June 12, 2012 in Found by Barbara, leave a comment

Interview with designer Sandra Winter

Sandra Winter collaborated with Akira Kobayashi on the design of the new Rounded versions of Avenir Next. We decided to take the opportunity to ask the designer, who was also involved in the DIN Next project, a few questions. You will find the text of the interview, with her fascinating responses and her description of the challenges associated with creating new cuts of an acknowledged classic among fonts, at Linotype.com.

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April 17, 2012 in Fonts (in Focus), Typographic Scene by Barbara, leave a comment

All the characteristics of a debut work:
Levato by Felix Bonge

At this point, I would like to use the opportunity to draw your attention to a particular typeface. Levato, which has only recently been made available at Linotype.com, is a font family with a large repertoire that was developed on the basis of experiments undertaken by Felix Bonge while participating in a type design course held by Professor Jovica Veljović. After subsequently attending a calligraphy seminar, Bonge completely reworked his concept and achieved this impressive result. Levato is graceful, dynamic and versatile all at the same time. There are five weights with the corresponding genuine italic versions. The suite of glyphs thus covers all potential options: the four character sets, small caps, numerous ligatures, ornamental and swash character variants mean the Levato can be used in headlines, to design magazine layouts and to set continuous text.

For more information on this typeface, ideas for possible applications and the opportunity to purchase the Levato family for your own use, and for reading an interview with Felix Bonge, go to Linotype.com.

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March 20, 2012 in Fonts (in Focus) by Barbara, leave a comment

Helvetica now available in Thai

Helvetica has also learned to speak Thai: the Thai font designer Anuthin Wongsunkakon has created Thai versions of the classic typefaces Helvetica and Neue Helvetica. These versions are available in the weights Light, Regular and Bold, with the corresponding italic variants. Helvetica Thai harmonises perfectly with its Latin original and these two can thus happily be used in combination. With its pared-down and simplified form, Helvetica Thai replicates the appearance of modern Thai calligraphy.

Those who would like more information on this subject will find two interesting articles at Linotype.com. In the one, Anuthin Wongsunkakon describes the conversion process that resulted in the creation of Helvetica Thai. The other is an interview with the designer, in which he talks about various aspects of typography and typeface design.

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February 21, 2012 in Found by Barbara, leave a comment

The designer Victor García on the definition of the typographic category of pictograms and symbols

In Autumn Number 45 of TYPO Magazine in a very interesting and amusing article, the Argentinean designer Victor García seeks a suitable definition for type families composed of pictograms, symbols and other elements beyond language representation. In his article currently conventional designations are critically and minutely examined and observations made as to which terms are more correct in this genre and could better describe it. The whole article is enlivened with illustrations of Victor García’s own pictogram fonts, for some of which he has won awards, and which include Linotype Bix™, Bix Bats™, Linotype Tangomaniacs™, and Linotype Zootype™.

Meanwhile Victor García’s input can be seen on Icograda.org – it is really worth a look!

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January 20, 2012 in Fonts (in Focus) by Barbara, leave a comment

A lively, very legible text font:
the Mantika Sans from Jürgen Weltin

Today I would like to make another font recommendation: Mantika Sans from the German designer Jürgen Weltin has everything that makes for a good text font. It has clear contours and therefore is also very clearly legible in small sizes, as for example for the Office suite or for business reports.
Another remarkable feature is the italic style, to which Jürgen Weltin has devoted particular attention and to which he has given a very dramatic design. The styling of the Mantika Sans is based on older designs for an Antiqua, which gives the members of the family a special flavour.
Mantika Sans features a good range of symbols and languages and is universally applicable. It was highly commended in the “Greek text font” category of the “3rd International Eastern Type Design Competition Granshan 2010”.
Conclusion: This family of fonts stands out from many traditional text fonts because of its dynamic, individual character and it offers many design opportunities.

A detailed article showing many font examples is available on Linotype.com

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December 12, 2011 in Fonts (in Focus) by Barbara, leave a comment

A new typeface: Rabenau by Axel Bertram

Anyone with a love of typography will doubtless be interested to learn that a new typeface is now available through Linotype – Rabenau, a well structured font family available in 16 carefully coordinated styles. Rabenau’s warm personality make it perfect for setting text, but it is just as happy in headlines and display formats. The experienced graphic designer Axel Bertram, who has been producing fonts for the past 30 years, has provided Rabenau with a wealth of different ligatures. The arcs used to create the ligatures st, ck and ct give the font an individual character.
Go to Linotype.com for an extensive article on Rabenau with many examples of applications – you will find it well worth a look!

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November 11, 2011 in Fonts (in Focus) by Barbara, leave a comment

Georgia and Verdana now extended to offer more languages plus more weights and styles.

Something to delight all fans of these two classics: Georgia® Pro and Verdana® Pro have been fully extended and now offer a greater variety of typographic designs plus more opportunities to use them throughout the pan-European language area.

(more…)

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September 15, 2011 in Typographic Scene by Barbara, leave a comment

An interview with Anders Francker

The recent visit of the Danish designer Anders Francker to Linotype was the perfect opportunity for an interview. The designer of the Francker typeface family, a successful autodidact who never completed conventional studies in design, revealed fascinating insights into a range of typographical topics.

You can read the interview at Linotype.com.

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August 26, 2011 in Non-Latin by Barbara, leave a comment

Type Design Competition GRANSHAN 2011: Extended deadline until the 8th of September, 2011

Important information for all designers of non-Latin typefaces: Due to popular demand the Armenian Ministry of Culture and the Typographic Society Munich (tgm – Typographische Gesellschaft München) extended the deadline for this year’s International Type Design Competition “GRANSHAN” to the 8th of September.

Focusing on Armenian, Cyrillic and Greek typography GRANSHAN is the only type design competition in the world which promotes the development of non-Latin typefaces.

The Armenian Ministry of Culture launched the international type design competition focusing on non-Latin typefaces in 2008. Since 2010 it has taken place in cooperation with the Typographic Society Munich.

Typefaces in the categories Armenian, Cyrillic and Greek typefaces and display typefaces can be handed in by e-mailing entries@granshan.org till the 8th of September, 2011. An international jury will survey the typefaces before the results will be announced by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia in Yerevan at the end of September 2011. Further information and details for participating can be found online: www.granshan.org.

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July 13, 2011 in Fonts (in Focus) by Barbara, Comments Off

Constructivist Fonts

An interesting article on the “revolutionary” typefaces of the 1920s can be found at Linotype.com: together with information on the historical background, the article includes illustrations showing the development of constructivist fonts and examples of their use during the period. I find both the movement and the whole era to be extremely fascinating – and the minimalism and restraint of the graphic designs give some of them a truly contemporary feel!
The article is available in English and German.

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