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One of the earliest heavy italic “antiques” (slab serif).
Tholenaar Collection at Letterform Archive.
Flourishing experiments. Mediaeval, Renaissance and contemporary styles in here. This is about as nerdy as it gets. I love the idea of a whole calligraphy practise sketchbook with no actual letterforms in it.
The 1933 drawing for Eric Gill's infamous lowercase 'g' in Gill Sans is my favorite letter. When I was learning how to draw letterforms, I would use grids when developing my typefaces. Being a young designer, I often would run into issues and doubted if my method was sound. When I first saw this drawing, everything seemed to fall into place and I had proof that someone else used grids to draw letters. I still use grids when I draw letterforms and I teach others the same way. The actual "g" in Gill Sans does not look like this and I wonder when it was changed and why.
Gill is quoted saying, "A pair of spectacles is rather like a g; I will make a g rather like a pair of spectacles." I never quite made this correlation but there is something amazing about the oval resting under the circle. The geometric balance is perfect and the center of the oval is the same center-point as the circle. It almost feels like a bird going into a nest. I have paid homage to this letter when creating my g for Pakt and it is important for me to have a unique g in every typeface I draw because of this letter.
Poem Script is a mixed collection of interpretations conjuring a late nineteenth century American pen script style. Though not an actual Italian letterform, this style was called "Italian Alphabet" stemming from an old penman's term for an alphabet where the stress or shades are opposite their normal placement. The American variant followed from the late eighteenth century British hand also confusingly called "Italian Hand," which itself evolved from some seventeenth century French batarde scripts.
It showcases the phenomenal control and mastery of hand skills required to create such ornamental and lively letters centuries ago. Producing the shaded strokes in reversed positions such as this required holding the pen in a position horizontal to the baseline, or the letterforms would have to be written backwards or by rotating the paper at peculiar and extreme angles to achieve the effect.
Exotic, elaborate and very attractive, Poem Script contains plenty of variations on each letter and comes with hundreds of calligraphic ornaments.
Poem Script received a Certificate of Excellence at the Type Directors Club NY.
We celebrate this release with 2 wonderful specimens.
A Video Specimen directed by Santiago Idelson and a Photo-novel Specimen (8,82mb PDF) photographed by Sergio Recabarren
We hope you enjoy this release as much as we did!
Art Deco typestyle range from uncomplicated, lowwaisted monostroke design, such as Premier, Anna or Avenida, to more intricate, decorative typestyles, such as Broadway, Philco or Mostra, but all of them have the attitude of swank sophistication we associate with that period. --------- (0208_LON_3638 - Image copyrighted).
letterforms in Bora Iljovski's art were the focus in this book i made for my aftergraduate studies.
a few words on this are here
Wallpaper 1920x1200 | My second homage to Wassily Kandinsky.
Typefaces in use:
The eccentric and bizarre typeface »Scam« designed by Mike Jarboe (Reverses).
Scam is a discordantly eccentric geometric display face with exaggerated, alternating forms. Letters variate in extremes between bold and blacked-out and strictly linear, creating unpredictably unique letter pairings.
Stylistically, Scam pushes the boundaries of type-as-image while retaining an acute legibility and refinement, greatly contrasting its aberrant nature.
The geometric, monoline stencil face »Vacant« also designed by Mike Jarboe (Reserves).
Vacant is is a precisely drawn, contemporary stencil face built with attention towards retaining pure underlying geometric forms and visual balance between letterforms.
Stylistically, Vacant exudes a strong sense of clarity and sophistication which contrasts the unrefined nature of stencil typefaces.
Novel Effects with Novel Gothic brochure, undated.
Tholenaar Collection at the Letterform Archive. Better photos of this booklet in the Online Archive.
As far as I know, this is one of only two ATF specimens of Novel Gothic. For some reason it does not appear in the 1934 ATF catalog, which was their last major specimen book. The typeface was initiated by Charles H. Becker and finished by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1928.
There are many digital typefaces in this 1920s showcard style (such as Kobalt), and many poor digitizations of Novel Gothic, but no faithful revival currently exists. Telenovela NF is a digital interpretation with an additional highlight effect, while Napoli and Naked Power are attempts to tame Novel Gothic’s comical personality into large, straightforward sans families.
Collection of Letterform Archive.
This is the earliest Headliners catalog I’ve seen. (See also Headliners neo-phototype(s), 1978–79 & 1987.)
The Headliners, Inc. was a phototype supplier founded in New York City in 1954 (a trademark was filed in 1961). Along with typefaces from other foundries, Headliners produced some of their own designs, as well as film reproductions of wood and metal type and extensions of other existing fonts. Later typefaces in their catalogs were prefixed with the “neo-” trademark and these were often classic designs with a raised x-height à la ITC.
In the early 1990s, the Headliners library was acquired by Treacyfaces who has released digital versions of several fonts in the collection. [Mark Simonson]
Poem Script is a mixed collection of interpretations conjuring a late nineteenth century American pen script style. Though not an actual Italian letterform, this style was called "Italian Alphabet" stemming from an old penman's term for an alphabet where the stress or shades are opposite their normal placement. The American variant followed from the late eighteenth century British hand also confusingly called "Italian Hand," which itself evolved from some seventeenth century French batarde scripts.
It showcases the phenomenal control and mastery of hand skills required to create such ornamental and lively letters centuries ago. Producing the shaded strokes in reversed positions such as this required holding the pen in a position horizontal to the baseline, or the letterforms would have to be written backwards or by rotating the paper at peculiar and extreme angles to achieve the effect.
Exotic, elaborate and very attractive, Poem Script contains plenty of variations on each letter and comes with hundreds of calligraphic ornaments.
Poem Script received a Certificate of Excellence at the Type Directors Club NY.
We celebrate this release with 2 wonderful specimens.
A Video Specimen directed by Santiago Idelson and a Photo-novel Specimen (8,82mb PDF) photographed by Sergio Recabarren
We hope you enjoy this release as much as we did!
Plakatschriften, 1926
Tholenaar Collection at the Letterform Archive
A variation of Thalia with a few swash lowercase (c, e, s)?
The title page from the 1964 "Alphabet", an international annual of letterforms, a magnificent production put together by the highly regarded ICI 'house' printers, the Birmingham based Kynoch Press. It was edited by R S Hutchings and published for them by James Moran and was the only volume of an intended series issued. The right page folds out to reveal the full alphabet. The main titling is Bodoni I think.