Never too early

Budding designer in the basket, maybe you could grab one of these from Grayson Byrd. Inspired by his brothers' typeface, Schoolblock.

Letterhead Fonts

Do you like rare, vintage type? Do you like your rare vintage type in quality executions? I hope you do, or you may be in the wrong place. Or, maybe you can head over to Letterhead Fonts and change your mind.

Tight!

Posted because I LOVE type. Get yours here.

Some Type of Wonderful

Ok, I have always been fond of Type. Ever since I pulled my pencils and sketch books into Graphic Design school and was told that for the first year or so we would not event turn on a computer. The classes that followed were some of the best times I can remember, at least in school. Copy machines, rubber cement, hand drawing letters to properly kern them. Each class focused on type. The basics of design.

Which is why I may be a little too excited about Life Lounge's Some Type of Wonderful.

We’ve invited 12 of our favourite artists and designers from around the globe to join us in a typographic project we’ve called Some Type Of Wonderful where each artist has been asked to respond typographically to a design brief related to a designated month of the year. Each of the unique designs will be offered through lifelounge.com as signed, limited edition A1 Giclee prints. They will also be available all together as a limited edition, beautifully designed 2009 wall calendar to enjoy for the following year.

Some Type Of Wonderful will also be holding an exhibition of the works at Melbourne's McCulloch Gallery with a launch party in late October. Stay tuned for more info.

Design in the basic form. They have a pretty wide range of artists involved. I'll just have to start planning my trip to Melbourne now. Or maybe just do something like that here.

The Modern Day Type Master.

Andy Cruz of House Industries is the modern day type master. You would expect that. What you don't expect is just how forward thinking he and his company really is.

His presentation to ADCD on Thursday started as a quick tour into what House Industries is into and has been doing lately, but then he began his real presentation, his real passions, his heroes, his influences. Big Daddy Roth, Coop, Alexander Girard, he keeps going. He talks about his entry into fashion, design, architecture, furniture, shoes, he keeps going. He talks about all the research they put into any effort they put out, and he shows a real understanding of what they do.

It's not the general type-nut stuff, its a understanding of hand drawn fonts, dancing baselines and how different letters can begin to interact with each other. How the inspiration he pulls from influences not just letter forms, but words. How hand drawn fonts should work, how the computer takes away all the playfulness. Ok, maybe it is a bit type-nut stuff, but then he really begins to show Houses visionary side.

He pulls out the big guns. House may just change the way you work with fonts, type, applications. If you thought that open type is changing how we work, what he showed us makes that look under-developed. He has been talking about interactions between letters and how the skill has been lost because nobody hand draws the type anymore.

House is working on a separate program, that you will need to export from. A program that actively looks at what letters are sitting next to what letters and adjust them so that the become friendlier, warmer, richer. It adjusts the baselines so they dance (his words), it also adjusts the ligatures so the overlap (and underlap). If you are not excited yet, lets just say that it will be the best way to get that custom look, the only better way would be to hire House directly.

If that wasn't the coolest thing, the next bit of type candy was. He then unveiled a program that lets you move a slider on a graph and watch the font "slide" from light to heavy, thin to thick. All of the benefits of "stretching" the font, none of the guilt. The really cool thing was the thing looked great no matter the width or weight.

All of this is coming soon.

That's the essence of House. Its a small shop, filled with the right people. Always digging looking, inspiring. Not too interested in being too big, or too much. Just looking for the next thing they can become obsessed with. The next thing we can all be obsessed with.

Keep an eye on the small shop out of Delaware. They have a few more cool things up their sleeves. A few more things they are passionate about they would like to share. If there we only more shops just like them.

We'd just like to say, thanks Andy.

Typographic Fruit

Oh sure, Right now this is a wonderful blending of type and fruit. Really wonderful, until the major fruit marketers get a hold of it and all our fruit carries advertisements for Nike, oh wait, that would be cool, once or twice. This is the work of artist Sarah King over at her site.

House Industries Love

Just opened my mail, and recieved a large box from Andy and House Industries. It was just like Christmas, T's, Books, the above block set and more. And as much as it pains me to part ways with it (I'll just have to my own) we will be giving this stuff away on Thursday. If that is not enough to get you to come on down, read this article over at This Week in Denver for more motivation. Its the appetizer before what surely will be the buffet.

If that is STILL not enough, word is from Birdwood Press, that we will have not only the posters to be signed, but we may even have a few prints in copper and wood!

Still need to RSVP??

See you there.

Andy Cruz and Birdwood Press

We just picked up the posters for the House Industries event, and they are beautiful. Designed by Andy Cruz and printed by our very own, award winning, Birdwood Press. These posters will be available at the event (while you're at it, RSVP) and as a bonus, Andy will be available to sign them. Really, you can't miss this.

Posters, only Posters

The shame of this, is there are only three of theses posters, and not an entire font or alphabet. The work comes from Bjorn Johansson’s Anatomy of a Typeface, a Triptych made for a gallery exhibition in 2005.

Come on, only 23 more letters to go, and it has been two years.

VIA NotCot