Bastard

Bastard

Bastard is a modern interpretation of Blackletter typefaces designed by Jonathan Barnbrook in 1995. It uses modular shapes do build the letterforms that chair the same fractured make up of original blacklister typefaces whilst appearing modern.

Taken from Barnbrooks education website:

Q — You seem to put a lot of emphasis on the name of a typeface, why is this?

A — It is very important, in the past a typeface would take years so it was almost a life’s work. Therefore people would often use their surname. There was also the ‘Letraset’ school of naming which was to name after a visual pun to do with the typeface. Technology has changed the time taken and access for producing typefaces so it can be done be individuals on a much quicker timescale. I suppose I see it as a cross between naming a pop song and a painting. The name can be throwaway; last for a moment, but it can also have many different layers. The name ‘Bastard’ for instance I thought about a lot. The typeface is a blackletter (or gothic) font. It has strong associations with Fascism. It would have been silly to ignore this, even though blackletter has a large place in the history of typography, most people would associate it with the Nazis so it was a chance to almost ‘laugh’ at that. But if you bother to look further into the name, you will know that there is a 14–15th Century form of blackletter called ‘Bastarda’ or that putting the ‘wrong font’ in a piece of letterpress setting is called ‘bastard type’. All I am trying to say is that naming a font is incredibly important. There is a tension there, which can be played with.

Description:

Bastard is a blackletter font drawn with a contemporary eye. Historic forms have been reinterpreted using a set of modular parts and a new aesthetic appropriate to the contemporary technology it was produced on. In recent history these kinds of letterforms have been identified with the Nazis but blackletter type has been central to the development of typography for over five hundred years. The name 'Bastard' confronts these fascist associations but also refers to its historic basis.

Note: 8/5/2012
The main thing I have taken from this typeface is the modular way it is composed, reusing shapes to create each letter. I have done this to a lesser extent but it has enabled me to create my own typeface quicker, recycling parts and sort of creating in the spirit of Austerity!

Walbaum Fraktur

Walbaum Fraktur

Walbaum Fraktur was designed by Justus Erich Walbaum in the 1800s. It is a Blackletter font based on type found post 1200AD particularly in the area of Germany. It uses typically calligraphic strokes, high contrast between light and heavy stokes and a detached formation of the letters.

Fraktur (Latin for broken) typefaces had a renewed popularity just after the Great Depression with the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi's. They cultivated an aesthetic sense which was Nationalistic to the extreme, in support of their political campaign which focussed on the greatness of Germany, its old empire, and the alleged German humiliation in the Treaty of Versailles.



Note: 8/5/2012

This has been one of the main influences on my typeface, I have drawn a lot from the calligraphic, expressing strokes that give a hand drawn appeal that a more geometric font such as P22 Bayer Universal lacks. I think this gives the typeface a more human appeal, bringing a bit more emotion into the typeface rather than it be cold and purely functional. I was going to soften the contrast but, due to time and, so as to not water down a feature I thikn it important I have kept the string contrast between line weights which is another feature of Fraktur fonts.

P22 Bayer Universal

P22 Bayer Universal

P22 Bayer Universal is a font created from designs by Herbert Bayer by Denis and Richard Kegler in 1997. The Universal font is synonymous with the Bauhaus, of which Bayer was a student in Weimar. Bayer completed his final exam in 1925 and became head of Print and Advertising at the Dessau Bauhaus.

Hi experimental typeface Universal combined upper and lower case is a single character set, based on the Carolingian Minuscule (A calligraphic standard that meant all literate classes could easily recognise the latin alphabet and was used in Charlemagne's Empire between 800 and 1200. It developed into Blackletter and became obsolete). The text takes the concept of recognition and simplicity further, creating basic shapes for letter and abandoning different glyphs for upper and lower case.

The typeface was never cast into a font and existed only as designs until 1997.

Rotis

Rotis

Rotis was designed by the Otl Aicher in 1989. It's a comprehensive family group with Sans Serif, Semi Sans, Serif, and Semi Serif styles, for a total of 17 weights including italics. The four families have similar weights, heights and proportions; though the Sans is primarily monotone, the Semi Sans has swelling strokes, the Semi Serif has just a few serifs, and the Serif has serifs and strokes with mostly vertical axes. 

The blending of sans with serif was almost revolutionary when Aicher first started working on the idea. Traditionalists felt that discarding serifs from some forms and giving unusual curves and edges to others might be something new, but not something better. But Rotis was based on those principles, and has proven itself not only highly legible, but also remarkably successful on a wide scale.

I first came across Rotis when I was looking for an alternative font for the Air & Ground logo.

The Semi Serif provided the right swooping serifs which was present in the existing logo. I explored these Semi/Demi serif fonts further and eventually settle on Ela Demiserif.

Ela Demiserif Bold Italic

Typeface Design

I really did not know where to even begin with designing a typeface.

When I asked Eric Spiekerman and Jonathan Barnbrook what software they use, Jonathan pointed me in the direction of a video which goes through the process of getting drawing into applications like Fontlab.






There is also a process guide on the FontSmith blog below.

http://blog.fontsmith.com/2012/02/bespoke-process/

I think realistically I will be looking to get the shapes for the typeface drawn for the end of this project, into a point where I can put them into FontLab and make them a workable font.


Note: 8/5/2012
Also found this article, a "What I've learned" by Gerry Leonidas
http://ilovetypography.com/2010/03/25/a-few-things-i’ve-learned-about-typeface-design/

Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic

Named after inventor and printer Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Gothic was created in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton. Between 1902 and 1912 American Type Founders issued the first five faces: Franklin Gothic regular, condensed, extra condensed, italic and condensed shaded.

With the emergence of serif font popularity, Franklin Gothic largely fell out of favor until in 1952 when ATF introduced the Franklin Gothic Wide font, designed by John L. “Bud” Renshaw. Within a few more years they again added a new face with the Franklin Gothic Condensed Italic font by Whedan Davis. But the heyday for Franklin Gothic’s older gothic style was being eclipsed by the newer more sleek style of fonts like the Univers® and Helvetica® typeface families.

In the early 1980s International Typeface Corporation® began developing new versions of old metal typefaces and commissioned Victor Caruso under an ATF license to create four new weights of the font for the roman and italic faces: book, medium, demi and heavy and issued them in two designs: display and text. ITC continued to develop the family in various weights and styles, and produced versions in PostScript Type 1, TrueType and OpenType formats.

David Below of the Font Bureau approached ITC and began a collaboration in 2004 to rework Franklin Gothic for the digital age. The first phase of the redesign was completed in 2008. This new family was simply called ITC Franklin and has grown into a robust set of 48 different fonts!

No other typeface really compares with the constant revival Franklin Gothic has enjoyed. It has been prevalent during all the major periods of austerity which makes it perfect as a source of inspiration for my typeface!

Albertus

Albertus

Albertus was begun in 1932 by Berthold Wolpe at the encouragement of, again, Stanley Morison. Morison had seen an example of Wolpe's inscriptual lettering and commissioned him to design a typeface based upon the design he had liked so much.

Work continued on the typeface right up until 1940.


Note:
There is some lovely bits of this typeface where curves and angles meet, particularly on the "a". I have taken this into my typeface to fit in with the contrast them, particularly in the "f", "t" and "s".