Trick — or treat? The nice thing about modern typefaces is that you can have both. Many of the fonts offered in this month’s newsletter are amazing bags of tricks. Some offer a totally different set of capital letters if you ask them to, link characters with surprising ligatures, look just like messy handwriting, or offer the perfect conditions for reading a 500-page novel. And of course, each of these fonts is a treat — not just visually. Their introductory discounts also make many of them very affordable. Now, it’s not always easy to use all the goodies that these fonts offer. Many layout applications make it unneccesarily difficult to take advantage of OpenType, and keep the fonts’ features hidden from the user. A worldwide group of designers and experts is now asking a major software manufacturer to finally get its typographic act together. Scroll down to learn more about this, and chip in.
There are many ways of looking at typefaces. Most of the time we’re not even looking at all: we just read. That’s what good type designers keep in mind when they labor to add something meaningful to the huge arsenal of available typefaces. Just like chairs or shoes, fonts can be a means of self-expression or a way to make the world prettier (that’s why people keep thinking of new chairs, shoes and fonts) but their goal first and foremost is to perform a well-defined task — in the case of type, it’s to give people access to a written text. But contrary to popular belief, type is not invisible. It’s a kind of packaging for texts: it carries a subtle message about its content and may bring the reader into a specific mood. The bigger it is, the louder the message. Get ready for yet another selection of popular, recent typefaces that whisper, ask, or shout: “Look at me!”
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.
Laura Condouris is a calligrapher, illustrator, typeface designer and occasional comedienne located in Charm City (also known as Baltimore, Maryland). “I studied fine art in college (at MICA),” Laura says, “but regretted never getting a background in graphic design. When I became a full-time calligrapher, I became really interested in typography and letterforms. After lots of frustration and tears trying to teach myself font design, my first font, KatieRose was released in Spring 2012.”
With a library of 18 wildly varying typefaces, it’s hard to believe that Albatross started out as a “self-training exercise” for Oklahoma-based designer Jay Hilgert.
As a little kid I used to draw my own comic books. I was a huge fan of the ‘superhero’ genre. The fonts used in these American comics made me aware of typography for the very first time.
Now most of my typefaces originate in my holidays. Here I get my inspiration and finally have lots of time to ride the flow.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The number of successful type designers living and working in Berlin today is staggering. Some individual careers are no less impressive. Born and raised in Berlin, this month’s interviewee started up his own typefoundry the moment he submitted his first typeface to MyFonts in 2012 — and he’s been on an upward trajectory from there. Two of his font families made our 2012 and 2013 lists of Fonts of the Year. He hasn’t brought out a single family yet that has not done well. His designs are powerful, unadorned, straightforward, and well-made. Meet the energetic and purposeful René Bieder.
He is not one of those type designers who produces a new font family every two or three months. Each of his typefaces has taken considerable time to mature, and it shows: they are thoughtful, original and well-wrought. Rather than responding to passing trends, his Emtype Foundry publishes fonts that are aimed at having a long shelf-life, and his Geogrotesque has been a bestseller ever since it came out five years ago. He is also prepared to pull his weight when it comes to nourishing international typographic culture — he’ll be co-organizer of next year’s ATypI conference, the world’s major annual get-together of type designers. Meet Eduardo Manso, an Argentinian who has made Barcelona his home.
It does not happen very often that we interview designers right after they’ve signed up with MyFonts, and we’ve never interviewed a group as large as Fontyou. But then, the subject of this month’s Creative Characters interview is not your average type design studio. The Paris-based initiative has an ambitious plan: finding new ways to design and produce fonts. Using online tools, Fontyou establishes fruitful relationships between people with complementary skills — lettering artists, type designers, font technicians, and more. The outcome: something that’s greater than the sum of the parts — collaborative font designs with originality, quality, and character.
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.
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.
This month’s interviewee was an international free-font hero while still in his teens, before attending design college, dropping out, and becoming a well-known graphic designer and illustrator. Having made stunning illustrations and typographic posters for clients in the cultural and editorial sectors, he eventually specialized in energetic script and display fonts. His foundry Fenotype has been at MyFonts for a mere three years, but it feels as if it’s been longer. His fonts were featured in our Fonts-of-the-Year lists of 2011 and 2012, making him the most successful type designer from the Nordic countries currently on MyFonts. Meet Emil Bertell, our man in Turku, Finland.
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.
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