This is a modular typeface family halfway between a 50s style sans serif and the range of numerical characters which most labelling machines use. These are seemingly contrasting concepts which lend themselves to the creation of an atypical font.

Designed by Atipus for Lost Type. Download it for free here.

.

Always worth the reading, Fonts in Use latest article is about the font DKT designed by Jonas Hecksher from e-Types. This font family is used in all the communication of the Royal Danish Theater in Copenhagen.

The specially designed typeface, DKT, has reference to the classical Egyptienne typefaces and spans from dogmatic and loud to elegant and refined. In its expression it has a humane element – small details are slightly tilted or off – creating personality, warmth and humour. By virtue of its different values, the font can span both very classical and very modern expressions. This way it captures the diversity of the theatre’s art forms and activities.

(from www.e-types.com/42480.9000)

Fonts.com, launched today as a public beta release.  Among its enhancements, the new Fonts.com debuts as the only site to offer typefaces both through a Web font service and as desktop fonts. The site has been given an aesthetic overhaul and now features many prominent showings aimed at inspiring designers and other type enthusiasts.

The redesign was led by Happy Cog – a Web development agency founded by noted Web standards advocate, Jeffrey Zeldman .

“We turned to Happy Cog for their ability to build websites that look amazing yet are highly functional,” said Chris Roberts, vice president and general manager of Monotype Imaging’s Creative Professional e-commerce group. “The new Fonts.com greatly enhances the experience of finding the right typeface.”

“As the owner of the largest repository of fonts available anywhere, Monotype Imaging needed Fonts.com to feel more intimate, intuitive and informed,” said  Christopher Cashdollar, creative director at Happy Cog. “Who out there knows more about the type industry than Monotype Imaging? This is an important differentiator. Now, not only can you come to Fonts.com to painlessly purchase fonts, you can learn about the history and evolution of type from some of the thought leaders in the industry.”

Among the site’s features:

Home page stage: A massive billboard area featuring inspirational typographic “hero images.” The stage premiers with showcases of the Massif™ typeface,  a newly  expanded design by Monotype Imaging’s Steve Matteson. The stage, which will be updated frequently to include inspiring new imagery from graphic designers and typeface designers, also debuts with showings from the Akko™, Gibson™ and Salvo™ Sans families.

Integrated search and browse control: A control that allows users to perform keyword searches, or browse or identify fonts without leaving the home page.

Enhanced search tools: Filter search results by language, format, availability as a Web font, or sort results by popularity or release date.

Web fonts: All text on the new site is set in the Neue Frutiger® and Frutiger Serif typeface families. Both have been hand-tuned by Monotype Imaging’s font experts.

Family pages: Learn the history and view hand-built showings of prominent typeface families.

Best sellers pages: View the overall best selling families as well as the best selling recent releases.

FontGazer™ Adobe® InDesign® Plug-in: Monotype Imaging’s new free tool that enables you to browse, try and buy fonts from Fonts.com directly from InDesign.

The new Fonts.com can be accessed by clicking the link on theFonts.com home page or by visiting new.fonts.com.

Visual identity and communication campain of Nuits Sonores festival’s 9th edition.
Electronic and indie music festival, Lyon-France

Some wonderful work from Superscript², an independent Lyon based graphic design studio founded in 2006 by Pierre Delmas Bouly & Patrick Lallemand, in France.

The studio Superscript² invests different medias of expression from graphic design such as publishing (book, catalog, magazine, monograph, poster …) typography (original font design) and digital media (website, digital installation…) Superscript² works for a wide range of clients across various sectors, from cultural institutions to established companies and offers them practical design solutions where content and form are closely linked.

Since 2006, Superscript² has developed and produced Ink Magazine, a publication dedicated to the typographic item.
It aims to be a space to share, confront, exchange ideas and practices with the aim to offer multifaceted approaches of graphic design.
Both visual and theoretical.

