Here's a captivating, personal article on I Love Typography about the design process of Jeremy Mickel's first commercially available typeface. This is a very inspiring read that I wish I had been exposed to when I started out.

External link:
<ilovetypography.com/2009/03/23/the-first-ones-the-hardest/>

Awesome! The german Robotlab has trained an industrial robot to write a bible of al things... Thanks for the link, Alexandra.

Letterror is introducing the new and completely reworked ffTrixie with a nice little YouTube video. Just van Rossum on guitar.
Continuing Education has re-structured the type design classes again to make more sense for students with different skill levels and interests. This is slowly developing into a miniaturized type design curriculum in itself. Just add a calligraphy class to the beginning, the letterpress class to the end and presto: 5 semesters of intensive immersion in type!

So these are the three type design classes and their boilerplate descriptions. If you have questions please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Recommended reading for all three classes
The stroke: theory of writing by Gerrit Noordzij Introduction to type design: Hand drawn type - The Roman Letterforms
While the biggest part of today's type industry has moved into the digital domain, the underlying skills, practices and theories have remained fairly unchanged. This hands-on type design class explores the design process with a strong focus on classic drawing skills and a firm conceptual understanding of letter forms. Using pen and paper the students will be guided through two extensive type design projects complemented by a number of short exercises to practice different design methods.

Experience in calligraphy is a plus but not required. This class forms a perfect precursor for "Introduction to type design in FontLab Studio v.5".

Fall registration starts August 25th, 2008. To sign up please contact the Continuing Education department. Materials to bring

• vellum (US letter sized)
• ruler
• drop action pencil
• eraser
• black waterproof fine liner
• thick waterproof marker
• white out pen

Introduction to type design: Hand drawn type - The Italic Letterforms
In most respects this class is identical with class No.1 but deals with the italic construction exlusively.



Introduction to Digital Type Design in FontLab Studio v.5
The design and production processes of typefaces have significantly changed in the past twenty years. In this advanced hands-on workshop Hannes Famira will guide the participants step by step through the different stages of up-to-date font development. The participants will grow familiar with the software application FontLab Studio v.5 by drawing and producing their own functioning digital type faces. The topics covered will be tracing the artwork and the techniques of perfecting curves, building diacritics as well as the secrets of spacing and kerning.

Fall registration starts August 25th, 2008. To sign up please contact the Continuing Education department. Materials to bring

• sketches or other source material
• black waterproof fine liner
• thick waterproof marker
• white out pen
• digital storage medium

I have had a chance to look over Ken Barber's shoulder for a while and have witnessed the final stage of the development of the Studio Lettering collection. I am baffled by the beauty of this font family. Yesterday it has at last been made available to the public. The Studio Lettering collection is quite possibly the most ambitious Latin script project to date. The OpenType programming that went into this project is fascinating to me and clearly takes advantage of everything present day software capabilities are offering, reaching the technical outer limits. To name an example, language dependent glyphs and ligatures automatically create unique shapes the way lettering artists would customize them for specific combinations depending on the language the text is set in. Along with the three fonts House Industries offers a wealth of peripheral promo items (Mosepads, tshirts, cast iron sculptures...) that are just too beautiful. Check it out.

Update 8:18am July 9' 08:
Ok, so here are those tasteful promo items.

External link:
<www.studiolettering.com>

Pardon the old image. See more angles of our new letterpress shop here, ...and no this is not Dan in this picture.

Letterpress Printing on the Vandercook Press
I am excited to announce that this summer Dan Morris is going to teach letterpress printing at the Cooper Union. In my experience a class stands or falls with it's teacher. Dan was instrumental in bringing the Cooper Union's print shop up to snuff. He is third generation letterpress printer and probably knows everything there is to know about his black art. In my mind he is the kindest, coolest guy I have met in a long time and I am sure his class will be so much fun! He runs The Arm, a contemporary gallery, performance space and public access letterpress studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and has produced letterpress projects with such artists as NYC punk band Japanther, Berlin conceptual artist Matthias Wermke, and Philadelphia hip hop act Spank Rock. For more information see www.thearmnyc.com.

