Category: ultratypographic

Glyphs on Film

Stempel Helvetica

I finally had a chance to watch the outtakes from Helvetica (the documentary that any and all type and/or graphic designers know about, but the rest of you may or may not know about), and I was pleasantly surprised.

The surprise was not that I enjoyed the film and the extra footage. When I first saw Helvetica last summer I really enjoyed it, and thought it might be the best way to actually make other people understand what I do and why I often feel so passionate about typography and design. It tells the story of Helvetica in a clear way that connects this one typeface — and the importance of typefaces in general — to the whole environment of printed, manufactured, and broadcast stuff that’s around us all the time. When I was back in New York for Christmas, I wished I had a DVD of the film with me so I could show my family and give them a better idea of what I’ve been up to since I left the country.

Stempel Haas specimen

The extra footage on the DVD was rightfully left out of the film itself. Much of it ventures off into other territory about type and design in a way that would water down the story of Helvetica itself. It’s all really fascinating, though, for people who have more of an interest in design. All the interview outtakes from people like Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Neville Brody, and even David Carson (I’m over him, but I still remember what a shot of vitality his work once was) are a rich source of information about design process — the way different designers work and think. They shed some light on an aspect on what we do that’s often obscured by people just paying attention to the end results alone, and it’s a treat to have this kind of off-the-cuff talk available somewhere other than the more exclusive realm of a professional conference or lecture, or the more formal realm of published work.

If you’re curious enough to check it out, Netflix has it now, or you could always throw a little support the filmmaker’s way and buy yourself a copy.

Perfection

The perfect simile to explain a thorny issue about type history to people who are familiar with fonts as things they pick from a list:

…there can never be a definitive Bodoni, Garamond, Jenson, or Fleischmann typeface, as their oeuvres consist of a multitude of single, size-specific fonts. It is like mashing up Othello, King Lear, Hamlet and a touch of The Tempest and publishing it as ‘The Shakespeare’.

Kris Sowersby, posting at I Love Typography

Busy Bee

Progress on my dissertation has been an uphill battle against two very demanding design projects I’ve been plowing through at the same time. One, thankfully, is on its way to turning out very well after a few hiccups on press preceded by lots and lots and lots of passionate input from the authors/clients. It’s been a lot of work, but the end result is very exciting for us all. (I hope. Oh god, I hope we’re all equally excited at this point.)

The MATD Group Specimen is underway

The other is a horrorshow of trying to polish a turd for a client who doesn’t quite know what they want, can’t quite agree about what they’re trying to do, wouldn’t give me any time to help them figure it out, and has reduced the budget to just about a bag of peanuts and a glass of tap water. But I care, so I can’t just let myself blow them off.

Meanwhile, there’s still a ways to go on my acutely insightful analysis of typefaces for mathematics that I need to finish so I can graduate.

Introducing Gina

introducing_gina.jpg

Another deadline finished! We turned in our typeface files last week, and I just turned in the specimen booklet this morning. Next it’s an essay on the development and production of the typefaces, and after that it’s on to my research dissertation. Needless to say, there’s no Summer vacation for me this year.

Even with the other deadlines looming, it’s an incredible feeling to have finally “finished” the typeface. (I use the quotes because there are still problems to address, and I’ll probably spend a lot more time fleshing out a real family of fonts instead of the two I have now.) This was an entirely new undertaking for me, and I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I look forward to getting better as time goes by, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve done so far, and pretty grateful to everyone who helped it come together.

Before I spend the next week or so writing about the typefaces themselves, I’d really like to take a moment to say something about their namesake — my old friend/boss/mentor/inspiration Gina Brandt-Fall.

gina_sparky.jpgGina was an extraordinary woman who passed away in April 2001. Although she had been having an ugly, all-out battle with breast cancer for the previous two years, and knew her days were running out, I don’t think she was prepared for the sudden liver failure that claimed her in the end. I know I wasn’t. Gina, who I worked with for years, moved to California a few months prior, planning to start a new life in the wake of the cancer that she fought so aggressively. Her doctors discovered more cancer, though, burrowed further into her chest and lungs where they couldn’t get to it without major surgery that would have left Gina in excruciating pain for her last months. She opted for more chemotherapy instead, so she could have a few good weeks out of each of those last months — time to enjoy the sun, to be with her friends, to be able to pull together the fragments of the wonderful book she had been working on for so long. Even during her illness, Gina was incredibly vibrant, emotionally and intellectually engaged, empathic, thoughtful, insightful. Gone, just like that.

