Tuesday June 5, 2007 / Filed under: Type Industry
Frutiger Talk
This is something I’ve been meaning to post for a while.
Last summer, at TypeCon in Boston, Adrian Frutiger was honored with SOTA’s 2006 Typography Award. (Mr. Frutiger couldn’t attend, but several SOTA board members travelled to his home in Switzerland to present the award to him. More about it here.) I was among the people who gave a presentation during the ceremony in Boston. The others were Akira Kobayashi, Bruno Steinert (both of Linotype) and Mike Parker (formerly of Linotype), who each shared personal anecdotes; and Tiffany Wardle and Jon Coltz, who shared the stage in a deeply philosophical rhapsody.
I was asked by SOTA to say some words about Mr. Frutiger, even though, unlike Akira, Bruno, or Mike, I had never worked with him, and in fact I’ve never even met him. Even worse, I had never given a talk at a conference before. But Tamye Riggs (from SOTA) pointed out that it only needed to last about ten minutes and that it would be nice to get a perspective from somebody who was not an “insider.” So, I said “okay” and jumped into the deep end.
In spite of my nervousness and minor technical nightmares (“sorry, we can’t change the screen set up to a dual display just so you can read your notes off the laptop on the podium while the presentation plays on the big screen”) it went fine and was well-received.
If you missed it, or want to see it again, I’ve made a PDF from the Keynote document, which can be found here:
Adrian Frutiger: A Personal Perspective
If you have a slow internet connection, please note: The PDF is pretty image-heavy and weighs in at 17.6MB.
About the formatting: The text you see at the bottom of the screens is my actual script—the words I was saying while the image above them was being shown. I formatted it to make it easy for me to read and not mess up the phrasing. I know that some people recommend against using a script when giving presentations, but, having never done it before, I couldn’t take the chance.
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…
Wednesday July 27, 2005 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2005 Report #2
Thursday morning we wandered around mid-town Manhattan and wound up at the New York Public Library where we saw the Declaration of Independence (including some of Jefferson’s drafts, which were surprisingly legible) and one of the few existing Guttenberg bibles. That was pretty cool.
I didn’t attend any of the workshops, but the presentation sessions commenced in the afternoon, starting off three full days of TypeCon for me. (I won’t go into the talks in detail here—if you’re curious, try this page.) What I learned:
- PostScript Type 1 fonts are dead. The future (and present) is OpenType. (Actually, I did already know this, but maybe you didn’t.)
- Fontographer is not dead, but I don’t care anymore. (There are people who do care, though.)
- Adding Greek and Cyrillic characters to my fonts will not be a simple matter, but I think I will enjoy doing it.
The highlight of the day was Paula Scher’s keynote address in the evening. Paula is one of the most talented graphic designers of the last two decades and, even though she basically just walked us through her portfolio, her energy and humor made it thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable, even thought provoking at times. (Here’s a QuickTime movie by Hillman Curtis about Paula if you don’t know who she is.)
The Typophile Film Festival topped off the evening. It was a bit shorter than last year’s. It had some good things in it, but nothing to top last year’s Helvetica It Hurts, in my opinion. Although, Strange Attractors’ Little Yellow Writing Hood was close (and funnier).
Tuesday July 26, 2005 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2005 Report #1
It’s been two days since I left New York City and TypeCon2005. I thought I would be writing reports from the conference, but I found NYC and the conference itself more stimulating than sitting at my computer keyboard. But, now that I’m back and well rested…
As I mentioned in my previous report, I brought my family with me. We spent a blisteringly hot Monday in Brooklyn, getting there by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. By afternoon, we made our way to Coney Island and spent some time there. My mother visited Coney Island when she was young and risked her life on the famous parachute ride they used to have there. They no longer have that ride, but I did accompany my daughter on the next best thing, the Cyclone. It’s nearly 80 years old, which made me all the more apprehensive about taking a ride on it, but I survived as I knew I would.
