007 $�

font
 Font 007
04 Neue
Fonts 09 Foundry
Spotlight 13 Making
the Rules

It’s good to introduce

non-human forces,
be they mechanical
or natural, in order
to invigorate or ∂e mainstream
question existing
accessibility of
creative processes.
the computer has
Rob Meek page 28
publicly lowered the
accepted general
standards and value

I need restrictions to of good design, while

professionally it

be creative; it’s when

has considerably
magnified the
designer’s abilities.
I have restrictions that When you have
tensions like these

I can perform my ‘art’. at play in any field,

the result is usually
mixed, but a li‡le
jean françois porchez page 9
more good than bad.
alejandro paul page 10

Ideas can be works of

art; they are in a chain
of development that may
eventually find some
form. All ideas need
not be made physical.
sol lewitt page 14

2 Font 007
 Font Shop

Rule Makers / Rule Breakers

20 Breaking
the Rules 29 New
FontFonts 34 FontStruct:
Built with Bricks

New

A
fter a long day of scanning web Where Thoreau wasn’t impressed with
pages and deleting junk email, I change, writing that, “There is an incessant
might sit back and soak in the latest flow of novelty into the world and yet we

�
entertainment news from Hollywood or tolerate incredible dullness,” curator and
reflect on national opinion with the chatter art critic Glen Helfand finds inspiration.
of pundits and their eternal polls that never Recognizing ours as an age of convergence,
seem to get the story right. I like to think that Helfand focuses this issue of Font on the work
it’s my obligation to the media industrial of a wide cross section of artists and designers
complex to absorb as much information as who are “making the rules” by channeling
possible or risk, like excess carbon dioxide that incessant flow through filters and toward
in the atmosphere, a dangerous buildup the creation of generative art. He convinces
of ones and zeros. us that processing information is not only
Things sure have changed in the last a reflection of our time but a celebratory
decade. When I think about the trajectory of act that can result in beautiful thought-
our contemporary society, with all the tools provoking images and objects. We also
and applications we use to publish, move, focus on six additional projects that feature
and manage information, I’m immediately graphic designers and typographers who
reminded of Henry David Thoreau. I can are “breaking the rules” by using generative
picture him sitting outside his small cabin, concepts to map ideas, from individual letters
quietly meditating on the breakneck speed to complex narratives. Finally, we toot our
of social and economic progress as the last own horn for FontStruct, a new online portal
rays of the day sparkle across Walden Pond. for building and sharing fonts that’s been
Like us, Thoreau was experiencing a profound getting plenty of blog buzz.
shift. His, defined by rapid industrial If it’s true that everything has its proper
expansion and a final push across the frontier; place, then we can rest assured that Thoreau
ours, by the release of the latest smart found his at Walden and those extra ones
phone or praise for the next big viral video. and zeros (and all that they represent) have
But unlike Thoreau, who saw a need to found a comfortable home in Font magazine.
retreat from the rules and systems that were To get started, here are a few simple rules:
quickly reshaping his world, we’ve embraced read, share, and recycle.
ours as solutions to organize physical and
electronic space or to fulfill a personal Amos Klausner
identity within the gathering storm of the Editor
data we face every day.

fonts used  brisa™  parisine plus™  ff pitu™  ff scribble™  ff trixie ®  fonts used throughout  ff meta ®  ff meta serif fontshop.com 3
fstop 472.001

4 Font 007
 u e
fstop 596.006

N e
Fo nt s
← ↑
Ed Benguiat’s revival of the Business needn’t be banal.
classic Bookman is now available Fresh type can make the
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alternates and swashes which lowercase, it is unhampered
are now more accessible thanks by the legibility issues of its
to the new format. Check out ITC predecessors. OurType’s Parry
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for a preview of the OT extras. acknowledging but softening its
Victorian roots. Think of it as a
contemporary Clarendon, with
the welcome addition of italics,
small caps, text figures, and a
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 Time
Zon
fstop illustrated concepts collection

A favourite book of Mr. farles Washington Mevik 12

El ingenioso hidalgo
Don qixote de la Mancha
aka Donkey Joté
But only in selected regions of Östeveie
↑
Rugged and angular, Rubén
Fontana’s award-winning
Andralis™ ND is unlike any
traditional text serif, yet it reads
beautifully. The complete text
family is complemented by a
bevy of unconventional ligatures.

6 Font 007
 starring

Starlet
O’Harlot
ne
↑

Time
Based on Edward Johnston’s

Zone
1916 type design for the London
Underground, P22 Underground
Pro is both a historical homage
Play
and an expansive font system
for modern-day use. A large
→ Director’s Commentary Off On
set of alternate forms lets the
user replicate the flavor of the
Scene Selection
original subway signage or create Bonus Features
something truly twenty-first
century. This sans powerhouse Language Options
includes six weights with broad
language support for Latin, Theatrical Trailer
Greek, and Cyrillic.
 Ne ue
←
Jumping straight from the titles
of a classic film, the OpenType-
Fon t s
empowered Kinescope is
meticulously crafted with
automated alternates to keep it
flowing smoothly. Meanwhile,
fp Dancer infuses a modern
text typeface with the fluidity With small slabs and blunted
of hand lettering. Along with its rounds, Soho is grounded
serifed companion, the family in a contemporary look that
has everything needed to set reflects modern technological
professional type: small caps, sensibilities. The 40-member
fractions, case-sensitive forms, family of nine weights and
and a full set of figures. five widths weighs in at over
32,668 glyphs, versatile enough
for almost any task – from a
corporate identity to a complete
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↓

fstop 010.025

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8 Font 007
 Foundry Spotlight Porchez Typofonderie

******************
Pain at the pump
Le pain et la pompe
Le pain & la pomme
Les pommes frites
angie sans tm Mmm... ∫nis∑ed
******************
yme
Chateaux G∆te∆ux

( Sortie
Jean François Porchez is a national
typographic icon in his native
France, where his typefaces grace Liquoric∑
everything from the signage of the
Paris Métro to the internationally Ωuiπ de Sa≠ola
renowned French daily newspaper
Le Monde. FontShop is honored Ga∂ric Upset
to be the exclusive reseller of
Porchez Typofonderie, a collection
parisine tm a fontshop exclusive parisine plus tm a fontshop exclusive
that represents the finest in
contemporary type design. There is
AGJMQUW something here for every purpose, AGJMQUW
be it a chic rebranding or an
defglwxyz authoritative publication design. defglwxyz

Wishing on a

sarSky ambroise tm a fontshop exclusive

D’Artagnan
Porchez’s Angie Sans is an incised
roman with a humanistic touch.
It works well with its companion
le monde tm in the FontFont library, FF Angie®.

et Dumbarse
a fontshop exclusive

Created for mass transit signage in

Paris, Parisine is a Frutiger for the
new century. Parisine Plus is its
more playful sister.