Gina and I took to one another immediately went I first interviewed with her for some freelance typesetting work in about 1996 or so. From the very first day, I was taken by her enthusiasm, humor, and quick mind as our conversation went from typesetting to typography to books to literature to life, and that spark never faded during all the years we worked side-by-side. I learned an incredible amount of new things from her, and I was actively encouraged by her to take those new ideas to new levels, and to always leave myself the energy to do what I love. And I laughed with her. Oh my, how we laughed when we were together! Even when we started out bitching and moaning about the workplace and the larger world, we were able to put things in perspective and mix joy in with the righteous indignation. She was not only a friend and a colleague and a teacher, but also an inspiration. That’s cliché, I know, but true: I aspire to her level of passionate interest in life.

Once I knew I was going to set aside life as I knew it to follow a dream, it seemed like the perfect tribute to Gina to dedicate a part of that dream to her. Not only was she the one who made me learn how to typeset math (or rather, she was the one who made me realize how fascinating it could be, and who encouraged me to keep learning as much as I could), but she was the one who showed me that it’s good to hang onto your dreams and jump at them when you have the chance.

Greek Relics

A week later, and I’ve finally had a chance to unpack from my trip to Θεσσαλονίκη. (I’m procrastinating on the typeface, naturally.) I brought back some lovely souvenirs to remind me of my Greek adventure:

Greek lollipop

Candy is essential for keeping drowsiness at bay during a long conference. These weren’t the tastiest, but they have embedded Greek letters, and that’s cool.

Men's sunscreen

A pasty Irishmen like me would burst into flames if I tried to face a Mediterranean heat wave without protection. When I went to the pharmacy to grab some sunscreen, I had to wade through labels in Greek, French, and Spanish but not English. I selected a nice, strong cream, but the lady at the counter was very adamant that I buy men’s sunscreen. I tried to explain that it wasn’t a big deal, but she finally convinced me that the men’s version was better for the top of the head. (To her credit, there were no signs of pink on my bald pate after a week in the sun.) Mostly,she just seemed a little embarrassed that I might get something packaged for women.

A certain culture of assumed machismo was all over the place in Greece. I was sharing a hotel room with my flatmate Rob, like I usually do, but this is the first time I’ve ever checked into a hotel room and had the clerk automatically assume that sharing a room with another guy was proof enough that we absolutely need a room with two beds. It was the truth in this case, but it caught me off guard that it seemed so urgent to him that no female roommate meant no double bed. Luckily, we got a roomy triple all to ourselves, even if it wasn’t especially chic:

Triple at the Queen OlgaTriple at the Queen Olga

There are newsstands all over the city, and while making one of my many stops for bottled water I picked up some comic books published for the Greek market:

Greek Thing

I had to come all the way to Greece to finally find a book that dared to use upper- and lowercase lettering. See how nicely that works? I wish they’d try it in English one of these days.

Greek Batman

I especially love that even sound effects were translated into Greek. I would have assumed translations were only done using the layer with the black inks, but obviously they reprint the whole thing with the translations. That would have been a lot more expensive before the days of digital prepress.

Typecasting at the Plantin-Moretus Museum

Brass Matrices

One of them many incredible places we visited during last week’s whistlestop tour of Holland and Belgium was the extraordinary Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. (Flickr it.) From the world’s two oldest printing presses to the incredible array or original type punches and old books, it’s a mother lode of treasures and treats.

We were guided through the museum in the morning by Guy Hutsebaut, who gave us a great talk about the materials and techniques involved in handcasting metal type.

Gerry and the gang