, the name was pure serendipity — as was the way in which his love affair with lettering and type began. He came to MyFonts as a hobbyist type designer offering a bunch of carefree and less-than-perfect fun fonts, but quickly honed his skills. He began putting out ever more sophisticated and increasingly successful typefaces, from luscious scripts to idiosyncratic yet usable text types. Meet Dave Rowland, calling from Koh Samui, Thailand.
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.
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!
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