Digested on December 10, 2004Posted by David Earls
Blimey. Must be Christmas.
Over at Typographica, Yves Peters reports on the award for Europe’s Best Designed Newspaper to Flemish paper De Morgen. Previous winners include The Guardian here in the UK, and Corriere della Sera, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Trouw and just across the radioactive waters, The Irish Times.
It is very hard to judge a paper's design based on low resolution images, especially a broadsheet, so my comments are aesthetically-weighted and based on the overall layout, rather than on its readability down at body level. Personally, I wasn't impressed with them - while some of the special sections appeared to be attractively laid out in their own right, breaking from the norm and giving a sense of personality, the same cannot be said of the mainstays. The front page appeared cluttered and comes complete with an unfortunate Guardian-esque masthead that has none of the finesse of its apparent progenitor. Throughout, the inconsistent use of type (Swift and ITC Conduit) is jarring, and this would seem entirely consistent and the inevitable consequence with the "organic" approach taken to the paper's design. Maybe I am behind the times, but I would have suspected that a newspaper needs a holistic approach to its design rather than a piecemeal one.
Judge for yourselves. I decided to compare the handpicked thumbnails of De Morgen on the link above to today's Guardian. Here are a series of images, fairly randomly chosen, to contrast:
Guardian Cover
Guardian Sport section (inside)
Guardian Comment & Analysis section
Guardian Business section
Guardian G2 tabloid section cover
On to other news. Lets get the new fonts out of the way, with links to Baseline's Maxime, and Chank's Santa Script.
TDC reminds you that you have until 10 January 2005 to enter submissions for their eponymous type design competition. Details here for those brave and talented enough. If you've created a custom font for a client here in fashionable Europe, you may also be interested in entering the Les Trophée d'Or taking place in Paris. More details here.
On the web, John Berry has published his take on the Japanese mag Idea's Type Design special issue, covering the articles on or by Fred Smeijers, Jean-François Porchez, Robin Kinross, Akira Kobayashi, André Baldinger, Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, François Rappo, and Matthew Carter. Impressive. Elsewhere online, meneer Peters also gives a brief rundown of Process' Klavika, and there's a new typography website to visit over at Usabletype.com.
And finally, do you find SMS shorthand annoying? Apparently, we Brits do.
Enough for this week. Just in case I don't get an opportunity to post, I hope everyone has a great holiday and a fantastic New Year. 2005 - more than 4 posts, honest!
Sources: MS Typo, Typophile, The Guardian, FontLover.com, The Register. Thanks to Yves for pointing out my inability to spell "Flemmish".
Please note the change of email address for press release and news submissions has changed. See the site footer for more details.
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Digested on December 2, 2004Posted by David Earls
I'm back properly now, and just to prove it there is even an Atom newsfeed, so lets get on with it...
Linotype has announced TypoTechnica 2005, which this year will be held at St Bride Printing Library here in London, UK.
Running from Thursday 17th til Saturday 19th 2005, events will include font development forums, extensive workshops (using FontLab, not that other thing), and lectures, topped off on Saturday with a tour of St Bride itself. As Linotype are coming to the UK, it'll all be in English this time round, with additional German support available in the Computer Lab. Sadly, it will be UK English, so the North Americans may wish to borrow a few extra Us and pack a few less Zs before leaving.
Not including VAT (which is, oddly, at the German rate not the UK rate), it'll set you back 300 euros, with entry to all the sessions, two lunches, 4 snacks, an "evening event" and the tour of St Bride. If I had the full 348 euros, I'd definately come along to this.
This week sees the news that Reading University, home of the world-famous Typography department, has switched across to renewable energy. In Wednesday's Guardian, Tom Chance, coordinator of the Go Green campaign at Reading, said "After two years of campaigning for the university to go green, we are ecstatic it has made this huge step to helping the environment." Well I am too.
How about this for a dreamy yet scary job. Hoefler & Frere-Jones are seeking a typeface designer. Strictly located in New York, if you think you're up to the challenge (and lets face it, its going to be), check out the press release over here at Typophile.
New fonts? There are some here, here, here, here, and here.
And finally, Jean François Porchez has posted a series of images from his trip to Dubai. Three pages worth, covering bi-lingual signage. Definately worth a peek.
Sources: Linotype Press Release, MS Typo, Typophile, The Guardian, FontLover.com
Please note the change of email address for press release and news submissions has changed. See the site footer for more details.
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The masthead is currently set in Sabon Next, by Jean François Porchez.
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