The Scarlet Pimpernel’s There are hundreds of Bodoni

revivals, but none is quite like

soufflé Ambroise. Available in three

widths, Ambroise includes Firmin
Didot’s original forms of ‘g’, ‘k’, and
‘y’, along with a corps of alternates.

addicion For Le Monde, Porchez created a

face that shares the ‘color’ of the
proved to be his old standby Times New Roman, but
is much more open and readable.

dénouement The comprehensive Le Monde

system consists of Journal for text
sizes, Livre for headlines, and Sans
apolline tm and Courrier for the trimmings.
Foundry Spotlight Sudtipos

Roasted Gallic Flavour amorinda tm

Teriyaki Ribs cuisine tm

Spanish for type of the South, the

Sweet Potato
works with fellow Argentine artists
brisa tm

contextual alternates that allow the

Sudtipos name proudly displays like Diego Giaccone and Angel type to do justice to its freehand
its Argentinian heritage. The Koziupa, whose lettering skills help pen and brush origins. See more at
foundry, based in Buenos Aires, create script fonts that dance on FontShop.com, where the advanced
is setting the standard for a region the page, defying the limitations character set viewer offers a
that has become a hotbed for new of conventional digital type. The complete overview of all these
type design. Founder Alejandro latest Sudtipos releases feature extra characters and the OpenType
Paul draws his own type and bountiful ligatures, swashes, and features that invoke them.

Mı Pueblo Taqueria
sudestada tm

Tierra del Fuego

plumero tm

Ossie & Ricky

milk script tm

Chorizo la portenia tm

Tis Pity She’s a . . .

Is she really going out wıth him?
herencia tm

argenta tm

10 Font 007
 TypeTogether

Cracking Quackerz bree tm

Belarus, Belarus, will you do the fandango?

cora tm

Kafka Zátopek Dvořák

Navrátilová
ronnia tm
Trained at the University of Reading,
classmates Veronika Burian and
José Scaglione put their world-class
education to real-world use in the
creation of TypeTogether.

Their global perspective (hailing

from the Czech Republic and
Argentina, respectively) has yielded
highly original typefaces, from
spirited sans serifs like Bree and
Ronnia to steady contemporary
Meritorious economy combined with
workhorses like Cora and Karmina.
Like those of any Reading grad,
each of their fonts is studiously
encyclopædic mellifluousity
researched and expertly crafted. And 4,852 rather splendid numerals, too
karmina tm

RFRF RFRFRFRFRFRFR

PampaType
Julio Cortázar wears flares
sometimes
rayuela tm

El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan

Garden Forking
Another Reading grad, Alejandro
Lo Celso has parlayed his education
into a series of roving international
Moments of Poetic Delicacy
student workshops. His PampaType borges tm
creations, meanwhile, positively
drip with academic rigor. Rayuela,

J for example, plays with notions of

rhythm, yet remains one of the few
serif text faces that is both informal
and eminently readable. Borges
 Organic vibrancy
@ Estudio U+O
was born out of a love for the clean
economical style of writer Jorge Luis
Borges. Quimera displays Lo Celso’s
deep admiration for the great
French designer Roger Excoffon,
adopting the unusual horizontal quimera tm
stress of Antique Olive.
fontshop.com 11
 Foundry Spotlight Suitcase

Druk Diggler fishmonger tm

��������������� Czech designer TomᚠBrousil

is a relative newcomer to the font ��
Magnum
world, but is already making
waves and winning awards for his
refined contemporary typefaces.
From versatile utilitarian families
Praha
Brno
like Teimer and Katarine to compact

Opus Day-O
headliners like Fishmonger and
Atrament, Brousil has a knack

Plzeň
for filling the empty spaces in a
modern designer’s type palette.
Komm, Mr. Spiekermann, tally me banana
Gloriola is a sans serif that hits the

���������������
teimer tm
sweet spot between cool sterility
and lively warmth. Purista is
a thoughtful twenty-first-century
��
atrament tm
nod to early twentieth-century
geometric grotesques like Eurostile

Czechs
and Bank Gothic. Brousil knows
how to have a good time, too:

I know
BistroScript pays homage to a sign
painter’s playful strokes, while
1980s throwback Corpulent puts
on as much as weight as legible

you got & balances

type possibly can.

jabba
Seoul
katarine tm

purista tm

corpulent tm

→ Velvet Underground
↑ Revolution Square
← Masarykovo Nádraží
Éclair
A cake, long in shape,
gloriola tm but short in duration
bistroscript tm

12 Font 007
Systems rule our world. They are structural mechanisms that, when
they function, make order out of chaos — and we all know there’s plenty
of that floating around. Systems get us out of the house in the morning,
they channel communication, and they (hopefully) lead to a functional
culture. The systems department runs the office, giving us parameters
and password protocol. In general, though, systems seem to connote
automation and a lack of

Making
flexibility. But rules, they
say, are made to be broken,
and systems, when they’re
generative, often lead to

the Rules
wonderfully creative output:
generative art. Befitting the
topic and its vastness, this
by Glen Helfand article is structured by a set
of parameters with somewhat
elastic edges. To survey generative in art is to activate a large and unruly
machine that sparks more ideas than can be contained within the space
allotted to this article. Hence, this piece is structured by a simple set of
parameters: five generative systems, presented somewhat chronological,
the creative process tracking closely to our technological prowess, three
hundred words (or so) each, artists and projects as illustrations. »»»»»»

fonts used  ff balance™  ff scribble™ fontshop.com 13

 1
Systems of response: chance strategies and
conceptual frameworks eradicate the artist’s hand
and delegate actions.
Beginning in the 1950s, avant-garde composer seemingly impersonal approach couldn’t be more
John Cage employed chance as his signature opposite in feel to abstract expressionism, the
music-making system. He used the I Ching, an dominant emotive force during his formative
ancient text used to divine order and change, years. In his work, the artist’s hand is essentially
to structure music and determine notes. In 1961, given over to systems.
Cage plotted celestial maps on a musical staff
and created the composition Atlas Eclipticalis. Conceptual art of the 1960s taught us that it’s
Such works sound amazing even if you never the idea that counts. Sol LeWitt wrote in his
hear them. He termed some “compositions Sentences on Conceptual Art: “#10. Ideas can be
indeterminate of performance,” meaning works of art; they are in a chain of development
they’d always sound different when played live. that may eventually find some form. All ideas
They’re so satisfying, though, because there need not be made physical.” The axiom freed
is so much to the means of creating them. Did something up and allowed plenty to happen —
above
Installed at the they write themselves? Cage, you could say, conceptually and physically. The titles of his
San Francisco
Museum of Modern wrote the software code in the form of scores. pieces were like Cage’s scores: “Wall Drawing
Art, Sol LeWitt’s Those sometimes rumpled papers are fascinating #65. Lines not short, not straight, crossing and
Incomplete Open
Cubes (1974) objects, matrices meticulously plotted with touching, drawn at random, using four colors,
explores the
complexity of whatever system Cage employed. Whatever uniformly dispersed with maximum density,
construction. turned up on a random cast of those I Ching covering the entire surface of the wall.” It was
tiles resulted in input for music and sometimes first installed in 1971, but if you owned it, you
as drawings or prints. Order out of chaos is a could start it at home that night. Close your eyes
beautiful thing. History imposes certain kinds and you can imagine lines dancing in your head,
of structure; it creates art movements when one in hues of your choosing.
group of artists responds to its forebears. Cage’s

