Updates before the jump

Some updates before the jump. I’m about to finish a round of visits to various doctors as I wanted to get a proper, thorough check up before leaving. I’m also working to close most of the outstanding works at the studio: of the two major projects I have at hand, one is currently entering maintenance and the other is dormant but hopefully doable in the next two weeks. Two issues remain outstanding but will need to be taken upon once I’m in the UK: one is getting a bank account, the other is getting insurance for my personal belongings.

I also just finished reading a bunch of articles from Gerry’s introductory MATD reading list. These are the ones I went through:

1. Phil Baines, Face lift: new cuts at the Times.
2. Emily King, Digital type decade.
3. Robin Kinross, The digital wave.
4. Matthew Carter, Galliard: a modern revival of the types of Robert Granjon.
5. Jack Stauffacher, The Transylvanian Phoenix: the Kis-Janson types in the digital era.
6. Ladislas Mandel, Developing an awareness of typographic letterforms.

The article by Phil Baines is about the redesign of the Times’ typeface, from Gunnlaugur SE Briem’s Times Millennium to Times Classic – which was redesigned again last year into Times Modern as part of Nevile Brody’s Research Studios redesign. My friend Claudio Piccinini was in correspondence with Times Classic’s designer Dave Farey at the time, so I got a booklet from the Times Classic launch exhibition too, which had some more information. All in all I must say I really enjoyed the different takes on Times New Roman over the years, the motivations for the redesign and all the different implementations. I must also add I found very interesting this TypeRadio presentation by Mike Parker claiming to have uncovered some interesting facts about Times Roman’s past. Apparently he followed up with a talk at the recent TypeCon about the alleged attribution of Times New Roman to Starling Burgess. Font Bureau is also working on a revival of the original drawings, called Starling and to be released soon.

I liked very much the Galliard article: it’s very well written and it let somehow transpire Matthew Carter’s love towards his profession (bonus points for his closing remarks). Stauffacher’s article surprised me with the depth and breadth of Nicolas Kis’ work: I was somewhat aware of his importance in typographic history, but didn’t expected such an engaging story. The man was prodigious, cut his own types and sold them all over Europe.

I also just finished reading Geoffrey Dowding’s Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type and Frederic W. Goudy’s Typologia (which where not on the reading list) and Robin Kinross’ Modern Typography and Texts on Type, a miscellanea of writings about type edited by Stephen Heller and Philip B. Meggs (which were).

Phew!