Type Slugs 2006-03-07

This edtion: Archive Type goes Cafepress; The T26 Showcase; MyFonts goes for world domination with Berthold and Ascender; FontShop webs it up…

This edtion: Archive Type goes Cafepress; The T26 Showcase; MyFonts goes for world domination with Berthold and Ascender; FontShop webs it up.

Let’s Shop Archive Type

In a recent mailing to people on it’s list, antiquarian digital typefounders Archive Type announced the opening, by popular demand, of an online shop:

Customers can purchase t-shirts, sweaters, coffee mugs, messenger bags, mouse pads etc. Individual items are priced starting at US$ 12.99 for a journal to US$ 29.99 for a hooded sweatshirt.

Apart from basic Archive Type logo design, there are 9 other vintage illustration designs. Illustrations are stylish 19th century black and red woodcuts with a twist. The collection will be soon updated with more vintage illustration and typographic motives.

We don’t have much to add; as far as we’re concerned, what’s not to like here? Archive Type’s online shop is accessable at www.cafepress.com/archivetype, and Archive Type’s main page (in case anyone needs a reminder) is http://www.archivetype.com.

T26, This Month

T26 asks us to consider their April offerings. There is some fun stuff here worth a look; Square 40, a font that lives up to its name; The wonderfully dotty yet intimidatingly-named “Taser” by Jim Barcus; E-lan Ronen’s “Typeka“, proving that just when you thought the typerwriter paradigm was played out someone can breathe some fun new life into it (it reminds us of old-timey newspaper city rooms); and Sport, an amazingly large symbol set by Carlos Segura.

In Your Face, And Then Some

Big news in this month’s MyFonts e-mailer.

At the top, they now offer creations from Berthold Fonts and Ascender. Says Myfonts on Berthold:

Akzidenz-Grotesk is perhaps the best known Berthold type family. From its launch in 1898 it was so popular that soon two German competitors, Stempel and Bauer, were spurred to issue similar designs. The 1920s fascination with the Modernist movement gave geometric sans-serifs a temporary edge. But by the 1950s the grotesk style was back: not only Akzidenz-Grotesk, but also several major new designs from Switzerland. Since then demand for mechanical and humanist forms has always been outstripped by grotesques, and Akzidenz-Grotesk today remains a smart choice. Other notable and popular sans-serifs are Barmeno, Formata, Imago, Cosmos, and Delta.

Ascender Corporation is a foundry that should need no introduction, but might; its product is everywhere, and MSOffice users get to look at it every day: Arial, Times New Roman, Comic Sans, Tahoma, Trebuchet, Georgia, and Verdana. Now, Myfonts is making them available in PostScript, which should go over very well.

Also on the menu this time are fourteen other new foundries on offer, a list too long to mention here; go look!. Spring has sprung, and so has Myfonts. You can read this month’s In Your Face directly at This link.

FontShop Sees The Future

Lastly this time, FontShop’s montly e-mailer calls a trend:

The web has come a long way from the days of blinking text and pages with everything aligned center. Web designers are employing new methods to present information in the clearest, most readable way, while still flaunting some style.

Did they make the correct call? You be the judge. Truth be told, with attractive and exciting fonts like the featured Ulissa and Neo Tech (which we at Designorati quite approve of) we’d be amiss in arguing the case against.

The word from FontShop: corners are out, rounded is in, hard-edged futurism is cool, big is bigger than ever, and the classics are never, ever out of place; that’s why they’re classics.

Got something interesting? Please won’t you let us know?

08 April 2006