14 Font 007
 2
Factory systems are
capable of endless
production. (Turn them
on and they work.)
To generate is to produce. The term is taken
ambivalently in the arts as it suggests factories,
and those can be rather impersonal. Andy
Warhol, however, had his Factory, which had
something to do with a hands-free response
to those bossy aforementioned abstract
expressionists — or so art historians say. His
assembly line resulted in some great paintings,
but the machinery in his factory was mostly
manual. Fast-forward to 2006, when Brian Eno
released 77 Million Paintings — a computer
program that endlessly shifts pattern and color
in layers. You can buy it on dvd and unleash
paintings on your home theater system —
forever. Eno made sound in a similar way. His
Generative Music 1 (1996) employed a software
Visitors relax program, the Zen-ishly titled SSEYO Koan,
as a selection
of Brian Eno’s which continuously produces short ambient
77 Million Paintings
compositions from 200 pre-selected sounds. Eno
shifts across the
projection screen. picked them and let the computer dole them out.

The artist Roxy You don’t see the apparatus in those works,
Paine proves that
machines can but Roxy Paine’s Painting Manufacture Unit,
become engines
of creativity
Erosion Machine, and SCUMAK (Auto Sculpture
with the robotic Maker), 1999–2005, are perhaps more about
Erosion Machine
created in 2005. the matte metal machinery than they are about
the resulting pictures and objects. Each uses
randomizing computer code to generate slight
shifts, surprising turns, and variation in the
application of pressure. The automated SCUMAK
makes gooey-looking extruded plastic sculptures
that resemble vibrant plastic blobs of pulled
taffy. They’re made slowly, with as much care as
To define the a machine can muster, but the resulting objects
pattern of erosion
on this limestone
aren’t exactly comely. It is a commentary to be
block, the artist sure — art production! — and Dutch artist Wim
translates crime
statistics into Delvoye took it to the next visceral level with his
a set of robotic
arm movements.
Cloaca factory works, which have been appearing
in ever-upgraded versions, since 2000. They’re
elaborate Rube-Goldberg-in-a-lab contraptions
that artificially — with chemicals and tubes —
recreate bodily functions. Insert a gourmet meal
at one end and, a few hours later, it will deliver a
processed object that looks and smells a lot like
what we all generate with regularity.

fontshop.com 15
 3
The artist is an information
filter, creating structure out
of free-floating information
(so we don’t have to).
There are strategies we implement in daily life,
those little things: morning rituals, TV viewing
habits, and the like. We need that order when
possibilities of choice have been multiplied
immensely. Can the I Ching help choose cable
channels? Artists who use themselves to filter
and create structure from reams of banal
information do us all a favor — they reveal
how free-floating input can actually add up
to something. Danica Phelps gained notice in
2001 for loopy graphite drawings of her daily
activities and financial transactions. If she drew
the ice cream cone she ate that day, she’d note
who she ate it with and how much it cost. Below
the drawings, she added red or green hatch
marks, based on income or expenses, each mark
representing a dollar. The sales of her work
became part of this system, which evolved into
ever more elaborate schemes and increasingly
larger conglomerations of lines. Her manner
of translating impersonal data into something
Danica Phelps
originally used dazzling reached an apex with the many marks
stripes to resulting from two real estate transactions.
represent money
she personally Interestingly enough, her most recent work is
spent or earned.
Today, you can about eradicating the self by creating a made-
order one of her to-order Stripe Factory. “The stripes have
paintings and
pay by the stripe. become unmoored from my personal data,”
At 15¢ per slice,
this painting, she writes, “and instead, represent only their
20,000 stripes, own production.”
would cost $3,000.

If Phelps brakes for dollars, Lee Walton has given

up his body to sporting events. Acknowledging
both meanings of the word ‘score,’ he devised
a pre-determined set of actions triggered by
particular occurrences on the baseball field. For
Opening Day: Giants vs. Marlins (2001), Walton
would run across the street and scale a mailbox
or other street fixtures as dictated by live
radio coverage of the game. His rather graceful
drawings serve as records or scores of the game,
with curved lines perhaps representing a base
hit. Imposing limitations on himself served as
another organizing element. He played a round
of golf, one shot a day (it took him five months),
and vowed, after September 15, 2006, to never
enter New York’s Union Square again. That’s one
way of getting somewhere new.

16 Font 007
 4 Art engines are exhibition-making machines.

above Curators generate art shows, but if they were That physical structure echoes web architecture
While the Red Sox
were beating the once behind-the-scenes characters in the as a site where artwork can aggregate. It does so,
Angels in Game
Three of the 2004
contemporary art world, many have moved to with a wry wink, on Learning To Love You More, a
American League the foreground. Their exhibition-making means website by artists Harrell Fletcher and Miranda
Division Series, Lee
Walton was creating have become increasingly systematic. After all, July. It offers visitor participants a selection
his own box score.
there’s more and more art being produced, and of assignments (68 of them at this writing) that
perhaps it makes good sense for the decisions can be completed and posted online. “Like a
to be more transparent. You could call some recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song,
recent approaches ‘curatorial engines,’ as they the prescriptive nature of these assignments
are parameters or concepts that allow shows to is intended to guide people towards their own
move themselves. A curator working this way experience,” the organizers say. Your charge,
takes risks — or firmly believes in the system should you choose to accept it, would be to do
they’ve devised — as you never quite know what something like “34. Make a protest sign and
you’ll get. Jens Hoffman has employed this protest,” or “10. Make a flier of your day.”
approach in shows such as Artists’ Favourites, The artists/curators set up the system and offer
a 2004 project at London’s Institute of a collaborative curatorial site. Since its launch
Contemporary Art, for which he invited 39 artists in 2002, the artwork has been rolling in. ltlym
to select a beloved artwork by someone other even winks at its own generative properties;
than themselves. Another example is Hoffman’s see “44. Make a ‘ltlym assignment’.”
Americana: 50 States, 50 Months, 50 Exhibitions
at San Francisco’s Wattis Institute, a series
of small showcases that unfold in alphabetical
order in a vitrine shaped like the U.S.

fontshop.com 17
Using patterns
and keywords
found in the text
of spam email, Alex
Dragulescu filters
his data through
three-dimensional
modeling tools to
create something
that is definitely
not junk.
 5 Every member of the audience, every point on the map
becomes a part of a mutable picture.
Web 2.0, according to the user-created info
source Wikipedia, is described as technology
“that aims to enhance creativity, information
sharing, and, most notably, collaboration
among users.” It’s a utopian vision that offers
lots of latitude to artists. So it’s hardly a
surprise that digital media that responds to
and organizes online data would be such artist-
friendly territory and such a valuable tool to
generate collaboration in the real world. It’s
about barn-building with information feeds,
regardless of how useful the source material
might initially appear. Junk email, for example,
is transformed into virtual structures in Alex
Dragulescu’s Spam Architecture project.
The buildings may not exactly bear weight,
but they do provide an inspirational concept
right
Mark Napier’s of informational recycling. That’s something
newest project,
Spire, uses Mark Napier does with various projects at
software to show potatoland.org, like the classic Digital Landfill,
what happens when
the hard structures which allows you to create a kind of compost
of old industrial
power collide with with your unwanted emails, or the more recent
the soft structures Black and White, which creates kinetic drawings
of ascendant
new media. as it ‘reads’ CNN.com.

