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16 December, 2009
Typographic Gifts for Designers, Part 16
"Modern Gaspipe" is the charming taxonomic name for this kind of letterform. We’ve explored the style in our Tungsten type family — itself a fine holiday gift at $99, ahem. But for those with a hankering for decor, the always fruitful Three Potato Four has this unlittle item for sale, a huge handpainted wooden figure three (34" / 86cm), perfect for your living room, studio, or threearium. Thanks to our designer Brian Hennings for finding this one: frankly I'm amazed that he hasn't had his fill of these kinds of letters. —JH
Huge Industrial Wooden No. 3 from Three Potato Four
30 July, 2009
Ask H&FJ: Fonts for Financials
Typefaces: Sentinel and Gotham
Annual reports offer designers a marvelous opportunity to strut their stuff. In the hands of a thoughtful typographer, a dense volume of technical text can become warm and welcoming, its changing rhythm of introductions, statements, analyses, and disclosures calling for a beautiful typographic system to help organize the text. Financial data can be uniquely satisfying to design, offering an irresistible opportunity to work with large type families in intricate ways. There are tables both long and short, as well as charts, graphs, and diagrams, all studded with headings, footnotes, and legends that defy even the most ingenious grid.
Each of these details places a special burden on the fonts, making it especially important to choose the right palette up front. We’ve collected some thoughts about choosing fonts for annual reports on Ask H&FJ, where you’ll find four things to think about when considering a typeface — and five families of fonts designed to meet these specific challenges.
Ask H&FJ: Choosing Fonts for Annual Reports
9 April, 2009
The H&FJ Institute for Unapplied Mathematics
Typefaces: Gotham Narrow Book, Archer Book, Indicia, Dividend, Gotham Extra Narrow Medium, Bayside
We've received our share of intriguing questions over the years, but this one takes the cake. On Monday, a correspondent called from National Public Radio to discuss the implications of typesetting a number with twelve million digits.
The number in question is 243112609-1...
Continues...15 December, 2008
Typographic Gifts for Designers, Part 14
Hot on the heels of my open question about artists and fives, I came across this marvelous photograph by Berenice Abbott featuring a pair of gorgeous fives in starring roles. Abbott is best remembered for Changing New York, her seminal collection of photographs that documents New York of the 1930s; it’s both an inspiration and a great resource for designers, especially typeface designers whose work is influenced by the public sphere.
For eighty years, the A. Zito Bakery stood at 259 Bleecker Street, a short walk from the H&FJ offices. In a street now dominated by bar room neon and vacuform plastic, Zito’s window looked in 2004 much the way it did when Abbott photographed it in 1937. Bread Store is among a collection of Berenice Abbott Photographs now available from AllPosters.com as high-resolution Giclée prints, lovely not only for the glimpses they offer into a grander New York, but for some marvelous lettering as well. These barber shop windows (1, 2) must be tremendous up close, and the humble decals in Zito’s window above have long been a favorite of ours: our Delancey font is based on them. —JH
Berenice Abbott Photographs from AllPosters.com, from $39.99.
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