Rants

Revival-O

We're in the midst of fixing and converting the last of the old typefaces at Fountain into OpenType. Revival was one of my first typefaces made sometime between 1993-94. Looking at it now I can see the curves aren't that great. Some things were hard to spot in Fontographer, and most problems are just pure ignorance, laziness and lack of skill. 

For the update I was on the verge of discontinue it, but at the end I still thought there was something interesting enough to keep. With these last typefaces I've however woved NOT to be faithful, and essentially I can do whatever I want with them – loose a weight or two, or add new weights, re-draw every character or just adjust minor flaws. Anything goes! 

Below are some images that compare the old and the new (as usual click the image to enlarge) old in gren/blue and new in black: 

Fountain site launch

This year Fountain has been operating as a type foundry for 15 years. To celebrate this we decided to make some changes. Fountain is proud to announce the launch of our new website, a brand new OpenType library and the release of 4 new typefaces. www.fountaintype.com

Copenhagen

Just testing bloging from my iPhone.

Försäkringskassan och Mercury

Watching TV the other day, and on comes a commercial from swedish goverment's National Heath Insurance Company – Försäkrigskassan. They're decreasing the payments for the sick and poor. To support this they use my typeface Mercury in their commercial. I'm lucky I can't afford to take sick leave.

Mad Men, Type & groceries.

Favorite type designer Mark Simonson has some written a series about the use and misuse of typography on TV and in movies, under the collective title Son of typecasting.

The last piece is about the type in favorite TV-series Mad Men.

See also his first article on the subject: Typecasting: The Use (and Misuse) of Period Typography in Movies, and while you at it – take a look at his typefaces.

Foundry Ornaments

This is the one of the most bizarre foundry ornaments I've ever seen.

Pick from "98. Drunk Bear" or "99. Scornful Bear"

From the Dan X. Solo collection.

CopyPasteCharacter

Ever wanted to get a hold of that "no-so easily-accessible-glyphs" right away when typing? My friends Mattias and Peter over at Konst & Teknik has together with Martin (who's helping me with the new Fountain site) released a little site to help us out. It even includes an interrobang.

www.copypastecharacter.com

Working on the little tails –part three

"Iogonek.Traditional" from Lars Bergquist's "Paracelsus C" :

Working on the little tails –part two

This is what I see in my head before I fall asleep – little egoneks chasing me.

Working on the little tails –part one

If there's a word to describe this summer it would be – Ogonek!

When converting the old Fountain fonts to OT Pro we realised that even though there was an ogonek in the encoding set, it had never been used in combination with another glyph. Thus, we've had to re-design most of them to make them fit properly.

One of them I had real problem with, but today it feels like we "nailed that tail".
This is the "Aogonek" in Gábor Kóthay's Dessau Pro – Plakat:

Finally!