Week 34, 2021

A Weekly Review of the World of Typography


 

Releases:


☞
Occupant Oldstyle was released this week by Occupant Fonts. Occupant Oldstyle is a modern serif text-setting family of 10 fonts (5 weights of roman and italic styles) featuring design notes that only Cyrus Highsmith can hit.  Squircle-y open counterforms, unique letter constructions, and rounded-point serifs that the foundry has dubbed 'child-safe serifs'.  Love it. It's not very often a typeface takes someone's or a foundry's namesake, but this one is worth it. Can't wait to see where this pops up. 

☞
The latest release from Positype is here in the form of Ice Cream, a curvaceous sans typeface set of two styles — a roman and an italic. The foundry describes Ice Cream as "curvy, with a dollop of fun" and it's hard to argue with that.  Highlighting plump whip-tail terminals and end strokes and masterfully handled weight shifts in all the right places, Ice Cream is a great go-to for all those delicious display needs. 

☞
Netherlands-based foundry Wise Type released Zaft 2, a funky display type evolution of an older advertising face.  Built with bulbous serifs, wild weight proportions, and variable slider for contrast and weirdness (they calling the "Peyote" slider) Zaft 2 feels like a mashup between Photo-Lettering Benguiat faces for machine reading and psychedelic lettering of the 60's and 70's rock poster movements. 

☞
Giboula from Spaghetype was completed on Future Fonts this week. "Giboula is an incised typeface based on the "Soirée Giboula" custom lettering: the very best and worst of electro, techno, edm, drum'n'bass on live at the Gambetta Club, the last night club in Paris where everything can happen." Its been a while since a typeface inspired by musical genre AND a physical location has come along, but its much appreciated.  


Links:


Scholarship:
Congratulations to Nina Faulhaber for her Aeroplan font family — winner of the 2021 Gerard Unger Scholarship!

Custom Fonts:
HvD Fonts has created the official typeface for Berlin. 

Custom Fonts:
Read all about TypeMates' new custom UI sans font for immowelt, a popular real esteate platform in Germany.

Lettering:
Check out this killer Chinese lettering done by Toshi Omagari for After Dark — a new photo book published by Thames & Hudson.  

New Website:
Very Cool Studio has a new website with their very cool types on full show. 

Curation:
I love Typography has cemented a regular editorial feature on their blog for Steven Heller highlighting a font from their collection every month. 

Article:
Not sure I agree with their attitude and tone, but its worth glancing at Eye on Design's  take on Book Cover Design.