What's Your Type Spring 2011

Apr 25

Final Type Specimen Presentations

Wow, what a great set of unique and beautiful type specimens! Thanks all for the hard work and wonderful personal typefaces.

What did you take away from this experience?

Which typeface do you think is ready for a type foundry?

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Apr 18

10 awesome examples of arabic and persian graffitis -

Found some interesting Arabic graffiti.

Submitted by Az C.

Apr 17

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Bite off more than you can chew

Experimental type by Anna Garforth, here she creates a poster using biscuits, spelling out ”Bite off more than you can chew” Experimenting is about jumping in the deep end, exploring a side of things that may or may not work, it is a process of discovering and learning.

Apr 11

Anatomy of Type

It’s important to know the proper terms of typography, especially when we critique and review your typeface designs. Take a look and study these anatomy of type basics.

anatomy

anatomy

anatomy

anatomy

You can also read an article on the Basics of Typography: http://www.thefloatingfrog.co.uk/tag/typography/#ixzz0sxlHNtJQ

ABC Superheroes

Fabian Gonzalez must love superheros more than the average man! His newest illustration shows us our ABCs in true superhero style. I got Batman, Superman and Zorro but can someone please name the rest?

Submitted by Brett P.

Apr 09

“A typeface’s name should reflect its best characters.” — Ed Benguiat, legendary typeface designer, on choosing name for a typeface

Apr 04

Hamburgefonts Debunked

Question: What is the Significance of Hamburgefonts? No, it’s not a typo. It’s Hamburgefonts not Hamburger Fonts. Hamburgefonts is a technique used in type design.

Answer: When designing your own typeface it is often recommended that you begin your work by creating the characters that spell out Hamburgefonts. Hamburgerfonts is a test word contains most of the various shapes and strokes found in a typeface (alternate is Hamburgefonstiv). By concentrating on designing and finetuning these characters first, the bits and pieces can then be applied to most of the other characters in the font.

When submitting new designs or design ideas to a type foundry for consideration, designers often submit (or are asked to submit) the test word Hamburgefonts set in both mixed case and all caps either as a printout, PDF, or as a digital font.

Object Typography Inspiration

Some more inspiration for your project:

Sewing

Thread

This thread type is by designer and Cranbrook MFA graduate Elle Kim.

Found objects

Water

Food

Wire

What other artforms can you name which can be combined to create experimental typography?

Sewing Typefaces

SEWING INSPIRATION

For anyone doing stitching/sewing for your typeface, check out this work-in-progress of a stitched typeface.

via kanella

Tools used: Couple of needles, yellow thread, thick carton, Black & Decker drill, a Mac, hours of designing and sewing!

Typography Related Illustrations -

Came across this fantastic artist doing typography related illustrations, thought it might be good for the Tumblr: http://www.fmagnotta.com/portfolio.html

Submitted by Az C.