Here is the course description:

External link:
<www.thearmnyc.com>

Brooklyn seems to be buzzing with stinky, ancient looking trucks that proudly show off their hand painted lettering of varying quality. I think it is actually the combination of the obvious ambition to convey professional gravitas and the amateurish naiveté that fascinates me. So I have decided I should be hunting for those trucks as my new photo-safari kind of sport. It all started with my first trophy.
Since I started teaching in the US I have been asked what type related places students can visit when travelling Europe. This is the start of a list of venues. Please use the commenting function to add to these suggestions.

• St. Bride Library
  
  
• Museum Plantin-Moretus
  Located in Antwerp (Belgium) this museum gives a perfect image of how people lived and worked as the compound contained living quarters, type foundry, print shop and book store. All in original the state. You just walk though that building as if the workers were just hiding somewhere.
  
  
• Nijhof & Lee
  This charming little bookstore – specialized in new and antiquarian books in the fields of art, architecture, design and photography – is a treasure chest in the heart of Amsterdam with an extremely comprehensive collection of type books.
  
  
• The Gutenberg Museum Mainz
  I haven't actually visited this museum myself but I hear awesome reports.
  
  
• Klingspormuseum Offenbach
  
  
• Basel Paper Mill, Museum for Paper, Writing and Printing
  Erasmus of Rotterdam and Voltaire moved to Basel to have their writing printed here. This is the old type and print shop. They still produce using the original techniques and materials. Make sure to schedule your visit to the museum/workshop when a presentation is taking place.
  

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Experimental Type Exhibit

Dec 19,’07

The fall semester is over and this year we have the opportunity to show the work in the Lubalin Center at the Cooper Union. Twelve students have made a super effort and put together a very impressive show. The exhibition shows the three projects we worked on in the past semester. It is not the usual selection of the "best" work but we show everything that was produced and hope to allow the visitor an honest and objective look into the class to see the techniques and understand the process. The exhibition will be open until January 5 and will stay closed December 21 to January 2. The address is 7 East 7th St, Room 236.

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Oil from the North Pole

Dec 09,’07

There are still tons of commercial trucks around here with hand drawn type on it. While I am very impressed with the bevel on this one I particularly love the figure three and let's not overlook the pinstriping.

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A Sign Painter at Work

Sep 29,’07

Summer is almost over and at last I got myself a new USB cable for the digital camera. Look what I discovered when I finally hooked it up to my Mac again. Back in May John Downer had come to Brooklyn all the way from Iowa to work on this beautiful sign. Two guys in NYC were responsible for John getting the invitation, thanks to Paul Shaw and Matteo Bologna. These days Lewis Drug Store really is an Italian restaurant called Locanda but the owners (husband and wife) wisely decided to keep the historic sign along with most of the interior decoration of this former Brooklyn drug store. We were invited to enjoy the tasting menu and it blew our collective minds. John graciously helped out with these captions.

The assignment was to restore, and to slightly improve, the fascia lettering originally painted in the 1940s. The substrate first had to be replaced. New opaque black glass was installed for the purpose. Note that the name Lewis needed to be smaller than the original, and higher in relation to the other words, in order to be visible above the rollscreen casing. John also italicized the 'i' in Lewis to make it conform. The few surviving letters in DRUG STORE were traced before the old fascia was removed to make way for the new. Saved were the D, R, S, T, O. The U, G and E had to be recreated from photographic evidence and existing letter parts.

The fascia lettering originally painted in the 1940s

John's Sidewalk Laboratory. The fascia was black glass, recently installed. The glass still had residual adhesive on it from the protective paper covering that was put on it at the factory. Before lettering the fascia, John had to give the glass several cleanings.

- Once with mineral spirits
- Once with Bon Ami and water
- Once with ammonia & baking soda
- Once with vinegar & baking soda
- Once with pure water alone

Rinsing the lettering brush in mineral spirits cleans the bristles before use. The brush is called an angle fitch. An aluminum can is cut down and a lip is fashioned to keep the sharp edge of the can from scraping the brush.

A nice shot of the angle fitch. The pointed end allows relatively crisp corners of letters to be formed. (Surely good enough for work that's high up, away from close scrutiny.)

Left: The name Lewis has been pounced onto the fascia.
Right: The pounce pattern in position for the word DRUG.

A close-up of the white dotted outlines for the name Lewis.

The pounce bag is made from an old sweat sock. Inside it is talc (in this case, baby powder). Any kind of nontoxic white dust will suffice.

