MetaSerif

This is the first public showing of the new Antiqua. Lots of details will still change, but the overall impression stays. A solid working serif which matches MetaSans in weight and x-height.

Get rich through typedesign?

While sorting through old stuff (I’m looking for the first sketches for Officina) I came across the first cheque ITC wrote me in the summer of 1991. ITC Officina had officially been introduced in November 1990 after we had delivered data as early as 1989. In preparation for a TypeBoard Review Meeting on January 21st I had introduced my concept:

„My favourite idea = a correspondence face, on the same lines of thinking as Stone Informal; a face for business correspondence that reads better while taking up less space than Courier or Pica, but still doesn’t look too much like a proper “designed” typeface – because once you’re using a real typeface, the whole page wants to be laid-out, to be designed. A business letter, an estimate, an invoice should be more neutral, not making a comment about its content. So we need something between Courier and American Typewriter, again perhaps both with and without serifs. Also the present versions of Courier and Letter Gothic available for LaserWriters by Adobe and Bitstream are too light to withstand more than one copy stage (ITC Officina).


Obviously, the name was in the air already. After that meeting, I made a proper proposal which I cannot find in my files right now. I am sure we’ll find that document soon so I can publish it in the course of this research into typographic history.

The first cheque came to the unbelievable sum of One Dollar and Nine Cents. The fees for cashing it would have been much higher, so I kept it as an original document. ITC Officina is still a bestseller in that library. And although the license fees are a little higher these days, I certainly couldn’t live from that money.

Meanwhile, at University

Just did a quick workshop in preparation for a proper workshop at the University of the Arts in Bremen. Those are the people who gave me the Professor title. While they don’t pay me for the work, it feels good to go back and confront young students now and again. We’re trying to come up with a concept for a big event this summer which will be under the heading of “Phantasy”. Not the type that gave its name to a film genre, but the stuff that conjurs up images of rainbows. The stuff that us rule-based designers have a hard time relating to.

foto: johannes ellmer

Amazing type

Go to amaztype and type in an author’s name or any other word. The engine then finds mentions of that word on Amazon and assembles icons of the book covers into the name you originally entered into the search box! Also works for CDs and DVDs.

Ivo Gabrowitsch fontwerk told me about it.