The blur between art and information

handling is a particularly exciting generative
Systems will become
space. Digg.com is “a place where people can increasingly basic tools.
collectively determine the value of content”
by posting stories and tracking their traction. It’s a fact that we’re living in the information age.
It gets more interesting with Digg Labs, a kind It means that the ways that we create and share
of hipster cousin working in the burgeoning information will become more sophisticated —
field of data visualization. Here that content the barrage of input will be channeled through
is tracked and organized live — stacked in bar sleeker systems. These developments can’t help
graphs, color-coded based on popularity, and but continue to inspire artists, who have always
organized around a circle. Sometimes Pac- responded to the ideas and material of their
Man-like pixels drop like rain to indicate hits time. The system continues. pp
on an online posting as they happen. Martin
Wattenberg’s Many Eyes website similarly offers
a platform where anyone can upload, visualize
(in a vast range of styles and shades), and
discuss data — say, the shift in gas prices, or top
concerns of college freshmen. The elastic nature
of information becomes almost heartening.
Little is cut and dried, save for the notion that
the possibilities are endless.

fontshop.com 19
 Breaking�
the�rules
Graphic designers and
typographers use new
rules and new tools
to develop work that
pushes the boundaries
of communication
graphics.

20 Font 007
Poetry on the Road
For all its assumed freedoms, poetry has
remained a bastion of strict rules that, perhaps
ironically, govern the creation of some of our
global culture’s most ethereal and elegant ver-
bal constructs. Rhythmic structure in the form
of meter, like the popular iambic pentameter,
or Japanese haiku with its rigid count of five,
seven, and five again, are examples of how
sound is organized to influence meaning and
emotion. So it’s only fitting that, each year
since 2002, graphic designer Boris Müller has
used his own mathematical structures to reor-
ganize poems into a visual identity for Poetry
on the Road, an international literature festival
held in Bremen, Germany. In 2006, Müller
assigned a number to every letter in the
alphabet so that, added together, each word in
a poem had a specific value. He then graphed
each poem by word in numerical order as
points along a circular path. Simple rings
were applied around each point to denote how
many words within a poem shared that specific
cumulative value, thicker rings representing
more common word counts. Softly curving
lines add a graceful, dare we say even poetic,
element and connect each word in the order
they were originally written by the poet. The
result is a swirling and dynamic visualization
that considers the artistic entropy of a purely
inventive enterprise while also recognizing
how invisible structures can be made visible.

fonts used  ff airport™  ff tisa™ fontshop.com 21

504 hours
How are you feeling right now? That’s the question
graphic designer Cinthia Wen asked herself every
hour for 21 days. The answer (far left) is an astound-
ing peek into a designer’s diary and a roller-coaster
ride across 504 hours of emotional ups and downs.
Wen translated the results, her personal reflec-
tions, into a poster where each day is broken into a
simple bar graph. Over 90 different colors are used
to represent the varying shades of 13 different emo-
tions ranging from peaceful to exhausted to agitated.
Moving through a day in the life, Wen’s visual guide
tracks activities like sleep, work, relaxation, and
entertainment. She punctuates these with line work
that announces random bouts of revelation, panic,
or intoxication. Taken alone, any one bar is the
abstraction of daily ritual. Together, these 21 days are
a colorful reminder. As we continue to layer routines
and expectations upon ourselves, these limitations
can quickly define our mental stability and quite
possibly the sum of our personality in the long run.
The designer notes how she relishes the project’s
dual purpose, as a visual representation of time and
an analytical representation of emotion. But it’s the
unfolding of these days and weeks as a journal for
critical self-assessment and discovery that will keep
us counting the hours.

noplace
Imagine building out your utopian vision. Is it
physical: an ecologically perfect Earth or a worker’s
paradise with true equality? Is it transcendent: a
state of enlightenment like the rapture or nirvana? In
the past, personal wishes and desires were often just
that – personal. Today, the all-encompassing flow
of digital information is routinely typed and tagged
into categories of interest and subsequently mapped
and ranked as ever-new insights into our collective
identities and ideologies. Artist and architect
Marek Walczak exploits our penchant for structure
over chaos and mines an increasingly deep vein of
collective thought to build a picture of analogous
and divergent views of paradise in a project he calls
noplace. Using live feeds from the internet, Walczak
collects text tags from images and sounds and
stockpiles them in a database. A tag sequencer looks
for and finds relationships among these and streams
them to a series of projectors. Each projector has a
cluster of visual data that interprets the tags to create
a random but distinct narrative on the paradise
theme. The results, architecturally-inspired collages,
are a compelling commentary on the development
of hybrid physical and information spaces. Currently,
Walczak has pre-selected just eight different sets of
visual data, each representing a different collective
interpretation of a utopian vision. However, he will
soon launch a live tool on Tate Britain’s website that
will let everyone build their perfect world.

fontshop.com 23
24 Font 007
Seelenlose Automaten
For Seelenlose Automaten, a recursive
multimedia project that loosely
translates as “Soulless Machine,”
designers Benedikt Groß and Patric
Schmidt found inspiration in the work of
Hungarian biologist Aristid Lindenmayer.
Lindenmayer’s research on algae
growth patterns and complex branching
structures in plants forms the basis for our
understanding of self similarity. Groß,
responsible for their machine’s visual
elements, populated his environment
with an increasingly complicated nest
of abstract branches, buds, and birds.
Using his experience as an intern with
the Frankfurt-based multidisciplinary
digital design studio Meso, Groß powered
his project with a multimedia design
tool called vvvv. It’s a relatively new and
increasingly popular piece of software
that designers are adapting for the
visualization of complex, collaborative, or
real time media environments. Schmidt
created a simple music track composed of
27 distinct sounds, including sonar peeps,
snare and bass drums, high-hat cymbals,
and even something he calls a dinosaur
scream. Together, they came up with the
comprehensive rules that connect each
sound to a specific action within the
graphical environment. To add interest,
a second layer of context-sensitive
rules count instances and trigger more
arcane activity when select sounds reach
predetermined target numbers. Instead
of a traditional time-based animation,
vvvv allows the designers to send MIDI
control messages simultaneously to both
the sound and image generators. The
result is a lively machine with more than
the standard bells and whistles.

