Typostitch 23 in Helsinki Design Week
Helsinki Design Week and it’s 10th anniversary is coming soon! Typostitch 23 collection is part of HDW and will be seen in Kluuvi Design Lab, Shopping Centre Kluuvi, Aleksanterinkatu 9. Open 4.-14.9. Mon-Fri 11-19, Sat 11-17, Sun 12-17. Wellcome!
http://www.helsinkidesignweek.com/news/helsinki-design-week-main-events-on-a-map/
Helsinki Kawaii Guide introduces Lokal Helsinki…
…and Typostitch in it! On the upper corner right the gallerist Katja Hagelstam. Helsinki Kawaii Guide in published by the Japanese publisher Edition Paumes.
The Perfect Gift
I got this lovely, old German “kreuzstich” catalogue from my dear friend as a birthday gift. She had found it from a fleamarket. A True Treasure! Thank you so much Essi!
Springsalon still open for over a week
The exhibition ends on Sunday the 9th of June, so plenty of time still visit the Lokal Gallery and get some food for soul!
23/23 Albert-Jan Pool: FF DIN 1995
FF Din numbers, 40 x 60 cm.
The story of FF DIN goes like this:
San Francisco 1994. Albert-Jan Pool and Erik Spiekermann share a cab together from the ATypI conference to the airport. Spiekermann tells to Pool that if he wants to earn some money with type design, he should redesign OCR and DIN. Spiekermann had noticed that the existing DIN had became popular with graphic designers because of the typeface’s “lean, geometric lines”. Spiekermann invites Pool to Berlin to discuss the idea in detail.
Next year Pool’s FF DIN is published by Spiekermann’s FontFont. Pool designed a family of five weights, added true italics and some alternative characters, such as the “i” with a round dot. With time, five weights of DIN Condensed were added, as well as Greek and Cyrillic versions. The shape differs from the original mostly by thinner horizontal strokes and by more fluent curves.
Digital DIN fonts were available at the time, but only in two weights and in pure geometric shape. Pool’s FF DIN is based on a group of typefaces known as Deutsches Industrie-Norm (DIN) Schriften (German industrial standard fonts), which has its roots deep in German culture: it is considered the official typefaces of Germany. DIN was used for all German traffic signage.
Despite its primitive, technical look and the clear reference to the German motorway signboards, FF DIN became a phenomenon. Somehow it became almost as a new Helvetica, typeface to be used anywhere you need clarity.
FF DIN found its place also in posters and signs of cultural institutions. For instance the signage of Pompidou Centre in Paris is designed with FF DIN, quel skandale!
http://www.fontshop.com/fontlist/super_families/ff_din/
http://dinfont.com/story/
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=139323
22/23 Matthew Carter: Verdana 1996
Verdana Regular upper case “Å”, diameter 21,5 cm.
Verdana is a typeface that was originally designed to use on screen. Most typefaces were designed for print and paper, but in Verdana’s case everything was created with the screen in mind.
Verdana is a humanist sans serif with large x-height and thus it is very legible even in small sizes. It has no serifs, but simple curves and open letterforms. The letterforms are so open that the counters, the negative spaces in the letters, do not fill in the letter and diminish the legibility.
The letterforms are also spaced widely so they are legible even when displayed in computer applications that don’t control spacing.
To increase the legibility even more Carter designed letterforms that look alike (such as i, I, and 1) to be as dissimilar as possible. The characters are now easy to distinguish. Number 1 (one) in Verdana was given a horizontal base and a hook in the upper left, and the uppercase “i” has serifs.
I chose an A-ring a.k.a. uppercase “å” to stitch. It has a completely round and big ring which is combined straight to the top of the letter “A”. Beautiful!
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=139312
21/23 Tobias Frere-Jones & Jonathan Hoefler, Gotham 2000
Gotham Thin, Book, Bold & Ultra upper case “T”, 46 x 46 cm.
Are you aware of your own little peculiarities when it comes to typeface? Do you fancy number one with serif? Or maybe it is the arm and leg junction that turns you on or off? Ligatures?
My category is the arm and leg junction. The way they are combined in Gotham’s upper case “R” or “K” is just so appealing to me, it is also very charasteristic to Gotham. I love geometry, thus I find geometric sans-serif Gotham very pleasing. Same with Futura. Oh, those round shapes and “pureness”!
Gotham is the newest typeface of the MoMa’s digital typeface collection. It was designed for the Gentleman’s Quarterly Magazine. They wanted to display a sans-serif with a “geometric structure” that would look “masculine, new, and fresh”. It has been said to be “one of the most succeesful typefaces of the early twenty-first century”.
Gotham is a typeface that somehow feels familiar. The familiarity might also have something to do with the fact that Gotham was used widely in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign material in 2008. But it also has its origins in building lettering in New York, which Frere-Jones studied carefully before designing the typeface. Most of the influences came from Port Authority Bus Terminal. Though Frere-Jones wanted his drawings to exhibit the “mathematical reasoning of a draftsman” rather than the instincts of a type designer, he allowed Gotham to escape the grid wherever necessary, giving the design an affability usually missing from ‘geometric’ faces. From an European angle it also carries a strong Art Deco vibe in it.
I suppose there’s a hidden personal agenda in the design, to preserve those old pieces of New York that could be wiped out before they’re appreciated. Having grown up here, I was always fond of the ‘old’ New York and its lettering,” Tobias Frere-Jones has said.
Gotham’s family is big. It has eight weights and an extended range of widths: a Narrow, an Extra Narrow, and a Condens. I chose four weights to this piece of cross stitching.
http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100008&path=head
http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_history.php?historyItemID=1&productLineID=100008
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=139301
http://idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-gotham/
Typostitch 23 on television yesterday!
Typostitch 23 was on FST’s culture program Pixel on Friday, wow! I’m not sure if it is possible to see the program outside Finland, but here is the link, timing approximately 3:40
http://arenan.yle.fi/tv/1881090
The whole Typostitch 23 Collection now in Lokal
Yesterday was the first official day when the Kevätsalonki (Springsalon)-exhibition was open. We had great party on Wednesday with friends and relatives. It felt amazing. The work was done and it was time to celebrate it with the ones you love.
Still few more stories of the fonts to be told here. In the meanwhile you can go to Lokal Helsinki (Annankatu 19) where it is allready possible to see all MoMa’s digital typeface collection cross stitched.
It will be open until the 9th of June.
http://lokalhelsinki.com/wordpress/exhibition/kevatsalonki
Typostitch 23 
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