sans comic sans » Typography

Boast post

Matt — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:14:50 +0000

I Love Typography featured some of Maggie’s letterpress work in the “Sunday Type” post for April 21. We’re always excited when her work is recognized, but to be noticed by one of our favorite blogs is truly very flattering.

You can check out more of Maggie’s letterpress work on her blog and at her Etsy store.

Change

Matt — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:40:04 +0000

I’ve mentioned political typography here before, and the Times blog piece linked below is just an extension of that discussion. What I want to draw your attention to is what I think might be the first ever appearance of Comic Sans in the gray lady:

Change you better believe in.

Thanks for the link, Maggie!

To the Letter Born – Campaign Stops – 2008 Elections – Opinion – New York Times Blog

McCain Pour Homme

Matt — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:54:56 +0000

This is a really clever way to evaluate whether a typeface suits the task: apply the text and type to a completely different context and see if it feels comfortable.

Ask H&FJ | Hoefler & Frere-Jones

Typefaces, race, and culture

Matt — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:22:32 +0000

I’ve had this sitting in a tab in Firefox all week, with the intention to write something about it. Obviously that didn’t happen, but you should still check out "New Black Face" an in-depth study of two typefaces and how they became associated with African and African-American culture.

But away from the white-controlled industries of book publishing, movie making, car dealing, adventure seeking, font designing, and designer clothing, in small African-American-controlled sectors of business and culture, no sign of Neuland or Lithos appears. The first issue of Ebony magazine takes more from the classic 1950s typography of Life magazine than from African-American books published at the same time, and other African-American magazine published before Ebony like Common Ground and Lamplighter do the same. Jazz album covers from labels like Blue Note and Verve are steeped in the playful modernism of designer Saul Bass and employ modern typefaces revamped, like Futura, Trade Gothic, and Clarendon, in ways that melt their Modernist frigidity and heat them with the hot beat of Jazz. From Motown in the 1970s to the Fugees today, African-American musicians do not simply ignore Lithos and Neuland on their album covers-they have excised them completely from their visual vocabulary.

To head off any possible confusion, there is no information about Times New Viking in this article.