Paul´s Crit Session, originally uploaded by ysch.
We were blessed with a surprise visit today from Jonathan Hoefler of Hoefler & Frere-Jones type foundry. Pictured here (from left to right) are Fiona Ross, Jonathan, and myself. It’s always an inspiring experience to have such talented folk look at your work, and give feedback and encouragement. Thanks, Yvonne, for publishing these pictures!
Okay, so if you’re reading this, you already know that I am a hardcore typegeek. Typically that entails spending countless hours in front of my computer screen tweaking bézier outlines of glyphs (read ‘letters’ all you non-hardcore types) with highly-specialized software, followed by more hours inputing and checking vital font information that users will likely never see. Does this sound like a lot of work? Well it is!
But no more. Now you at home can get hooked on creating fonts with no special expertise or software required other that what you’re using to read this blog. FontShop International (who recently promoted some of my typefaces for P22 in their last newsletter) has unofficially released FontStruct, ‘a free font-building tool,’ which ‘lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes.’ For being live just over a week old, there are already several interesting and well-designed offerings available for download. Having tried my hand at using the site myself, I must admit building fonts with this tool is simple and fun. I’d be interested in what some of you non-typegeek people think. Give it a whirl: go to the site, make a font, come back here, and post your thoughts with links to your work. (Be careful, though, it’s addicting!) While you’re there, be sure to check out my creations and give ’em good ratings!
Sassy, originally uploaded by pauldhunt.
After three trips to Las Vegas in the last six months, I finally got to make it to the Neon Museum’s Boneyard. I had tried to go twice previously but the key to getting in is to book a tour as far in advance as possible. The tour was an amazing experience. The organization behind it has the goal of preserving as much of the old Vegas signage as possible and making it accessible to the public. I believe these are very worthy goals, so I was glad to make the requested donation to go on the tour.
FontShop International has recently announced the release of a typeface compliation: FontStars™ 2007. This collection of “the year’s best fonts” includes three that I designed for P22: P22 Underground Regular, P22 Zaner One, and P22 Zaner One Extras. This is a quite diverse collection and includes many of my personal favorite typefaces released this year, including several that I have licensed myself (Cinescope, MVB Sacre Bleu, MVB Solano) and some that I wish I could license (Greta, Blaktur). It’s really nice to get this kind of recognition. It’s even nicer to see typeface I’ve designed in use! Speaking of Zaner, I’ve recently seen it on the shop front of Paradiso Bouidor in SoHo and on the cover of Carrie Underwood’s latest album, Carnival Ride.
Back in MyFonts news again. I’m always giddy to get a mention of something that I worked on. This time it was for LTC Italian Old Style, mentioned in this month’s Rising Stars newsletter. I’m glad that the newsletter features a new text face each month as most of the rest of the featured faces are decorative display faces. Not that there’s anything wrong with display faces, but I think that a nice serif face with a bit of character can be quite a nice change from all the fancy and frilly stuff once in a while. In fact, this is why I digitized a light (display) weight of Italian Old Style in addition to the regular (text) weight.
