The award-winning Hipster Script by Alejandro Paul is based on a style of hand lettering that was created for advertising in the 1940s and 1950s yet stills looks fresh today. While the lettershapes have their roots in copperplate script styles, it’s the tool that made the difference. Painting the letters on board or paper with a round brush, the artist created thinner and thicker strokes by exerting less or more pressure, varied letterforms according to context, interrupted the connected flow by lifting the brush. A faithful digitization must emulate all these aspects of brush lettering, and Hipster Script does it very well. Have a close look at the various letter combinations in the sample above, such as the recurring “-er”, or letter pairs such as “ee” and “ll”. These variations are selected automatically for specific combinations using OpenType’s Contextual Alternates function. The result is a convincing imitation of hand-painted letters. Use with OpenType-enabled layout software!
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.
With so many new typefaces coming out every week, it’s those that have a clear purpose or add something genuinely new to the typographic palette that capture attention and stand out from the crowd. Of course, fonts that simply offer fantastic value for money also stand a good chance of getting noticed. This month’s newsletter for successful new fonts offers a bit of each: the original, the useful, the affordable and the downright gorgeous. Enjoy!
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.
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!
René Bieder is an art director, graphic designer and type designer, born and raised in Berlin. “My roots are in advertising and graphic design,” he said in his 2014 interview for Creative Characters, “that’s what I did before I discovered the field of type design. Speaking generally, I simply love designing. I know that sounds cheesy, but to start with a blank page and to see the result after months of hard work is very satisfying to me, no matter if it’s a type family, a corporate design, a campaign or a website. I never intended to focus on one single thing, and I feel at home in different disciplines.”
Ale Paul is one of the founders of the Sudtipos project, a key reference for the quality of its work. His work has contributed enormously in placing Argentina firmly on the map of Graphic Design.
Ale’s career as an art director landed him in some of Argentina’s most prestigious studios, and handling such high-profile corporate brands as Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson, Danone, and others.
The Atlas Font Foundry publishes new original typefaces for professional use such as editorial and corporate typography. The growing collection of high quality font families is finely crafted and provides many features for fine typography and innovative design solutions. Established in 2012 by Christoph Dunst, the foundry is based in Berlin, Germany.
Christoph Dunst studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, The Netherlands, where he graduated with a degree in graphic and typographic design and a masters in type design. The design studio he founded in The Hague in 2006 moved to Berlin in 2009 and was renamed Büro Dunst.
In 2012 he established the Atlas Font Foundry.
Christine Gertsch is a Swiss graphic and type designer living in Berlin. She studied in Basel, Québec, Berlin, Kolding and The Hague. She is part of the TypeMedia class 2011/2012.
She offers hir fonts through her Modonomat foundry.
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!
Welcome to our monthly newsletter, showcasing some of the most successful fonts of the moment. As usual, our four Rising Stars are selected from the best selling type families on our list of Hot New Fonts, which is updated daily. For those who design books and magazines, the Texts Fonts of the Month section offers a selection of type families that are equipped for complex editorial tasks and immersive reading.
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.
If the Best Seller lists on MyFonts are something of a barometer of trends in typography, then there are two main currents — and they are diametrically opposed. One: the minimalism of cool, clean slab and sans-serif fonts. Two: the delight in exuberance, ornament, cheerful irregularity and all that looks handmade. This month, with summer in the air for many of us, the scale has most definitely tipped towards the latter. It’s May, and our Rising Stars — even the Text Fonts of the month — are bursting with joie de vivre. Enjoy!
Belated best wishes for 2014 from the MyFonts team! Convinced, as usual, that the year ain’t over till its over, we waited longer than most other list-makers to compile our overview of the Fonts of 2013. This is a list that you, as our customers, have voted for — with your wallet. It is a font hit parade that is based on average sales (revenue, not number of copies sold), with some correction for what we sometimes call the Introduction Sales Peak, and making sure that popular genres are fairly represented. There you go: your annual barometer of trends in type. Thanks for helping us put it together.
Useful: that’s the key word in this month’s newsletter. Whether you’re a professional or a hobbyist, a web designer or an art director developing corporate publications or packaging — you’ll find some extremely affordable as well as extremely sophisticated typefaces in this edition of Rising Stars. Enjoy.
Rational yet friendly: such is the personality of many a typeface today. Many of the fonts featured in this newsletter are the result of the somewhat paradoxical fusion of geometrical shapes — constructed with circles and straight lines — and just enough likable detailing to steer clear of rigidity and iciness. Which is just as well at this chilly time of year, as millions of us in the Northern hemisphere crave silver linings, bluebells and blossoms, and the warm yet sensible curves of well-crafted type.
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.
Introduction to ATypI
The Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) is a worldwide non-profit organization dedicated to type and typography. It was founded in 1957 by Charles Peignot.
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