Monday May 11, 2009
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Son of Typecasting
Changeling Cast in Star Trek
I saw the new Star Trek movie this last night and was thrilled to spot one of my fonts, Changeling, in a supporting role. Here are some examples from a couple of high resolution publicity stills for the movie:
Changeling was a redesign and expansion of an old film font from the seventies called China. I added more weights, more styles, and more characters, as well as modifying the design as I saw fit. One of the more noticeable things I changed was the “4”, which is how I know it’s Changeling that was used in the film.
What’s funny about all this has to do with my choice of the name “Changeling”. It contains all the letters in the name “China” (I added things to it, get it?). A “changeling” refers to something that comes back in a different form, and this was a font coming back in a different form. It’s also the title of an episode from the original Star Trek t.v. show, something I was aware of when I chose the name—the sci-fi connection made me like the name even more, because of the way the font looks. Finally, that particular Star Trek episode was the basis for the first Star Trek movie.
Needless to say, I was in several kinds of geek heaven last night.
Tuesday November 11, 2008
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Font Sightings: The Next Generation
Ever since I started Notebook, I’ve been occasionally posting “font sightings” and I even have a special category for them. It worked okay, but the samples I’ve posted here have been kind of small, and I thought it would be really neat if, somehow, all the Coquette sightings could appear on the Coquette page, for example.
For a while I’ve had this idea of using Flickr as part of a new and improved Font Sightings system. I finally stopped thinking about it and did it. It was actually pretty easy, if a bit tedious.
I already had about a bunch of photos of font sightings in Aperture, and I picked about a hundred of the best ones. After spending some time naming and tagging them, I used the Aperture Flickr upload plug-in to get them all up on Flickr.
The second step was to add some special code (from Flickr) to the font pages and Notebook to display a set of three random sighting and provide a link to the appropriate photos on Flickr (see the top of the column to the right).
So far, I’ve only uploaded what I already had in Aperture. I still need to add all the stuff people have sent me over the years (thanks to all who have), plus all the stuff I don’t have photos of yet. Some fonts aren’t yet represented mostly because I didn’t have sightings of them in Aperture. These will be coming soon. Some of them, like the newer ones and poor old Sharktooth, I’ve just never seen used yet.
From now on, new font sightings will appear on Flickr and (randomly) on the right-hand column of Notebook and the font pages. The “Font Sightings” category for Notebook is basically dead. Long live Font Sightings!
If you have seen any of my fonts out in the wild, or maybe have created designs using them, feel free to send photos or scans to mark@marksimonson.com.
Wednesday July 25, 2007
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette
The cover of this book about George Gershwin is one of the nicer uses of Coquette that I’ve seen. (Thanks, Jeff.)
Friday April 27, 2007
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette and Mostra
I’ve been seeing more of these two typefaces lately. Here are some sightings I found in the last few days.
The first is Mostra all over the cover of Cigar Aficionado magazine:
And here are two recent sightings of Coquette, the first on a television commercial for Archer Farms (Target), where they have used a neat letterpress effect:
The last is another use of Coquette on the beautifully designed cover of the new book American Food Writing:
Friday January 5, 2007
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette
A line of meat products in Sweden is sporting Coquette on its packages. (Thanks to Peter at Fountain type foundry for the tip and the photo.)
Tuesday May 23, 2006
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Proxima Nova
The 42 members of the Proxima Nova family get a real work out in What’s On TV, the best selling magazine in the UK. Virtually all the type in the magazine is set in Proxima Nova, from the headlines on the cover to the tiny, densely-packed text in the radio and tv listings section. It’s all part of a recent redesign of the magazine, and, according to one of the designers, the reaction from readers has been positive. The magazine also requested a new weight—halfway between Regular and Semibold—which I expect to release to the public in the near future.
Friday October 7, 2005
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Proxima Nova
One of the first prominent uses of my recently released Proxima Nova is at Joyent.com where it is part of their corporate identity. Notice they are using the alternate lowercase a.
(Thanks to Stephen Coles for telling me about this.)
Friday August 19, 2005
Filed under:
Type Industry
Font Sightings
TypeCon2005 Report #3
Okay, I was originally going to post one or two more detailed reports about the conference. But it’s kind of old news now. Suffice it to say, I had a blast and met lots of interesting type people I hadn’t met before—Chester (Thirst & Village), Yves Peters (Typographer.org, etc.), Steve Jackaman (International Type Founders), David Berlow (The Font Bureau), Akira Kobayashi (Linotype), Mario Feliciano (a very talented type designer from Portugal), Peter Bain (Incipit), Gerry Leonidas (Reading/UK), Stephan Hattenbach (MAC Rhino Fonts, Sweden), Carol Wahl, (Type Directors Club), Rodrigo X Cavazos (Psy Ops), Dan Reynolds (Linotype), and too many others to mention—as well as catching up with previous acquaintances again.