The pre-conference workshops started on Wednesday and I helped conduct an all-day one for FontLab with Ted Harrison (of FontLab), Adam Twardoch (also of FontLab), and Brian Sooy (a fellow type designer). This was the first workshop like this I’d ever participated in so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turned out that I was the only one of us actually in NYC before Tuesday evening, so it was up to me to see if FontLab had been or could be installed on the Macs at Parsons School of Design where the workshop would be held. The folks I talked to at Parsons didn’t seem to know anything about TypeCon or the workshop and informed me that nothing could be installed on their computers without 30 days prior notice. Oops. We got it straightened out and the workshop went very well.
Saturday July 16, 2005 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2005 Report #0
I’ve just arrived this evening at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City for TypeCon2005 which starts in a few days.
My partner and I spent last evening with our daughter (who dyed her hair red and dressed as Ginny Weasely) at a bookstore in Minneapolis until after midnight to get hold of two (!) copies of the latest Harry Potter book.
We decided to combine a family vacation with TypeCon this year. They’ve both been reading their Harry Potter books all day at the airport and inflight (including a three-hour weather delay), while I’ve sat around being bored and making them feel guilty for not letting me have a turn. Actually, they did let me read a little. I’m up to about the middle of Chapter 2.
But, I didn’t fly all the way out to New York City to read Harry Potter (come to think of it, neither did they) and write about it here. So if you’re expecting to find out what happens in the book, forget it. If on the other hand you want to find out what happens when type geeks get together, watch this space.
Tuesday July 27, 2004 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2003 Report #4
I meant to take more photos than this at the conference, but here are a few. Sorry, no drunken typophiles or attention to white balance.
Monday July 26, 2004 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2003 Report #3
The tag shown above is what I wore around my neck the last four days at TypeCon2004. The black and yellow stickers were provided by FontShop—sort of Magnetic Poetry™ meets FontShop logo. Of course everyone had to try to out-do each other sticking funny or bizarre combinations on themselves, turning the whole conference into an ad for FontShop. Very clever.
Rather than try to continue the blow-by-blow commentary I started the other day, I’ll just share a few random thoughts:
In Roger Black’s talk on custom typefaces for magazines and newspapers Friday morning, I wished that he was speaking to a room full of publication art directors instead of type industry insiders.
Armin Vit proved that people say the darnedest things about type.
Richard Lipton’s Bickham Script and House Industry’s Ed Interlock made me even more excited than I already was about the possibilities of OpenType.
I’ve never flown on Sun Country Airlines before, and I’m not sure I want to do it again. They’re cheap and efficient, but it’s the first time I’ve thought seriously about upgrading to first class. Both ways. Enough said.
As I left one of the sessions, I had to laugh at myself as I wondered if there was a Starbuck’s nearby. Just like the comic cliché, I found one almost immediately by picking a direction at random.
It never occurred to me that the Black Panther Party used Letraset and cheap Compugraphic typesetting machines. Duh. That’s what everyone without a budget (including me) used to use.
Ken Barber and Ed Benguiat make a great comedy team, but Ed could easily take his act solo. Seriously, the tribute to Ed was the highlight of the event for me. I can’t describe how great it felt to be part of the crowd giving Ed not one but two standing ovations before it was over.
Christian Schwartz is not only a very talented young type designer, he can also do a pitch-perfect impression of Erik Spiekermann.
The Underware guys are freakishly talented at drawing letters and know how to put on a good show. Their presentation about TypeRadio started with a brilliant animated movie they made at the conference—apparently in their room on hotel stationery—that very neatly set the tone for the rest of their presentation. I’d love to get hold of a copy of it.
Akira Kobayashi made a surprise announcement that there is a Palatino Sans in our future (along with a completely new and improved Palatino). Even more surpising is that it looks pretty nice.
