Les Savoir-faire de la mode: Sources / The Crafts of Fashion: Sources covers various issues relating to know-how in fashion design and raises the crucial question of sources. From publisher Éditions 42:

Fashion encompasses a vast array of professions and crafts, and as many singular histories; how can we think about this object of study when faced with the diversity of the practices that make it up? Plaiters, tailors, embroiderers, and other model makers, often anonymous, animate the worlds of fashion and their technical cultures, but how is this technical knowledge, which is also “knowledge of the body”, studied, preserved, and transmitted? This volume looks at the existing anthropological and historical traditions in this field, and examines current methodological innovations that enable us to understand this dynamic, little-explored area of research.

The contributions that make up this book were given in the form of lectures as part of the research seminar Chaire CHANEL et le19M des savoir-faire de la mode at the Institut français de la mode.

The book was published in French and English editions. It was edited by Émilie Hammen, with translations by Phoebe Hadjimarkos Clarke, has 232 pages and measures 190×250 mm.

Cover of the English edition

Bastard Countryside collects together fifteen years worth of exploration within the British landscape, dwelling on what Victor Hugo called the ‘bastard countryside’: “somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures”. Robin Friend’s large-format colour images scrutinise these in-between, unkempt, and often surreal marginal areas of the country, highlighting frictions between the pastoral sublime and the discarded, often polluted reality of the present.

Starting from a classical landscape tradition, Friend’s meticulous 5×4 photographs are given heightened effect through exaggerations of colour and composition, embodying friction between British pastoral ideals and present reality. In particular, Friend follows moments in which the expected narrative of the landscape is rudely interrupted: often through leakage, pollution, or the wreckage and containment of nature.

In his accompanying essay, writer Robert Macfarlane describes Bastard Countryside as “a vision par excellence of our synthetic ‘modern nature’– produced by assemblage and entanglement rather than purity and distinction”. Contained within Friend’s photographs are “hard questions […] about what kinds of landscape one might wish either to pass through or to live in; about what versions of ‘modern nature’ might be worth fighting for, and why.”

Visual identity for Zaunkönig Appartements in Baden-Baden using Almost Roman as main typeface. The capital N is taken from Almost Gothic, and the O from the Almost initials series, illustrating the bird’s nest (a “Zaunkönig” is a bird wren). “Appartements” is typeset in DTL Fleischmann Italic, the smalll texts are in Bureau Grot.

The illustrations are taken from anonymous 19th-century engravings. The enamel plate was produced by Mikolajczak in Grudziądz. Find more information on the Zaunkönig website.

Adrift reflects on Ricardo Brey’s most recent body of works Adrift (2014–ongoing) as well on the artist’s overall aspirations for his exhibitions in Museum De Domijnen in Sittard, the Netherlands (February – June 2019) and Gerhard-Marck’s Haus, Bremen, Germany (December 2019 – March 2020). While it is not an artist book in the traditional sense, it is definitively a project by an artist. The aim of the publication is to create a sense of the artistic space that Brey wants to offer, with a polyphony of voices and an immersive sphere in which a quality of behavior is of prime importance.

The typography pairs two related typefaces. Haarlem (Edition Studio) is used for body text; headlines are set in DTL Fleischmann (Dutch Type Library). Both typefaces are based on the types of Johann Michael Fleischmann (born in Nuremberg, Germany, early 1700s–Amsterdam 1768) who worked as a punchcutter at Enschedé in Haarlem.

Designed by Studio Luc Derycke and published by MER. Borgerhoff & Lamberigts

From April 10, the Museo del Prado will be presenting the exhibition Rubens. Painter of Sketches, offering “an analysis of Rubens as the most important painter of oil sketches in the history of European art.” The exhibition poster shows a detail from The Miracles of Saint Francis of Paola, one of the numerous stunning works by the Flemish artist, created around 1627–1628. The typeface is the distinguished DTL Fleischmann, a revival of types that also originated in the Low Countries (albeit a century later). What’s not to like?

Typophiles are hard to please. The baroque fourth letter is actually not a “cool swash E”, as Nina Stössinger points out. But what does the shady character signify here? Miguel Sanz wonders whether the exhibition shows works by RUbetNS. (Or rather RUByNS?) Can the impressive œuvre be explained by the fact that it was created by a duo, known as “Pieter Rub & Paul Ns”, as Frederik Berlaen suggests? Maybe the poster was designed in the Netherlands—the show will later travel to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum—and it says RUBenNS, which is not that bad, is it? My guess is that this is the revenge of the ampersand, see this previous post featuring another creatively repurposed glyph.

Gracias to Miguel for sharing the pictures!