Several cool things happened that I have to mention:
The weekend before TypeCon started, I was mentioned in an article about small type foundries in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. I knew this article was coming out because, of course, the reporter talked to me a few weeks before. There wasn’t much about me in the article, but I think I gave the writer some good leads.
My new Proxima Nova was reviewed in a “keepsake” limited edition booklet put together by Typographer.org. (More about it here.)
Finally, on Friday morning there was a presentation by SpotCo, a design/advertising studio in New York that does nothing but Broadway publicity work. I hadn’t heard of them before, but recognized some of their work (most famous of which is probably their campaign for “Rent” in the mid-90s). All very nice work. But I did a double-take in the middle of it when they showed the slide shown at right. Mostra Bold on Broadway. How cool is that? I’m not the only one: They used Eric Olson’s Bryant for the Lennon show.
So, that’s it for TypeCon2005. Now back to our regular programming…
Thursday August 11, 2005
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette
While I was at TypeCon in New York, one of the attendees walked up to me and handed me a copy of this wedding invitation on which he had used Coquette. (I think this was the first time I have been recognized in public by someone who had used one of my fonts. Oh, wait, I was wearing a name tag.) Anyway, what is really cool about the invitation is that it was printed letterpress.
Friday July 15, 2005
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Felt Tip Roman
There must be something very “teen angst” about Felt Tip Roman. It keeps showing up on teen fiction titles like this. Looks good, although I see they didn’t like my cap I.
Monday February 28, 2005
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Mostra
I’d like to thank the Academy for using my font Mostra on last night’s broadcast of the 77th Academy Awards. There were so many other great fonts under consideration to be displayed on the stage floor of this year’s ceremony, and… I’d also like to thank TiVO, Apple Computer, Adobe, FontLab… and all the little people… (music starts to play)... Thank you, everyone!
Tuesday February 22, 2005
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette
Designer David Nix used Coquette on a promotion created for duty-free shops in Los Angeles and San Francisco airports.
Monday October 11, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Grad, Already!
I saw the sale go through my e-commerce pipeline the other day, and, Ho! there it is. Nicely done.
Update: Never mind. He’s changed it again. Still worth a visit, though.
Monday August 2, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Beware of Imitations
As noted on the sample page, Felt Tip Roman has been used in the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books to represent the handwriting of the character Hagrid. I’ve always thought this was kind of cool, and it makes a nice example when trying to talk about font design with people who have never thought about where fonts come from.
Over the weekend, I was shocked to learn that there is a free font, distributed by many of the Harry Potter fan sites, purporting to be “Hagrid’s handwriting.” After checking it out, I was relieved to discover that it is not a pirated copy of my Felt Tip Roman, but a rather poor imitation.
As you can see, it looks more or less similar, but is clearly not Felt Tip Roman. Looking at it more closely, it appears that the person who did it must have copied the letters with a pen by eye (making up the ones she didn’t have samples of), scanned them in and had the computer autotrace them. (Felt Tip Roman was hand digitized, not autotraced.)
I guess I don’t mind fans using this imitation font. At least they are not passing around bootleg copies of the real thing. But if you do want the real thing, remember: It’s not a free font, and never has been.
Friday July 16, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Felt Tip Roman
Imagine my surprise when I saw my face at the Post Office. Typeface, that is. A very prominent use of Felt Tip Roman.
Wednesday July 14, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette
Talk about typecasting: Coquette is used rather coquettishly on the cover of this Jane Green book.
Thursday July 8, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Proxima Sans
Nelson & Bainbridge picture framing products have been sporting Proxima Sans on their logo for a while now (with custom diamond-shaped “i” dots).
Tuesday July 6, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Blakely and Coquette
Minnesota Eats Out, by Kathryn Strand Koutsky and Linda Koutsky, was published recently by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. This really enjoyable book features two of my fonts: Blakely is used on the cover and for running heads inside, and Coquette is used throughout for initial caps.
Saturday July 3, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Felt Tip Roman
Felt Tip Roman is being used very effectively on this series of young adult novels by British writer Louise Rennison. There are at least five of them, but these two are my favorites.
Wednesday June 30, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Refrigerator
A rather nice use of Refrigerator by Typographica guy Stephen Coles. Here’s a detail:
Wednesday June 30, 2004
Filed under:
Font Sightings
Coquette
I recently noticed Coquette used extensively in the book “Everything for Baby” by Adélaïdé D’Andigné and Alain Gelberger, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang last year. Notice how the baby in the photo seems very interested in the font. Obviously, a budding typophile.