The cover provides a table of contents, with an outlined letter a from each of the 16 featured typefaces.

CAST Foundry loves to spread the typographic word. This is why we have partnered with the independent Italian publishing house Lazy Dog Press to produce Cast It, a periodical publication that discusses the history and culture of type together with CAST’s digital fonts. Half magazine, half specimen.

Cast It #3, “Der Schriftgiesser” (“The typefounder”, by Johann Samuel Halle) is a description of typefounding included in Werkstäte der heutigen Künste oder die neue Kunsthistorie – a virtually encyclopedic series concerning crafts originally published in Leipzig between 1761 and 1779.

Thanks to Dan Reynolds, we now have Halle’s text for the first time in English. His translation comes with a foreword (also by Reynolds) which is also the only commentary on its contents ever published in any language.

The fonts used for the title page are, from top to bottom: Macho Modular, Rialto dF (“An Essay”), Voland Italic, Sempione Grotesk (“Typefounding”), Capraia Italic, Sole Sans, Saffran (“Werkstäte …”), Dic Sans, Valnera Italic (“Werkstäte”), Neon Nbl, Arzachel Italic, Voland (“Dan Reynolds”), Valnera Italic, Macho Moustache, and Rialto dF.

The opening page of the essay is set in Valnera Monster and a type weight gradient from Arkit.

Spread with Zenon, Gramma (left), and various styles from Neon Nbl (right).

Spread with cross-page text set in Macho Moustache.

Detail.

Sempione Grotesk and Sempione Modern.

English translation with two-column text set in Capraia, Gramma, Rialto dF, Divenire, Fulmar, and Arkit.

From CAST type foundry’s Instagram account: “someone took inspiration from one of the Saffran’s sample images on our website to engrave the word POSTA on a marble letter box.”

Designed as a typeface for text under 7 points body size, Saffran comes with sturdy and simplified letter shapes to prevent tiny type from looking blotted or clogged in print. As with most ‘micro’ typeface styles, the same details that were designed to remain invisible can be used to make a strong or vivid impression when used big.

The angular stencil shapes of Saffran seem almost like an invitation for use in lettering – but perhaps its shapes are more easily repeated when cut with a knife, rather than carved from marble with a hammer and chisel. I guess the unknown designer (in Japan?) had his text machine-engraved, maybe using a CNC router.