The Font Bureau’s Dyana Weissman knocked everyone off the dance floor at the party on Saturday night. In some cases, literally, so I heard. I missed a lot of this because I and five or six others learned how to get up to the roof away from the noise of the party. It was very pleasant up there. I had a nice conversation with Frank Jonen about, among other things, what it’s like to work with Herman Zapf. We must have been up there for quite a while because a lot of people were gone by the time we came back down.
The party also featured a type trivia quiz. I tied for third with Stephen Coles and somebody else with 36 out of 50 possible points. Stephen won the tie breaker with the correct answer of Nick Shinn as the designer of Fontesque. (I knew it too, but Stephen buzzed in first.) Not surprisingly, Jon Coltz won (over 40 correct, I think.)
In what is becoming a TypeCon tradition, John Downer removed and sold the shirt off his back.
The conference sessions ended on a poignant note with Dan X. Solo’s moving eulogy to metal type—pegging the American Type Founders auction in 1993 as the day Gutenburg really truly died.
After that, a lot of people said their goodbyes. Many left or got on one of the buses up to Sumner Stone’s farm for a picnic. A few of us stayed behind at the hotel for various reasons (I had to catch a plane home before the bus would be back). I ended up spending a pleasant afternoon and dinner with Ray Cruz and Gary Munch. (I’ll be curious to hear how the picnic went.)
I barely slept on the flight home to St. Paul and got in early morning. I saw my family off for the day, posted a new “sponsor” letter on Notebook, and crashed on the couch.
Can’t wait until next year.
Saturday July 24, 2004 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2004 Report #2
I’m having too much fun actually doing the conference, so writing about it will have to wait. Sorry.
Friday July 23, 2004 / Filed under: Type Industry
TypeCon2004 Report #1
I arrived in San Francisco late yesterday, just in time to register and catch the first presentations.
First off was Linotype’s presentation of the winners of its annual type design competition. Its pace was a bit too leisurely—good for the recipients, giving them plenty of time to talk about their work, but a little hard on the audience. The highlight was Tony and Caio de Marco’s acceptance for the third place award in the display font category, which shook the audience out of its stupor, thanks to Tony’s energetic presence.
Next up, Erik Spiekermann presented “Sex, Type & Rock & Roll,” an overview of the fonts he’s designed over the last 25 years, putting them into historical context, along with lots of witty and insightful observations about type in general. His presentation featured several bits of music, including the title song recorded by his son and a ditty accompanying a visual count-off of the 229 years that will pass before we get another year like 1999 (which has three descenders when set in old style figures).
Last up was the Typophile Film Festival, presented by Joe Pemberton and Jared Benson. By this time, it was nearly midnight, and a lot of people (especially those from the East coast) had faded out of the auditorium to head off to bed. Those who stayed enjoyed a series of short films related in one way or another to type. Some were animated type, others were films about type, and some, like the new Flash film by Cheshire Dave (of Behind the Typeface fame) are a little harder to categorize. My favorite was Helvetica Hurts (not sure about the title), a hypnotic silent symphony of dancing Helvetica characters. Not to diminish the creativity it undoubtedly took to create it, but it would make a great iTunes visualizer module.
Out in the lobby, people were chatting via video link with FontLab’s Adam Twardoch in Berlin, who was unable to attend because the US government would not give him (or Yuri Yarmola, FontLab’s lead developer) a visa. I don’t know what is wrong with people sometimes. I was looking forward to meeting Adam and seeing Yuri again. Turns out this was not the case exactly, but I still would have liked to have seen them.
Wednesday July 21, 2004 / Filed under: Type Industry
Prelude to TypeCon2004
Tomorrow I’ll be flying out to San Francisco for TypeCon2004, an annual gathering of people involved in or interested in the making of fonts. Although I’m not going to any of the workshops this year, I expect to be enjoying numerous panel discussions and talks, and generally getting to talk to wall-to-wall type people. I had a blast last year and expect the same this year. I have not spent much time in San Francisco (less than a day!), so I’m looking forward to that too.
I’ll have a camera and internet access, so I hope to post a few stories and photos while I’m at the conference.
Stay tuned…