As a parent teaching my kids about letters, it’s sometimes difficult to know which A to focus on.  What is the Platonic form of the lowercase A?  It may also be an occupational hazard that I want to tell them about serifs and italics and the difference between a two-story “a” and a one-story “a.”  And I’m not alone.  Here are several books that have been put together with the aim of teach children more about the various and sundry shapes that our letters can take.

Bembo is a typeface that was developed in 1929, but was based on the print in a 1495 work from called De Aetna.   The De Aetna type, as it is called, was cut by Francesco Griffo for a printer named Aldus Manutius in Venice.  The modern typeface was named after Pietro Bembo, an Italian poet who wrote a short book about a journey to Mount Aetna.  (That text was the original purpose of the De Aetna typeface.)

Bembo has been very popular for setting books and long texts since the 1930s, but more recently it was the inspiration for a children’s book, Bembo’s Zoo, by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich.  The author creates a zoo-ful of animals out of the letterforms of the Bembo font.

An even more recent project is The Clothes Letters Wear, by Jeremy Dooley.  It’s a straightforward trip through the alphabet, but each letter is taken as an opportunity to explain and explore the myriad forms of letters.  That project should be available to purchase within the next few months.

One more resource that teaches children about letters, typography and letterforms is a book called Hyperactivitypography from A to Z by Studio 3.  The book looks fantastic, although I have yet to see the printed version–that link will lead you to the Studio 3 project page and the book itself is available in a number of online stores.

Book Design, Books, Community, Design, For EMM, Type Design, Typography

MJM logo woodcut

As a Christmas present to the MJM team, I made a woodcut based on the MJM logo and hand-printed a copy for each team member. It’s a good change to leave the computer and work on a physical project–sometimes it’s refreshing to make a huge mess and get wood shavings all over your kitchen counter.

(I am indebted to the real printing artist in the family. Mel walked me through the process and helped me in the printing. Take a look at some of her prints, paintings and illustrations here.)

Creativity, Illustration

I’ve been getting more and more interested in typeface design over the past year.  A carpenter needs to know how trees grow and a chef should know something about the origin of the food that ends up on the plate.  In the same way, a designer who works with text and letterforms every day should have a solid understanding of how those letterforms are constructed.

I like the idea of designing a custom typeface that could serve as the unique voice for an organization. There was a time when an author could be identified by the handwriting on the manuscript, but fonts have largely taken on that role. There’s a good chance that I would recognize and associate a font with a brand more quickly than I would recognize the handwriting of a close friend. (I don’t exchange much handwritten correspondence these days.)

Until now I’ve been exploring type design on my own by sketching, researching and trying to build a few different typefaces, but next week I’ll be attending the Crafting Type workshop in Boston with to explore it in a more guided, systematic way.  I’m looking forward to it, and to the new creative directions that will come from this trip.

Community, Design, Identity, Travel, Type Design, Typography

Hard-to-read headlines in a brochure are obnoxious, but hard-to-read highway signs can be a hazard.

For decades the typography used on US Highway signs was a patchwork, each sign maker creating letterforms according to his or her style.  Most of the early signs were hand-painted, and painted in uppercase letters because the lowercase is more difficult to paint.  Unfortunately, text written in uppercase letters is more difficult to read.  (Ask the US Navy.)

For this reason, street and highway signs are now written in a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters.  It’s been proven to be easier to read under a variety of conditions.  James Montalbano is a type designer who collaborated in the creation of Clearview, the typeface which is now used on most highway signs through the US.  In an interview for a New York Times article on Clearview, Montalbano gave this illustration of why a combination of upper- and lowercase letters is more readable:

If a word is set in all caps, all you will see are little white rectangles,” he said, scribbling a quick “HELLO” on a napkin. The word looked heavy, almost industrial.

But this has a definite profile,” he continued, and then he drew “Hello” again on another napkin, this time in a mix of upper- and lowercase letters, its peaks and curves and dips setting off all the necessary clues in the subconscious. He held the paper in front of me. As he slowly pulled it farther away, the individual letters became harder to read, but the shape of the word remained distinct. “Your brain,” he concluded, “knows the shape of the word.”

Clearview has a high x-height which allows for large, easy-to-see lowercase letters that still retain the unique profile of the word.  It also features large counters (the spaces or bowls in letters like “p,” “c” or “o”) which creates visual space without sacrificing the sense of the letter.  Take a look at these examples, from the ClearviewHwy field tests:

In design, context is everything.  While Clearview may be more legible on a sign, it would be tiring to read a entire book set in Clearview.  One is more legible, and the other more readable.  (Although there is now a Clearview Text font, so feel free.)

Design, Illustration, Type Design, Typography

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