Super magazine is biannual magazine built on a theme that changes every issue. It is divided in three sections that are handled by guest editors which brings a great deal of variety of content into its numerous pages. Profusion, enthusiasm, collection, culture, curiosity.

Student project of which only 3 copies were made. Textual content was sampled from the following sources (Fantastic Man, Miami Herald, Monocle, Museum, The Oyster, Port, Vigilantic, Wikipedia, Wine Folly, Wine Lovers Page). The majority of photographs & illustrations are original creations except for these: Astronomy Picture of the Day, Bruno Staub & Bruce Weber for Bob Paris. I do not claim to own these images; they are used in a strictly educative & non-commercial way.

Visual identity, poster and program for Le Colombier, a cultural space in Magnanville.
The identity features photographs taken around the place, capturing moments of life and fragments of landscapes.

A book to commemorate 100 years of the Sants-Montjuïc townhall in Barcelona. The clean and clear typography was chosen to emphasise the images. A modern version of a classic and historic typeface which, like the building itself, evokes the past while looking to the future.

Opernkosmos is the new magazine of Oper Köln, the Cologne opera.

intelligentlifemagazine.com is the online version of Intelligent Life, the culture and lifestyle magazine from The Economist. The website offers not only content from the print edition, but also The Daily, which carries blog posts – quickfire observations, reviews and opinions that allow readers to eavesdrop on the conversation in the office. Access is entirely free.

Ultra stripped down covers for Verso’s Radical Thinkers series designed by Rumors.

Series of 8 posters about communication in non-places.

Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht — Ton Steine Scherben

Alptraum — Slime

The use of High Times Regular/Goofy in the corporate newspaper of High 5 Hang 10 called "Logbook".

“Collaborating with a group of artists, curators, photographers, and editors including Julie Ault, Martin Beck, Heinz Peter Knes, Jason Simon, Danh Vo, Scott Cameron Weaver, Amy Zion, and others, Project Projects designed a catalogue that documents and uncovers the art collection of Julie Ault, writer, artist, and co-founder of Group Material.” — Project Projects

Fonts In Use just turned three. That seems young, but it’s something like a teenager in internet years, right? Regardless, the more significant milestone came in mid-2012 when we launched the Collection, opening the archive to public submissions. Since then, we’ve experienced a growth spurt: the site now documents and discusses* over 3,200 designs using at least one of over 1,700 typeface families from hundreds of foundries. (*I use the present tense because Fonts In Use is a living archive — one in which entries of any age are easily accessible, cross-referenced, and with comment threads that are always open for new insights and discussion.)

Ok, numbers are nice, but what thrills us most about the new platform is what it can do. Over the last few months we improved our typeface pages, adding high-resolution samples, space for biographical information, and links to sources and related typefaces. We gave account holders the ability to create Sets and “Like” Uses. We expanded the Collection pages so they show more Uses and take advantage of wide screens. And we deployed an bunch of other enhancements that are best covered in another post.

We also welcomed new writers to the Blog so we can publish more frequent typographic histories, observations, and critiques.

Today, we celebrate our birthday with a few party favors. Introducing the first of an annual awards show. What follows is the “best of Fonts In Use in 2013”, as dictated by our editorial staff. This list of font uses and users is a glimpse into contemporary type-driven graphic design. We hope it surfaces content from the collection that you may have missed, and sparks you to contribute your own work — or work you admire — to the growing archive.

Uses of the Year

To us, great typography means thoughtful type choices used in skillful or unusual ways. The work below reached the pinnacle of that standard in 2013. The winners include designs from a range of formats, from exhibition and poster design to websites and book covers. They represent designers and studios from around the globe. And they span the gamut of typeface styles, both old and new, from over a dozen different foundries.

Big Plans Exhibition Design
Designed by Jessica Svendsen and Julia Novitch
Using Bureau Grot and Letter Gothic

1941: The Year That Keeps Returning Book Cover
Designed by Rumors
Using Puncho and DTL Fleischmann

Image, Building, Object Film Series Posters
Designed by James Goggin
Using Plak and an unreleased typeface by Laurenz Brunner

The Bling Ring Trailer and Posters
Designed by P+A and Silenzio Communication
Using Dom

Designing News
Designed by Francesco Franchi
Using Domaine, Atlas Grotesk, and Atlas Typewriter

Uses of the Year

Honorable Mentions

Stitching in my own way: The embroideries of Iris Todd

Stalkr Brand and Website

Kunst am Spreeknie Schöneweide Art Festival

2013 Pitchfork Music Festival Announcement

2013 Pitchfork Music Festival

2013 Pitchfork Music Festival App

Gargalo Nº 1, 2, 3, 4

Bambudda

Achtung: Berlin Symposium

Messages by Dillon Francis Music Video and Album Art

Belvedere Square Market Sign

Fritz Müller Sparkling Wines

Users of the Year

These graphic designers and studios produced several pieces that our staff recognized as exceptional typography. For this award we looked at all the Uses in the Collection credited to a designer, not just the work produced in 2013. (When we say “Users” we mean “font users”. The best users of the site are honored in the next section: “Contributors of the Year”.)