This lovely Scrabble board is designed by Andrew Clifford Capener:

The A-1 Scrabble designer edition. The purpose of this project was to revive an old, but loved game. The idea was to excite people about typography by giving them the ability to choose what font their scrabble set would come in. The set would be available in the font of your choice or with an assorted font pack. Additional font packs (including your favorite font) could be ordered through Scrabble’s website. The scrabble board and interior box are made out of solid walnut, and the exterior box is made from birch. Each of the 6 board pieces is magnetized to fit together perfectly and each piece slides nicely into its respective slot in the box and is secured by interior magnets as well. The interior of the exterior box as well as the bottoms of the 6 board pieces are lined with cork, to protect them while in use.

You can pre-order the limited edition, signed and numbered, here and read an interview about this work at the FonfFeed.

A recent Thursday at 10:23 a.m.: In the basement of Arion Press, where they still print books the old-fashioned way, Lewis Mitchell slid open a box of parts used to change the font size on the Monotype casting machines he has maintained for 62 years.

“I thoroughly enjoy the sound of the machines turning, and seeing the type come out is a joy,” Mitchell said.

He can tell by the sound of the moving springs and levers if something is awry with his machines — a skill he said all good technicians should have. Four different owners have run the business since Mitchell walked through the doors at age 18, and he has had several opportunities to leave, including a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that he declined. Now 80, Mitchell can’t imagine retiring from the job he loves so much.

When Mitchell started making this kind of type, it was really the only way to print things, and now he doesn’t know how many books he’s helped print over the decades. There were once type-casting operations in most major U.S. cities, but now the practice is almost extinct. There are only two companies left in the world that cast type for printing presses, and Arion is by far the largest.

Mitchell has four grown children and nine grandchildren, but he calls the 20 type-casting machines his “babies.” “I treat them with kindness. I don’t use a hammer on them or an oversized screwdriver.” The first machine, which started the company during 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, is still its best machine — proof that Mitchell’s methods work. “My dad taught me from square one if you going to do something, you’re going to do it right or you don’t do it.”

By San Francisco Chronicle.

Damien Gautier is a designer from Paris, with his own atelier bureau205 together with Quentin Margat. Great fonts are available from the sister site editions205. They have recently released Maax, a typeface with 4 stylistic sets: standard, geometric, modern, grotesk.

Also from them, remember the Happy Typographic Families deck of cards?

Until the 21st of May 2012 entries can be submitted for the 5th
International Type Design Competition for non-Latin typefaces which is under
the patronage of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia and the
tgm – Typographische Gesellschaft München (Typographic Society Munich).
Additionally to the categories Armenian, Cyrillic and Greek text typefaces,
this year for the first time entries can also be submitted in the new
categories Indian and Arabic text typefaces. Further information can be
found here: www.granshan.org

Due to the 500th anniversary of the first printed Armenian book this year,
the committee of GRANSHAN 2012 has decided to accept Latin text typeface
entries as well. Thereby the organizers want to express the diverse
connections of the Armenian book production and typeface design: the first
Armenian book was printed in Venice in 1512. With it Armenia was one of the
first countries which used the revolutionary technology of Gutenberg. To
enable the participation of as many type designers and typefoundries as
possible it is also allowed to enter all the typefaces created in the last
10 years.

The 2008 initiated competition GRANSHAN expresses the importance of type as
an integral part of cultural identity and also enhances the importance of
other often less noticed script systems in the face of globalization. Since
2010 the competition is held in cooperation with the tgm.

From the 14th to the 16th of June the winners of the competition will be
chosen during a conference for non-Latin alphabet systems in Jerevan, this
year’s World Book Capital. The awarded works of GRANSHAN will be displayed
at exhibitions in various cities such as Jerevan, Munich or Hong Kong.

Great work from Synoptic Office.

The physical form of language is a record of collective memory.

In this monotype typeface, the height of the letterforms is determined by how often a letter is used. This typeface maps the rhythmic ebb and flow of English.

Each letter sits in a 6 x 6 inch square, allowing for any combination of letters to run seamlessly both vertically and horizontally.

via (it’s nice that)