fontshop.com 25
 Emil Ruder
ard Fella

Pieter Brattinga

Typopath 1.0 Alan Fletcher

The Dutch are known for equal measures
of logic and wit. It was a little of both that
encouraged settlers and farmers to beat
back the sea and reclaim a series of tracts David Kin
across the countryside. Staying above water
required mapping a cooperative system:
a grid of dams, dikes, locks, and pumps
Dan Friedman etched onto the land. By staying true to the Ruari
Alber Kapr
erritsen David Carson Erik van Blokland & rules that govern water management, DutchMcLean
Just van Rossum society flourished. Over centuries, systems
and the data they organize have become
hardwired into the nation’s collective
identity. These traits guide Typopath 1.0, an
analog generative project created by Joris
Peter Saville
Maltha and Daniel Gross of design studio
Catalogtree. The two met and hatched
the idea for Typopath 1.0 at Werkplaats
studio dumbar
Typografie, a graduate program in Arnhem
conceived and supervised by designers
Bruno Monguzzi Gerrit Noo
Karel Martens and Armand Mevis. Martens,
Mevis, and a third designer, Wigger Bierma,
were asked to rate 200 typographers whose
work spans 500 years. In the eyes of Maltha
an and Gross, the results represent a “mental
Hans-Rudolph Lutz map” of the thinking that helped define
Jost Hochuli
and still drive the Werkplaats. To translate
Piet Schreuders subjective responses into a detailed road
Jamie
map, the designers Reid
conceived a set of simple
rules, using convergent and divergent
opinion as a starting point to generate
Max Kisman colorful twists and turns that offer a truly
unique perspective on design history.
Ruedi Baur Gerard Unger

Walter Nikkels
oss

Wolfgang Weingart

Neville Brody H. R.
Rudy van der Lans Bosshard
Micha
wild plakken

nes pas plier Paula Scher

Robert Erik Spiekermann

Nakata

Jonath
Lex Reitsma

Licko Fred Smeijers Tessa v.d. Waals

 Mart Kempers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

An
Fro
Ontwerp / Design Daniel Gross / Joris Maltha / www.catalogtree.net / Arnhem 2002

A Wim Crouwel Chris Brand Jan Bons

Charles Jongejans A

Hermann Zapf

Herb
Lubalin Pieter
Quentin Fiore Wetselaar

ndersley Max Miedinger

Adrian Frutiger
Alexander Verberne
Henryk Tomaszewski

Harry N. Hans Mardersteig

Siermann

Sem Hartz
Josef-Müller Brockmann
B B

Richard Paul Lohse

Mart Kempers Saul

Emil Ruder Bass
Edward Fella

Jurriaan Schrofer
Otto Treumann
Pieter Brattinga Vordemberge Gildewart
Anthony Piet Cossee
Alan Fletcher Froshaug
Charles Jongejans

pentagram David Kindersley Bruno Munari

Imre Reiner

Dan Friedman Jurriaan Schrofer Willem Sandberg

Max Caflisc
Alber Kapr Ruari
Mieke Gerritsen David Carson Erik van Blokland & McLean Dick Elffers
C pentagram C
Just van Rossum
Max Caflisch

Helmut Salden
Piet Gerards Jan Tschichold
Peter Saville
Anton Stankowski Max Bill

studio dumbar Paul Rand

Jan Vermeulen
Bruno Monguzzi Gerrit Noordzij
Jan van Krimpen
Hans Peter Willberg

H.N. Werkman
Tibor Kalman Milton Glaser Bob Gill

Hans-Rudolph Lutz Jost Hochuli

Anton Stankowski Max Bill

Piet Schreuders Jamie Otl Aicher
Reid
Anthon
Beeke Oliver Simon
D D
Bruce Rogers
Max Kisman

Paul Rand
A.M. Cassandre
Ruedi Baur Gerard Unger Ootje
Oxenaar Jaap Drupsteen Sjoerd
Walter Nikkels de Roos
Paul Renner
Robin Kinross

Wolfgang Weingart

Swip Stolk
Jan Vermeule
ordzij
Neville Brody H. R. hard werken Paul Schuitema
Rudy van der Lans Bosshard Josef Albers Gerard Kiljan
Michael Harvey
wild plakken John Heartfield

nes pas plier Paula Scher Piet Zwart

Jan van Toorn

Robert
Nakata
Erik Spiekermann
Pierre Bernard
Herbert Bayer
Hans Peter Willberg
Kurt Schwitters

Stanley Morison
E E

Martin
Majoor

El Lissitzky

Milton Glaser Bob Gill

Jonathan Barnbrook
Lex Reitsma

Suzanna Licko Fred Smeijers Tessa v.d. Waals

Eric Gill

INDEX / INDEX Irma Boom

LEGENDA / LEGEND
Morris Fuller Benton
fuel
AM
2x4 [H4] El Lissitzky [E5]

Otl Aicher
F Moholy Nagy F
75b [H4] Richard Paul Lohse [B5] grappa blotto
M

AM

AM = Armand Mevis
+A

A Otl Aicher [D5] Herb Lubalin [A3]

Paul Elliman
+W

Josef Albers [E5] Hans-Rudolph Lutz [D1] KM = Karel Martens

KM

ALLE
ontwerper Akzidenz [G4] WB = Wigger Bierma
B

M m&m

Anthon
[H5] Frederic Goudy
B Jonathan Barnbrook [E3] Martin Majoor [E1] P. Scott Makela Henry v.d. Velde

Oliver Simon
Saul Bass [B6] P. Scott Makela [F4] belang voor het vak

Beeke
Ruedi Baur [D2] Hans Mardersteig [B5] ALL importance to the profession
Herbert Bayer [E5] Bruce Mau [G4]
KM

Anthon Beeke [D4] Ruari McLean [C3]

W

Bruce R
Jop van Bennekom [H4] Max Miedinger [B3] Bruce Mau
Morris Fuller Benton [F4] Bruno Monguzzi [D1] KM + WB
Edward Johnston Emil Rudolf Weiss
Pierre Bernard [E4] mooren & vd velden [I5] persoonlijk belang
Max Bill [C5] Stanley Morison [E4] personal intrest
van Blokland / van Rossum [C2] Roelof Mulder [G3]
Jan Bons [A4] Bruno Munari [C7]
ontwerper
Irma Boom [F3] Josef Müller-Brockmann [B2] Roelof Mulder Akzidenz
Hans Rudolf Bosshard [E3] octavo
G Chris Brand [A4] N Moholy Nagy [F5] G
Pieter Brattinga [B3] Robert Nakata [E1] drie personen
Neville Brody
bureau Ootje
[E2]
[H4]
nes pas plier
Walter Nikkels
[E1]
[D3]
three persons

Oxenaar
Thomas Buxó [H4] Gerrit Noordzij [C3]

Jaap Drupsteen Sjoerd

north [I5]
C Max Caflisch [C5]
David Carson [C1] O octavo [G4] tomato
A.M. Cassandre
Piet Cossee
[D6]
[B6]
Ootje Oxenaar [D4]
de Roos twee personen

D
Wim Crouwel

Jaap Drupsteen
[A3]

[D4]
P

R
pentagram

Paul Rand
[C3]

[C4]
2x4 Paul Renner two persons

studio dumbar [C2] Jamie Reid [D3]

