Mark’s Notebook - Page 45
I’ve been working on this font family for almost 25 years. Here’s an early sketch (possibly the first one) from 1981:
Here’s Proxima Nova Bold for comparison:
The caps are a bit different from the early concept sketch (they started out with proportions more like Futura), but my concept for the lowercase has remained virtually the same all these years.
Proxima Sans (released in 1994) was my first attempt to realize that concept, and one of the first major fonts I developed. Proxima Nova, just released today, has ten years more thinking and experience behind it. It also fulfills many of the plans and ideas I had for Proxima Sans—small caps, wider range of weights and styles (including Condensed and Extra Condensed), and things I never dreamed of, like extended language support and UniCode.
If you want to know more about this new family of fonts, here are some links:
There is also a comprehensive 93-page PDF sample book. I split it into two parts in case you just want to look at the overview (the first part):
Proxima Nova Overview This nine-page introduction has complete information about the fonts with one-line display samples and a page of text samples. (420k PDF)
Proxima Nova Full Specimen This 84-page comprehensive specimen devotes two pages to each of the 42 Proxima Nova fonts—one with display showings and one with text samples and complete character set. You might want to make sure your printer has enough paper before printing this out. (2.2mb PDF)
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Back in March, I mentioned that I was in the final stages of developing a new font family, Proxima Nova. It’s now about three months later and most of that time was taken up by doing the italic.
“What took so long?” you might wonder, “Isn’t it just a matter of slanting the roman version and saving it? That couldn’t take more than an minute or two.” As you may have guessed, it’s not that simple, especially if one wants to do it right. Allow me to illustrate.
Here is a sample set in Proxima Nova Bold:
Here it is simply slanted:
Notice how the curves have become distorted. The subtle modulation of the stroke weight is thrown completely out of whack, getting thinner in some places and thicker in others. This is especially noticeable with the S, O and P. Notice how the O looks kind of squashed. The A is also affected, but the difference is less obvious: the left stroke has become slightly thinner while the right stroke has become slightly thicker.
Characters like E and H, with only vertical and horizontal strokes, are virtually unaffected by slanting. However, any characters which are composed of curves or angled strokes must be optically corrected in a high quality font.
Here is the same sample set in Proxima Nova Bold Italic:
Much better, isn’t it? It takes a lot longer to make all those optical corrections, but the result—a font that simply looks right—is definitely worth it.
I expect to release Proxima Nova by the end of June. It’s available now.
Vintage soap package seen in an antique store in Hopkins, Minnesota, December 18, 2004.
I’ve been invited by Addison Hall to participate in this “musical baton” thing that’s being passed from blog to blog. I’m a good sport, so here goes:
Total volume of music on my computer: 10.09GB, 2,572 songs, 6.5 days worth.
The last CD I bought was: Escondida, by Jolie Holland. Already among my favorite albums.
Song playing right now: None. I actually don’t usually listen to music while I work (this is working?). On the other hand, I do like to listen to stuff from the Fresh Air archives while I work.
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
Well, these don’t all necessarilly mean a lot to me, but they are a few of my favorites…
Cheminant A La Ville, by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. I know some french so I can almost understand this song. Plus, it’s beautiful.
Communication Breakdown, by Led Zeppelin. Best played very loud.
Jealous Guy, by John Lennon. My favorite Lennon song.
Free Money, by Patti Smith. I love her early stuff.
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, by Madeleine Peyroux. Great cover of an old Bob Dylan song.
Five People to Whom I am Passing the Baton:
Typographica (either Stephen or Josh)
Mark Friesen
Reader Dan Madden is a fan of my Pangrammer Helper, a little Flash application I made that helps in the creation of pangrams. (A pangram is a sentence or phrase which contains every letter of the alphabet.) He and his family had so much fun with it that it prompted his brother, an english professor at BYU in Utah, to hold a “Pangram Haiku Contest” with his students. Here are some of the results:
Lost in flight, quiet.
Yellow jacket reproves me.
Vexed, I buzz away.
Mosquito buzzes
around jackal’s furry paw.
So vexing, that bug!
Read ye my haiku!
Strong, living words dazzle. Jump
back, quietly fixed.
Haiku verses flow
like a bad, exacting quiz.
Too jumpy, yet fun.
The ax swerves, tree dies:
Quite a lop job, so crazy.
Man kills for nothing.
Wise raven in tree
Spies sly fox dozing. Gives him
Loud quack. Bejeezus!
Your quick wit doesn’t
Faze me. I can’t help your jive!
Go back to de-tox!
A Kodak package design from the early 1950s, from the collection of Knut Simonson. Photo taken January 1, 2005, Cranberry Township, Ohio.
My uncle Knut worked as a graphic designer for Kodak during the 70s and 80s. I visited him recently and discovered he had acquired some really cool old Kodak packages while he was there. This one is my favorite.