Pentagram

NYC Beaches identity

InsideOut SF poster diptych

Rockaway Beach Installations

The Printing House identity

This storied New York-based studio is well represented in our collection not just because they are famous or produce so much newsworthy, visible work, but because they obviously love type. Pentagram makes good use of a wide range of typefaces and they document that work well, writing about their type selection and giving credit to the font makers.

Nina Stössinger

“Zu bürgerlicher Eintracht und Vertraulichkeit”

10 Jahre Sprachenzentrum

kobebeef

Ästhetik des Opfers

Nina Stössinger is a Swiss designer of books and identities who uses a variety of typefaces (many of them very new) from various sources and lucidly articulates her choices on her site and Fonts In Use. We recognize her here not for her 2013 work, but for her rich contributions over the last three years. She can be excused for using less type recently because she’s been quite busy learning more about how to make it: Stössinger is currently a Type and Media graduate student at KABK in The Hague. She writes about that experience too.

Solo

Gargalo Liqueur

Deseo & Psiquiatría

Gargalo Wine

El valor del tiempo perdido

Solo is a Barcelona studio founded in 2011 by Óscar Germade. Their work for a range of luxury brands and editorial publications is characterized by restraint, setting stages in which the type itself is the focal point.

Studio Laucke Siebein

Angewandt Exhibition Materials

KinderKulturMonat (ChildrenCultureMonth)

Poster for Typography Lectures at HBK Saar

Flexa Creations Color Chips

Like Stössinger, this nod to Studio Laucke Siebein is more of a multi-year achievement award. Dirk Laucke (Amsterdam) and Johanna Siebein (Berlin) give new life to unusual and forgotten typefaces in their decidedly modern work.

Users of the Year

Honorable Mentions

Thomas Alberty, New York Magazine

Arem Duplessis, The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Digital

TGG Hafen Senn Stieger

Robb Rice

Richard Turley, Bloomberg Businessweek

Contributors of the Year

Since we opened the site to public submissions in mid-2012, these Fonts In Use visitors contributed the most interesting and discussion-provoking Uses to the Collection. Not only did they upload good images of great work, but bonus points were awarded for adding insight, commentary, or critique.

Chris Purcell

After over 30 years as a designer and lettering artist at Hallmark Cards, Chris Purcell retired in 2012. Their loss is our gain: Chris has been a voracious contributor to Fonts In Use since then, adding over 40 Uses to the Collection. His submissions are broad ranging, covering many different industries, formats, and periods. The examples are sometimes from his own collection or documented with his own photography. And many of them are more than a simple image upload: they include his commentary, which often generates further discussion.

Mille Bornes Card Game (1960 Edition)

13-inch Lucite® ruler (1970s)

Smithsonian Magazine Table of Contents (1989 & 2013)

Maurice Meilleur

Along with some of his own fine work, Maurice Meilleur has contributed several pieces by other designers. Maurice is an MFA student in graphic design at the University of Illinois, and his literate, academic approach is very welcome among our ranks. We’re grateful for Maurice’s extra effort in spotting interesting work, writing a useful description, and producing good imagery, either from his own photos or images generated from PDFs.

University of Illinois

Isotype: Design & Contexts

De:Bug Magazin

Patch Hofweber

Patch Hofweber is a American ex-pat living in Malmö, Sweden. His contributions number over 20 to date, and focus on web and identity design, two areas of his own multidisciplinary expertise. He sometimes supplements his submissions with a bit of typographic critique, an attribute that served him well as one of our rare guest writers on the Fonts In Use Blog.