Imre Reiner [C6]
E elektrosmog [H4] Lex Reitsma [E2]
Cornel Windlin
Dick Elffers [C7] Paul Renner [D5]
experimental jetset gtf
Paul Elliman [F3] Bruce Rogers [D5] één persoon
H experimental jetset [H4] Sjoerd De Roos [D4] one person H
Emil Ruder [B3]
F Edward Fella [B1]
75b
Quentin Fiore [A3] S Helmut Salden [C6]
Alan Fletcher [C3] Willem Sandberg [C6] elektrosmog

Swip Stolk
Dan Friedman [C1] Peter Saville [C2]
m&m
Anthony Froshaug [B6] Paula Scher [E2]
Jop van Bennekom
Adrian Frutiger [B3] Piet Schreuders [D2]
fuel [F3] Jurriaan Schrofer [C4] golden
Paul Schuitema [D7] masters
goodwill
G Piet Gerards [C1] Kurt Schwitters [E6] mooren & vd velden

hard werken
Mieke Gerritsen [C1] Harry N. Sierman [B5]
Vordemberge Gildewart [C7] Oliver Simon [D5] Thomas Buxó

Josef Albers
bureau
Bob Gill [D4] Fred Smeijers [E2]
Eric Gill [F5] Erik Spiekermann [E2]

ael Harvey Milton Glaser [D4] Anton Stankowski [C5]

John Heartfield
golden masters [H5] Swip Stolk [D4] north
goodwill [H5]
I Frederic Goudy [F5] T Henryk Tomaszewski [B4] I
grappa blotto [F4] tomato [G4]
gtf [H5] Jan van Toorn [E4]
Otto Treumann [B6] Roger Willems
H hard werken [E4] Jan Tschichold [C6]
Sem Hartz [B6]
Michael Harvey [E3] U Gerard Unger [D3]
John Heartfield [E5]
Jost Hochuli [D2] V Henry v.d. Velde [G4]

Jan van Toorn

Alexander Verberne [B4]
J Edward Johnston [G4] Jan Vermeulen [C5]
Charles Jongejans [B5]

Pierre Bernard W Tessa vd Waals [E3]

Kur

typopath 1.0
K Tibor Kalman [D1] Wolfgang Weingart [D3]

Herbert Bayer
Albert Kapr [C3] Emil Rudolf Weiss [G4]
Mart Kempers [B5] H.N. Werkman [D7]
Gerard Kiljan [E7] Pieter Wetselaar [A4]
David Kindersley [C3] wild plakken [E2]
J Robin Kinross [D1] Hans Peter Willberg [D5] J
Max Kisman [D1] Roger Willems [I5]
Jan van Krimpen [D6] Cornel Windlin [H4]

L Rudy van der Lans

Suzanna Licko
[E1]
[E1]
Z Hermann Zapf
Piet Zwart
Stanley Morison
[A4]
[E6]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

El Lissitzky
han Barnbrook
Meek FM
With the fifth version of his typographic
synthesizer, Rob Meek hit a high note when
he unveiled the aptly named Meek FM at the
music-themed 2007 TYPO Berlin design
conference. In collaboration with Frank
Müller (the FM in Meek FM), Meek integrates
letterform modulation and sound generation
in a hardware package that’s a welcome nod
to Robert Moog and the invention of the
modular synthesizer. Playing the device
requires a computer and the attractively retro
Meek FM control panel. Select a letter from
one of several predetermined typefaces and
a cursor will flicker along its outline like an
imaginary pen. The synthesizer constantly
redraws the letter and replays its sound like
some old sci-fi tape loop. Depending on how
one chooses to play the synthesizer, rows of
dials and buttons let typographers mutate
letter characteristics and invent new let-
terforms (which can then be saved and used),
while musicians can dial up new sounds
based on language. Since Meek FM isn’t easy
to work in any highly controlled way, play
is the operative word. But that’s just as well,
the inventor says. “It’s good to introduce non-
human forces, be they mechanical or natural,
in order to invigorate or question existing
creative processes. A machine can literally
produce what human imagination by defini-
tion cannot – the unimaginable.” pp
The New
FontFonts
ff Clantm Italic Łukasz dziedzic

r&sOs.sÍtd
ff Nettotm daniel utz

fontshop.com 29
 And so it gøes on

Hexa
ff Maxtm 4 morten olsen

Dampfbahn Furka-Bergstrecke DFB

ff Chamberstm Sans verena gerlach

Ô Comptoir des Marchands

ff Nettotm daniel utz

Cavallino Rampan ff Enzotm tobias kvant

tax
Torre pendente di
ff Tisatm mitja miklavčič
ff Quadraat® Sans Bold Italic fred smeijers

Fai
’Twas a frisky fish,

Nicht on your nelly, guv’

ff Unittm Rounded erik spiekermann & christian schwartz

Formal
30 Font 007
 ahedron ff Cubetm jan maack

Trill symbiont

Aesthetic
ff Daxlinetm Italic hans reichel

nte Fulfiłłment ff Pitutm Łukasz dziedzic

Pisa (Leaning Power of Tisa)

ir Play à vous ff Utilitytm lukas schneider

methinks a haddock
ff Nuvotm siegfried rückel
Boot loader
ff Milotm 3 mike abbink

characteristics ff Polymorphtm stefanie schwarz

fontshop.com 31
 ff Meta® Serif erik spiekermann, christian schwartz, & kris sowersby
ǽ
ffj
FF Meta Headline Compressed
Throughout the 1990s, ģ
FF Meta Headline Condensed
Erik Spiekermann made
several attempts at designing
Ə
a companion for his original
FF Meta Headline
ff Meta, arguably one of
ĵ
the most ubiquitous fonts
FF Meta Hairline
of the past two decades.
Colleagues had often asked →
FF Meta Condensed & Italic
which serif face would best
fit with Meta, and after
∂
years of recommending
FF Meta Correspondence & Italic
a variety of suitable faces,
Spiekermann realized that Ħ
ff Meta & Italic
he should just make his
own serif companion.

introducing → ff Meta Serif & Italic

Eẋtęʼnđëd
Meta a “The whole Meta system is supposed
4 to solve separate typographic

tąme
@ problems while keeping a family
¶ resemblance. This is not a family
ſ of identical triplets, but sisters and

måŧé • brothers or even nieces and nephews.”

€
Erik Spiekermann

ţεάm
ů The OpenType version of ff Meta While the serif design can stand

→ and black weights, each including

Serif offers book, medium, bold, on its own in a wide range of
applications, the extra benefit is
italics, Small Caps, alternate numeral its close relationship to the original
⅝ styles – proportional, tabular, lining, ff Meta, its sans serif sister. The two

mĚĀŢ
oldstyle – extra ligatures, case-sensitive families can be mixed in the same line,
ß other symbols. (The Pro version also
punctuation, and a range of arrows and and one can be used to accentuate the
other. Using both on the same page

Q
supports Eastern European languages.) adds variety and meaning to a text.

