Typography

I just realized that I am completely without a personalized letterhead.

The Got Milk? typeface is Phenix American. Looks like it needs a little kerning before it looks right, but that’s OK. Agfa will sell it to you for twenty-two bucks. I know I wanted this information for some reason, so I’ll just tuck it away here until I can remember why I wanted it. Late edit: no, I will not send you the font. Someone spent a great deal of time creating the font, and if you want to use it you ought to pay for it.

I’m a total slut for typefaces, so I really couldn’t resist Behind the Typeface Presents: Cooper Black. It’s a big Flash file, around 3 megs, but IMHO well worth it. And actually kind of informative as well as being funny, since I find it interesting to think about how a hot design concept such as a typeface goes from fresh to overused.

Invoking the LazyWeb. I am trying to find this typeface: It is not Bernhard Gothic, although it’s close. However, the “W” is stepped, like Burghley (original) (although much more regular). I have a PDF with this typeface in it, and it’s identified as Malloy, but I cannot find Malloy on the Web. I’m perfectly willing to pay for this, I just can’t find the damned thing. Edit: found it myself; it’s Martin Gothic Bold. (And while I’m at it: ITC Garamond Book Condensed.)

All Apple news sites are frantically clogged right now. Not a surprise. MacInTouch: Mac news, information and analysis (original) has some news on the Apple announcement, and I’ve pieced together some more stuff from here and there. Three new things: New iPods. Yay, 30 GB iPod. Some kind of a docking station, too, which seems unnecessary but whatever. I actually like my Firewire cable that doubles as a power cable when I go mobile so a docking station might be a step back. New iTunes. Supports AAC, which is I guess MPEG-4 audio. Five bucks says that change was so that Jobs could tell the music people that his new online music thingie wouldn’t support evil MP3s. The new iTunes supports Rendezvous for auto-discovery of other iTunes users on your network. I don’t know what that means either — auto-discovery is cool but what does iTunes do with it? Shared music libraries? ...

Speaking of typefaces, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this (original).

daidala is another one of those cursed typographical blogs; lovely stuff, written by a man with a wise enthusiasm for the craft of typography. He points me at Bitstream’s Cambridge Collection (original). $200 for 200 fonts, none of them spectacular showy display fonts, most of them rather nice: that’s what I call a good deal. And the license is for five users! And it comes with a poster! And a Gill Sans clone in three weights!

I always go through this whole painful fifteen minute searching process when trying to find Nick’s Fonts. Phil’s Fonts (original) has a place of precedence in my memory palace, so I invariably go there first after a bit of guessing. Philfonts? Philsfont? Philsfonts! Oh, wait, wrong site. So now I’m logging it. Excellent, excellent source for art deco typefaces. I love his stuff. I want it all.

I have very fond memories of The Westing Game. Today, I stumbled across a link to an Ellen Raskin page (original) of rare quality. Turns out she was a graphic designer and an illustrator as well. The page includes scans of her original manuscript for The Westing Game and a pretty extensive discussion of her typesetting directions. Good reading. There’s also, of course, a bibliography and biography.

Not only do I dig typography, I dig the minute distinctions between various type families. Thus, I adore this discussion of twenty serif body text typefaces.