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1 April, 2009
Breaking News!
Typeface: Verlag Condensed Black
We're resisting the temptation to go against last year's declaration that April Fools' Day website goofs are inherently unfunny, so it pleases me to instead have an genuine update regarding someone else's typographic silliness.
Eighteen months ago, we reported on a mysterious typographic gift that materialized outside the H&FJ offices. Today, I am delighted to report that the culprit (artist) has come forward! Rob Keller — who may well be a typeface designer graduated from the University of Reading, but will always be known to me as The Grecian Bandit — apparently included us on his rounds when distributing ceramic letter sculptures throughout the city, as part of a project called Left Out Letters. Check out the collection of photos on his blog: in addition to Plaintiff's Exhibit A documenting his Acropolis Italic "h" and "fj," there's a fantastic tableau showing a French Clarendon lowercase "m" being worshipped by a field of dairy cows. Which is exactly how type designers like to imagine our planet looks like from outer space, at least metaphorically. —JH
| Share | • | Tags: | Grecians, Artifacts, Unexplained, The Proteus Project, 3D |
18 December, 2008
Typographic Gifts for Designers, Part 15
If you’re an editorial designer, chances are that you’re familiar with the Society for News Design through its workshops, its excellent international conferences, and of course its annual. What you might not know is that SND operates the non-profit SND Foundation, which provides college scholarships, research grants, and travel stipends to help students attend its events. Did I mention the college scholarships for designers?
For last year’s conference in Las Vegas, SND Foundation President Bill Gaspard orchestrated a terrific keepsake: a deck of Custom Illustrated Playing Cards, for which 54 illustrators volunteered their time and talent, contributing one card each. Guessing correctly that H&FJ has a thing for the typography of playing cards, I was invited to design the packaging, affording me a chance to use not only some typographic ornaments that Tobias and I have been quietly collecting over the years, but two of our best wedge-seriffed typefaces, Saracen and Mercury. And naturally Gaspard and fellow designer Tyson Evans used our Deuce font on the cards themselves.
For those who weren’t able to make it to Vegas, SND is now offering sets of these commemorative cards for sale, for a tax-deductible contribution of $20.00. All proceeds go to support the work of the SND Foundation; did I mention the college scholarships for designers? —JH
Custom Illustrated Playing Cards benefitting the SND Foundation, $20.00.
10 December, 2008
Typographic Gifts for Designers, Part 11
Typeface: Ziggurat Black
Picking up where we left off last year, we thought we’d round out 2008 with some holiday ideas for the recovering typophiliac in your life.
I’m intrigued by Jen Bekman’s 20x200, which every week produces small runs of small works on paper, at prices to match. Among their collection of prints and photographs is this limited edition print by Superdeluxe, the studio of designers Adrienne Wong and Karin Spraggs. The appropriately named Ziggurat 5 is a happy riot of color and type, featuring of course the figure five from our own Ziggurat Black typeface. (What is it about artists and fives?) The print is produced in three different editions: a small 8½" x 11" (22cm x 28cm) in archival pigments, a larger 17" x 20" (43cm x 51cm) that includes a letterpress impression, and the largest 30" x 40" (76cm x 102cm) which combines printing and silkscreening. Collect all three. Fives. —JH
Ziggurat 5 print by Superdeluxe, from $20.00.
| Share | • | Tags: | Gifts, Posters, Numbers, The Proteus Project, Made with H&FJ |
25 October, 2007
Ode on a Grecian Kern
Greek Week Continues!
Like all good New Yorkers, we know how to respond to unattended packages: with deep dread and unbridled panic. Yet despite our daily diet of Orwellian public service announcements, a devil-may-care attitude moved someone at H&FJ to immediately open the unmarked brown paper parcel that was left outside our door (candy!), inside which were these: a pair of fired clay sculptures in the shape of — what else? — the h and fj from our very own Grecian italic typeface, and this week's cause célèbre, Acropolis Italic. Bookends? Graven images? Anyone care to fess up? Whoever you are, you've earned your stripes for ginning up an 'fj' ligature where there was none; that takes both thoughtfulness and pluck. So thank you for the gift, secret admirer! Do get in touch so we can send you a proper thank-you note, or a restraining order. — JH
| Share | • | Tags: | Grecians, Artifacts, Unexplained, 3D, The Proteus Project |