ű
32 Font 007
 T
r T
Now available in OpenType

i rT
x ir
ff Atma™ ot
FF Bastille™ Display OT
* FF BeoSans® Hard OT
* FF BeoSans® Soft OT
FF Beowolf® OT
FF Cartonnage™ OT hEª

i xi
FF Celeste® OT
ff Celeste® Sans OT
FF Clair™ OT
ff Cli©ord™ Pro
FF Dax® Pro
FF Dax® Italic Pro
FF Dax® Condensed Pro

remix
ff Dax® Wide Pro
ff Eureka® Pro
ff Eureka® Sans Pro
ff Eureka® Sans Condensed Pro
FF Eureka® Mono Pro
FF Eureka® Mono Condensed Pro

ei
ff Fago™ Pro
ff Fago™ Condensed Pro
ff Fago™ Extended Pro
FF Gothic™ Min
FF Jambono™ Pro
FF Legato™ OT
FF Trixie: ff Trixie® & Trixie HD erik van blokland

e
__________
FF Magda® Clean OT Based on the 1991
FF Meta® Condensed Italic Pro Trixie outlines,
the new version adds
ff Page™ Sans OT OpenType features
ff Page™ Serif OT and extended
language support
ff Parable™ OT (in Pro fonts).
ff Plus™ Pro
FF Pop™ Min
FF Trixie Rough:
________________
FF Profile® Pro Extra detail
ff Sari™ Pro maintains Trixie’s
trademark rough
FF Schmalhans® Pro inky texture at
ff Signa™ Condensed Pro larger sizes.
ff Signa™ Condensed Italic Pro
ff Signa™ Extended Pro
ff Signa™ Extended Italic Pro ��������������������������� FF Trixie HD:
_____________
Hyper-realistic
FF Soupbone® OT
��Old is new: on the big screen
FF Strada™ OT or in print, the
FF Strada™ Italic OT FF Trixie takes OpenType new Trixie boasts
seven alternates
FF Strada™ Condensed OT to the limit with broad per character,
FF Strada™ Condensed Italic OT each with its own

FF Super Grotesk™ OT
langua�e support, extensive weight and rough
detailing. OpenType
FF Tag Team™ Min layout features, thousands features switch the
alternates around to
FF Tartine Script™ Pro of alternate glyphs... and simulate typewriter

some silliness too.

FF TradeMarker™ OT type in a way never
before seen in
FF Transit ® OT digital typography.
*FF Trixie® Pro ���������������������������
FF Zine™ OT
FF Zwo™ Pro
FF Zwo™ Correspondence Pro

*Remastered with new characters

and improved accessibility

fontshop.com 33
 FontStruct has swept across the blogosphere. Stephen Coles chats
with its creator and Chief Brickmeister Rob Meek.

Built
With
Bricks
o, what exactly is this FontStruct thing?

FontStruct is a free online platform for creating and

There were also a number of comparable projects under
development at about the same time – evidence of a
broader interest in grid-based design tools.
sharing modular grid-based fonts which FontShop
International launched in early April 2008. Really? Who was behind them?

Where did the idea come from? Michael Gianfreda, Lorenz “Lopetz” Gianfreda, and Kaspar
Lüthi at Büro Destruct were working on BDD (Büro Destruct
In many ways, the starting point was really the Meek fm
Designer) between 1999 and 2003. A tribute to Swiss
(also see page 28), which was my first contribution to the
design of the 1960s, it’s certainly a classic of the genre,
world of grid-based design tools, and initially appeared in
encouraging the user to make a virtue of limitation. Strict
2000. I was relatively new to the world of graphic design,
adherence to a grid, a simple point and click interface, and
having just switched from the programming to the design
a selection of simple geometric shapes to choose from
department at the agency where I was working. I was
were its key ingredients. The ability to export creations
completely ignorant of the world of typography, but soon
in a usable format was also an important feature.
became fascinated by it, and wanted to design a font;
a grid-based modular font seemed like an easy way in. Another inspirational piece of Swiss work was Lineto’s
Lego Font Creator (circa 1999), by Urs Lehni, Rafael Koch,
How did the project come about?
and Jürg Lehni. This was more explicitly a type builder,
I started laying out shapes in Freehand. My lack of but was again based on principles of grid-constrained
experience led to a lot of hesitancy in making creative construction using a palette of predefined shapes.
choices. I kept changing my mind about the forms I wanted
Fast-forward to 2005, and there was BitFontMaker from
to use – should they be spaced out or flush next to each
Japan. (I actually only became aware of this after I first
other, that kind of thing. At some point, I moved from
pitched FontStruct to FontShop in May 2006.) It shares
Freehand to Flash so that I could automate changes, and
many characteristics with FontStruct: one hundred percent
gradually built a tool to cater to my indecision. That’s
online; a simple intuitive interface for grid-based font
where the Meek fm came from.
creation; a gallery; and downloadable TrueType fonts.

font used  ff nuvo ™  fontstructions used  blocparty  texture  tuscan radar fontshop.com 35
I think FontStruct offers a lot more than BitFontMaker, It feels unique having the creation and editing together
but it’s very well executed nonetheless. with the community features. I don’t think there are many
online applications which integrate both. It’s as if people
So there’s definitely a clear precedent for grid-based
were actually recording music in MySpace or taking
design tools, and a tradition of designers trying to create
pictures in Flickr. There’s a very close relationship between
their own more specialized tools.
the creation and exchange with others.
Perhaps it’s also partly a reaction to the complex
Absolutely. Ask even the most seasoned expert and
interfaces offered by the likes of Fontlab and Adobe.
they’ll more than likely say they’re still learning.
Yes, it’s good to have – or at least imagine – alternatives, That’s probably what keeps so many people so
whether they are more specialized tools or simply tools interested in drawing and redrawing the alphabet
which defamiliarize the creative process. over and over again. You’re always learning and your
context is always changing.
How does the Meek fm differ from FontStruct?
Indeed. My main goal when creating the interface was to
The Meek fm is about tweaking an existing design; I wanted
keep it accessible for beginners but also powerful enough
to do something that was about constructing grid-based
to interest seasoned typographers. I wanted to remove
typefaces from scratch. Also the Meek fm, and, to a certain
everything that would inhibit a novice. You start with a
extent, the other projects I’ve referenced, are more toys
very simple metaphor – drawing on a grid of squared graph
than tools. There’s an emphasis on playfulness rather
paper – and you don’t have to bother with any specialist
than earnest practical production. The output is of limited
terminology or concepts. More advanced features are
quality and practical value. I wanted to make something
available from menus and with keyboard shortcuts.
that could really stand up as a useful tool to enable
modular type design. The first two months have borne out your vision and
FontShop’s foresight. FontStruct has been unexpectedly
I saw the opportunity, particularly when approaching
popular, resulting in some very high quality work and
FontShop with the idea, to create an online font-sharing
tremendous diversity. Hey, we even got a mention
community around a modular font editor; a kind of
in The New York Times! So, what’s next?
mini-Flickr for fonts, if you will. Font design really lends
itself to the online environment. The file sizes are small, We have a lot of ideas, many of them from the user
and the relatively simple systematic nature of the data community, and we’re adding features steadily. The
make the creation of an online font design tool much more highest priority at the moment is fixing minor bugs and
straightforward than an image, video, or music editor. annoyances, and adding some control over horizontal
metrics so people can define how their letters are spaced.
I’d wanted to pursue the project for quite some time
We also want to bolster the community features, such as
and had initially imagined an offline application. However,
incorporating proper user homepages.
as Web 2.0 apps continued to get more sophisticated
and powerful, I felt a sudden panic that someone else Are you concerned that free FontStructions devalue
was bound to do this and realized that I needed a partner commercial type and might harm FontShop’s business?
with clout, with typographic expertise. . .
Quite the opposite, actually. FontStruct is fun and easy
Enter FontShop. partly because it is very limited. I think it nurtures not only
the pleasures of type design but also an understanding
Yes. It’s been a great match as far as I’m concerned.
of how much work is involved in making a font and
I’ve effectively been paid for what I wanted to do in my
why ‘real’ fonts cost money. FontStructions have too many
spare time anyway, with no compromising of the original
limitations (everything has to be based on a grid, there’s
idea. FontShop had an immediate understanding of
no kerning, no hinting, no OpenType features, and so forth)
the potential for an online font-building and sharing
to be any real threat to FontShop’s retail sales. pp
platform. I think it’s quite brave and forward-thinking
for a font vendor to give people the chance to make
their own fonts for free.
give the tires a kick for yourself at
www.fontstruct.com
FontShop’s vision for FontStruct really focused on
developing a community site rather than a pure font
editor. Sharing, rating, and discussion capabilities are
all right there in the browser.