Transferring the word DRUG to the black glass surface by beating the perforations in the pattern with a pounce bag. The powder from the bag passes through the tiny holes in the paper pattern. This transfer method has been in commercial use since the Italian Renaissance.

Lettering White, straight from the can.

John begins with the top of the L in Lewis, using a brush that's exactly the right size for the job.

Lewis looks clean!

Scotch tape aids in masking straight edges quickly & easily.

Removing a piece of Scotch tape from the intersection of the crossbar and the stem of the T while the paint is still wet.

The two parts of the letter blend together better when they're done in quick succession. Doing so helps hide the seam and keeps the buildup of overlapping paint to a bare minimum.

The finished job. Located at 129 Gates Avenue, Brooklyn.

• To learn more about John Downer check out the links on his typophile page.
• The restaurant with the new sign is called Locanda.

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FLS for Fog Users

Sep 24,’07

This letter was written to the FLS user group in reaction to another user's evaluation of FLS, the manual and Leslie Cabarga's book Learn FontLab Fast. The views expressed in this letter are my personal opinions. I am not rying to step on anyone's toes but then again I can't tell a lie, now can I?

Hi there,
my experience is very different from [other user's name]. Granted, coming from Fontographer it is a steep learning curve but definitely worth it. Like anything you are trying to learn: You will need to put your back into it but you can easily master it in a few weeks. Try to do this with a project that has no deadline though so you don't end up stressing yourself out unnecessarily.

The FontLab Studio manual is definitely worth buying. I thought I was super clever, downloaded the PDF had it printed and bound and ended up paying a *lot* more than these very reasonably priced manuals. I haven't read it cover to cover and there are definitely sections I still don't know (and don't care about) but if you don't have the manual I don't see how you can actually understand how FontLab Studio works. During the first half year I used FLS I had to consult with the manual at least two to three times a month. The application is complex and has a lot of features that either need explaining or that are hard to locate. The better you get to know FLS the more nifty features you will encounter. RTFM, definitely true for this one.

I have seen Leslie Cabarga's book in it's last iteration and I understand there is a new edition on it's way that I haven't seen yet so my comments are not pertaining to the new edition. The current edition however is large and thin, less scary than the manual and has lots of pictures, true. It also does show the most important processes however I find it impossible to read as it's atrocious graphic design is clearly geared towards superficial hacks. However FontLab Studio is not and therein lies the disconnect. FLS is professional software for professional designers. If you find Photoshop too confusing you will end up not liking FLS. So if you absolutely need to I'd say buy Leslie Cabarga's book read through it, try everything explained in it and then put it on the shelf and you will never open it again.

It definitely helps to get an introduction from someone who works with FLS. If you have a friend who will allow you to look over his/her shoulder for an hour or two you will get a solid head start. If you are in the NY area I will be teaching an introduction class at the Cooper Union. Get in touch with me off list if you are interested. Hope you guys don't mind the plug.

Best,
HAnnes Famira

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Univers 50th tShirts

Sep 20,’07

Adrian Frutiger's typeface Univers became commercially avaiable in 1957, which makes it 50 years old this year. WIth all the Helvetica celebrations going on this birthday has gone largely unnoticed. A fact our friends over at the FontZone rightly lament and seek to correct by issuing a line of gorgeous T-shirts. The cross-hatched design is inspired by Adrian Frutiger’s typeface comparisons in Type, Sign, Symbol. ...and all of the above goodness is also available in long sleeve.

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Letter Press Introduction

Sep 17,’07

Last Sunday Dan Morris of Brooklyn's The Arm Letterpress gave an introduction at the new and remodeled letterpress shop of the Cooper Union. If you knew the place before the wall was removed you will be able to appreciate the beautiful sun flooded new space. Big ole tip to the hat to all of you who spent the summer getting the workshop tidy and operational! The introduction was super interesting. It's just always fun to observe people at work who have a genuine love for their field.



Update [10:41, Sept. 26 '07]
Check out these letterpress resources for the printshop (Addresses for polymer plates, metal dies, for foil stamping and machine composition)

Look at these instruction cards that were issued by the Department of Education and the American Type Founders back in the day.

Another update [11:19, Oct. 01 '07]
A movie about letterpress printing: http://elsa.photo.net/video/firefly.mov

External link:
<www.typedu.org/dynamic/blog/letter_press_introduction>

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