Julius: The Cards

Örnbergsauktionen 2013

A List Apart 5.0

Contributors of the Year

Honorable Mentions

Mine Creek

Robin Rendle

Michael Bojkowski

Contributors of the Year

Font Foundries & Providers

Letters from Sweden

TypeTogether

Rosetta

FontFont

bb-bureau (Benoît Bodhuin)

Editions 205

Sudtipos

Font Bureau

Webtype

Contributions of the Year

This is a placeholder for a future award, meant for those non-staff contributions that are exceptional in their visual documentation, critical analysis, and/or historical research. To get that ball rolling for 2014, here are a few Uses that were popular or controversial from last year:

Volksbühne Berlin Poster Campaign

The Other Times Modern

Cheers Logo and Opening Titles

Myspace 2013 Rebrand

Hessian

The Third Man Movie Poster

The Great Gatsby Film Promotion

2013 Tesla Model S Dashboard Display

Yahoo! Logo (2013)

Fonts In Frequent Use

In addition to the typefaces represented by our featured Uses and Users of the Year (most of which are shown in the main sidebar at the top of the page), the font families shown at right appeared most frequently in 2013 designs posted to Fonts In Use. This list only represents work in our Collection, so these certainly aren’t the most prevalent typefaces in all design today — that would be overlooking system/app bundled fonts, Core Web fonts, freebies, other perennially popular typefaces like Gotham, Interstate, and Neutraface, and revivals of classics like Caslon and Garamond. Yet they do reflect part of the current design zeitgeist: all sans serifs, most (except Alright Sans) are firmly in the static Gothic, Grotesque, or Geometric models. An odd outlier is ITC Serif Gothic. Nick Sherman has discovered that Lubalin and Di Spigna’s 1972 design is seeing a curious revival.

Early Users

Our observant co-editor Florian also noted these early adopters of typefaces newly released in 2013 or late 2012: Macula for Colin Smith, Audree for AwardsLine, Berlingske for A-Magasinet, Line for Rodeo, Domaine for Designing News, Magasin for Elle Decoration, MVB Solitaire for Assembly, FF Quixo for Publishing Design syllabus, FF Mark for Bench, Baton for L’Histoire du Diable, FF Dora for Gewone Letters, Landmark for Parc Olympique, Vinter for Queensland Ballet, and LL Circular for a number of uses.

What did we miss? With over 2,000 Uses added to the site in 2013, there is surely more typography worth honoring. What were your favorite font uses of 2013? Link ’em up in the comments below. And if your favorite design is not already in the Collection, now is the time to contribute. Your participation is vital to this endeavor.

In autumn 2013 the Lost Art Press published a deluxe edition of André-Jacob Roubo’s L’art du menuisier in an English translation under the title To Make as Perfectly as Possible. This beautiful and costly book was designed by Wesley B. Tanner.

On the Lost Art Press Blog, Tanner elaborates on the design of the book:

[…] The design of the deluxe edition takes the ambiance of the 18th-century book for its design cues; early 20th-century book designers, most notably Bruce Rogers, termed this “allusive typography.” Hallmarks of the Rococo book include the substitution of type ornament for woodcuts, a rationalized system of titling (breaking the chapters into discrete parts, and giving them subheadings), and the use of Baroque typefaces. Each of these changes marks the progress toward the industrialized production techniques of the 19th-century: the change from hand-press platen to the cylinder press; rationalization of scientific inquiry; a narrowing of the letterforms, together with shorter descenders and a tendency towards a more brilliant style of cutting. […]’, and on the selection of the applied typefaces: ‘Fleischmann types, finding themselves eclipsed by the modern styles, fell out of fashion and disappeared from use; but for an edition like “[…] Types created during the 400 years of printing were entirely cut by hand, letter by letter, and each size was adjusted for its optical size. After the invention of the pantograph, most types were created using only one master set of drawings. This has continued to be largely the case with the current group of digital fonts. A few fonts have been designed with optical scaling in mind: a set of drawings for sizes 12 point and below, known as Text; a Display set for 14 point and above. DTL Fleischmann is one of these. In the deluxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” the footnotes, sidenotes and the editor’s comments on process have were set in the Text version; Roubo’s text and most of the headings were set using the Display set.

Besides DTL Fleischmann ad-hoc display fonts and ornaments bases on work by Jacques-François and Matthias Rosart digitized by the book’s designer were applied.

“1941: The Year That Keeps Returning is Goldstein’s astonishing historical memoir of that fateful year — when the Ustasha, the pro-fascist nationalists, were brought to power in Croatia by the Nazi occupiers of Yugoslavia.” — New York Review Books

Paul Janssen et al., de Gouden Delta der Lage Landen, Twintig eeuwen beschaving tussen Seine en Rijn (Antwerpen, 1996). 403 pp, linen binding with slipcase, 29×24 cm.

This was one of the first major books typeset in the display and text versions of DTL Fleischmann, which were both released in 1994. The design is by the Belgium book designer Antoon De Vylder, who made an extensive range of books for the Mercatorfonds Paribas using DTL typefaces (in many cases just after their release). Antoon De Vylder is also lecturer at the Plantin Society in Antwerp since the 1990s.