36 Font 007
 Unique

“FontStruct

S shows how
easy it is to play
around with
type, and how
difficult it is to
make real type.”
Erik Spiekermann

COUGH up

 Oldie or thE
budgie
GETs It
clockwise, from top
Featured FontStructions include
Epiorque Joined, SlabStruct Too,
Ransom Note, Tight, Bolt, Texture
(shown within the FontStructor),
and Tristeak Ribbon.

fontshop.com 37
 kol'ə-fon(t)
Cover Fonts used
Font is published by FontShop Outputs from Meek fm, courtesy ff Balance™ and ff Scribble™
of Rob Meek FF Balance marked the beginning of
149 9th Street, Suite 302
FontFont designer Evert Bloemsma’s
San Francisco, ca 94103
decade-long exploration into readability.
Introduction
1 888 ff fonts toll-free Its peculiar horizontal stress and four
1 415 252 1003 local 2 Typeface sketch courtesy of Tomáš Brousil, weights of equal widths put it in a class
Suitcase Type Foundry of its own. FF Scribble is inspired by
www.fontshop.com the era of pre-digital composition and
2/3 Other images credited below an ironic play on the design truth that
sketches are often more pleasing than
the computer-processed final.
Neue fonts
editors
4–8 Images © their creators Breaking the Rules
Amos Klausner www.fstopimages.com
Stephen Coles Object photography courtesy of the 21 Boris Müller: Poetry on the Road,
LiveSurface® Layered Image Library™ 2002–2008
design & art direction www.livesurface.com Images courtesy of the artist
Conor Mangat
22 Cinthia Wen: 504 Hours, 2003
www.mangatelier.com Making the Rules Image courtesy of the artist

fontshop san francisco 14 Sol LeWitt: Incomplete Open Cubes, 1974

23 Marek Walczak: Noplace, 2007
Michael Pieracci Painted wood structure, gelatin silver
Images courtesy of the artist
prints, and drawings on paper
12" × 120" × 216" 24 Benedikt Groß: Seelenlose Automaten,
contributing writer
(30.48 cm × 304.8 cm × 548.64 cm) 2007
Glen Helfand
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Images courtesy of the artist
www.stretcher.org Accessions Committee Fund: gift of Emily
L. Carroll and Thomas Weisel, Jean and 26 Catalogtree: Typopath 1.0, 2002
contributing editor James E. Douglas, Jr., Susan and Robert Image courtesy of the artists
Tamye Riggs Green, Evelyn Haas, Mimi and Peter Haas,
Eve and Harvey Masonek, Elaine McKeon, 28 Rob Meek: Meek FM, 2007
www.typelife.com
the Modern Art Council, Phyllis and Images courtesy of the artist
Stuart G. Moldaw, Christine and Michael
spiritus rector Murray, Danielle and Brooks Walker Jr., Fonts used
Erik Spiekermann and Phyllis Wattis. ff Airport™ and ff Tisa™
www.spiekermann.com © Estate of Sol LeWitt /Artists Rights FF Airport is the Lineto studio’s tribute
Society (ARS), New York to the charm of LCD displays, freight
waybills, and boarding passes. The
15 Brian Eno: 77 Million Paintings FF Gateway™ fonts are based on the
© Scott Beale and laughingsquid.com electronic display systems at Tegel and
printing
Schönefeld airports in Berlin. For FF Tisa,
Paragraphics, San Rafael, ca 15 Roxy Paine: Erosion Machine, 2005 Slovenian designer Mitja Miklavcic set
www.paragraphicsinc.com Stainless steel, rubber, felt, glass, out to create a more subtle and dynamic
galvanized steel, silicon carbide, slab serif. He succeeded, earning the
electronics, dust collector, reclaimer, Type Directors Club’s Certificate of
robot, and air Excellence in Type Design for 2007.
11'5" × 21' × 11'5"
© Roxy Paine, image courtesy built with bricks
of James Cohan Gallery, New York
Font used
15 Roxy Paine: Erosion Machine Stone #3 ff Nuvo™
(Crime Statistics), 2006
Over 30 years’ fine printing experience, During a stay in Paris, the elegance
Limestone and extravagance of French magazines
combined with the newest eco-friendly
technologies. Proud to be a certified 10" × 32" × 19" inspired Siegfried Rückel to create
Green Business and the first FSC-certified © Roxy Paine, image courtesy a typeface of his own. The result isn’t
printer in the San Francisco Bay Area. of James Cohan Gallery, New York nearly as ostentatious as his muses,
yet is sublimely usable for editorial
16 Danica Phelps: Stripe Factory Sample design in its own right. FF Nuvo has
for Sister (20,000 stripes), 2007 a soft calligraphic touch with a set of
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil alternates that offer stylistic versatility.
on cut paper mounted to wood panel
20" × 15"
Cert no. SCS-COC-00781
Image courtesy of Sister, Los Angeles

17 Lee Walton: Angels vs Boston –

3 Game Series, April 22, 23, 24, 2008
Ink and paint on paper
24" × 54"
Printed with VOC-free UV and
100% vegetable-based inks. Image courtesy of Lee Walton
and Kraushaar Galleries

18 Alex Dragulescu: Spam Architecture Series

Images courtesy of the artist

© 2008 fsi FontShop International. All rights 19 Mark Napier: Spire, 2007
reserved. All trademarks named herein remain Image courtesy of the artist
the property of their respective owners. The views
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