For the artwork on Margo Price’s latest album, Hard Headed Woman, the typographic palette echoes the grit and charm of classic Americana. Her name appears in Ars Nova from PintassilgoPrints—a decorative, Art Nouveau-inspired display face whose bold, squarish forms instantly signal a sense of time and place. The album title is set in Cottonwood, an Adobe Originals typeface from 1991 inspired by 19th-century Western wood type, adding a rugged, frontier-style texture to the composition. Smaller supporting text uses News Gothic, a quintessential American sans serif designed by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders in 1908.

The typographic mix feels rooted in time, and a little rebellious, by blending vintage influences with a modern confidence that mirrors Price’s own blend of country: true Americana and outlaw soul. The typography extends across the album packaging, the deluxe boxed set, and merchandise—giving the entire release a cohesive, unmistakably American voice.

[More info on Discogs]

On June 14th we embarked upon a kayaking adventure that would take us across the entire Deh Cho river (also known as the Mackenzie River) in the Canadian Northwest Territories. The river begins on the Western shore of Tucho (also known as the Great Slave Lake) and flows all the way up to the Beaufort Sea (which is a part of the Arctic Ocean).

Our journey began on the beaches by the small town Xátł’odehchee (also known as Hay River) and for 54 days we would make our way towards our goal, a small Inuvialuit hamlet known as Tuktoyaktuk. During our voyage we visited small communities along the way, such as Zhahti Kue, Tthek'éhdélį, Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́, Pehdzeh Ki, Tulita, Tłegǫ́hłı̨, Rádeyı̨lı̨kóé, Tsiigehtchic, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.

The area we crossed during those 54 days was vast – the Northwest Territories are approximately four times the size of our home country Finland, but hosts a population of merely 44.000. (It is estimated that bears outnumber humans in the NWT.) The people who live on the land we travelled through are to the most part First Nations: Dene, Gwich’in and Inuvialuit.

Wherever we landed, we were met with warmth and kindness, and there was not a moment we didn’t feel welcome on the land. We learned a lot from the people we met and the discussions we had helped us gain a better understanding of what life was like in these remote areas.

Along us we naturally also brought our adventure flag – the standard underneath which we felt our journey to be blessed.

The design of the flag, as the journey itself, was a collaborative effort. Alone we are nothing. Christoffer designed the flag, Viivi did the caribou illustration, and Haije served as our seamstress.

On the obverse side the Dene name for the river (Deh Cho) is spelled out along with the year of our expedition. On the reverse side the abbreviated version of Tuktoyaktuk is written on top of a caribou. (The name Tuktoyaktuk can be translated into ”looks like a caribou”.)

The typefaces on the flag are three digital revivals of type from the late 1800s/early 1900s. Mark Simonson’s Etna (a revival of Aetna, William Hamilton Page, 1871) is used for the words Deh Cho, with the year being ATF Wedding Gothic (originally released by ATF as Wedding Gothic in 1901), created by the design team at ATF, and the name Tuk is set in Cottonwood – based on Gothic Tuscan Italian, Wells & Webb 1854. Adobe’s version was designed by Barbara Lind, Joy Redick and Kim Buker Chansler.

The resulting flag brought a smile to the faces of everyone who saw it, and the people we encountered were clearly impressed by our humble effort. The first photo with our flag was taken just when we were about to cast away, the final one when we had reached the end of our journey. The pictures that are in-between these two shows the land we paddled through but they cannot begin to tell all the stories, encounters and events we experienced.

Whatever the photographs lack in artistic quality they more than make up for as memories of a summer well spent.

Angled A set in Alterego Big Trap (designed by Pieter van Rosmalen and released by Bold Monday) at 1,700 pt on an Autumn Sunset background

FIBER FONTS A–Z is a personal project that focuses on intentionality, materiality, and typography. It was unveiled during the popular Instagram challenge, 36 Days of Type (2024).

The project illustrates the alphabet through 26 handmade punch needle rugs – each adhering to the rule that its chosen adjective, typeface, and yarn color all start with the letter depicted on it. To highlight the gender imbalance within typography, I challenged myself to select typefaces purposefully and to seek out those designed by female type designers. In total, 16 female designers and 16 male designers created the 26 typefaces featured in this alphabet.

To help amplify female voices in type, check out my research (Google Docs).
View the rest of the alphabet!

Backward B set in Binia (designed and released by Agnieszka Ewa Olszewska) at 1,690 pt on a Brights background

Cut pile C set in Cottonwood (designed by Barbara Lind, Joy Redick, and Kim Buker Chansler and released by Adobe) at 1,475 pt on a Citron background

Debossed D set in Daze Display (designed and released by Gemma Mahoney) at 950 pt on a Dark Ivory background

Embossed E set in VTC Eva Maria (designed by Tré Seals and released by Vocal Type) at 680 pt on an English Rose background

F set in GlyphWorld Forest (designed and released by Leah Maldonado) at 1,375 pt on a Fiesta background with Fringe

G set in Giana (designed by and available from Fanny Hamelin) at 845 pt on a Gradient Gravity background

Front cover of Channel 1, released June 2000

Channel is a series of leftfield, electro and electroclash music compilation mixes released between 2000 to 2005. The channels range from one to four and feature a roster of British and international artists in a tracklist of 10 to 15 tracks, including Yello, LCD Soundsystem, Lopazz, and others.

Trevor Jackson, the founder of the now-defunct “highly acclaimed” Output Recordings (1996–2006), was known for designing the covers himself in the independent label’s art director role.

The first in this installment (released in June 2000) features a hot pink background (except fluorescent orange in the 2005 copies, not pictured) and text set in Berthold’s Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold, which was also used for the CD-R version (not pictured) released with Source UK, a tradename of the French label Source, but in a background of silver filled on the cover and the text being aligned on the centre above.

However, from Channel 2 to Channel 4, the band names on the front and track names on the back are a circus maelstrom of fonts with various backgrounds, including monochrome in two variants (one being white and black, the second being black on white) and metallic gold (pictured) and metallic silver (not pictured).

These fonts include classics from the metal type era as well as the 1970s/80s dry-transfer and phototypesetting years (including designs by ITC, Letraset, Mecanorma, VGC, Fotostar/Fascimile Fonts, and Photo-Lettering) in the styles of Art Deco, Victorian, Art Nouveau, geometric, etc. Note especially the early use of Tank by Canadian type designer Ray Larabie (in the 2004 compilation cover which by the way was possibly inspired by ITC Machine from 1970) and Boback from Nathan Williams’ Baseline Fonts foundry (not released until 2006) [edit: it’s probably the earlier Serifedsans].

Back cover, in left-aligned text and two columns

Channel Two, released April 2003: Centaur (Bruce Rogers, Monotype, 1928), Cooper Black (Oswald Bruce Cooper, Barnhart Brothers and Spindler, 1922), ITC Symbol (Aldo Novarese, 1984), Abbot Old Style (Joseph W. Phinney, ATF, 1901), Albertus (Berthold Wolpe, Monotype, 1936), Cottonwood (Barbara Lind et al., Adobe, 1989), Old English (Monotype, an adaptation of ATF Cloister Black, 1904), Memphis Bold (Rudolf Wolf, 1931), Studio (Dick Dooijes and Dolf Overbeek, Amsterdam Type Foundry, 1946), Too Much Shadow (Bill Seifert, VGC, 1974), Karnak Bold Condensed (Robert Hunter Middleton, Ludlow, 1931), Boback (Baseline Fonts, released ca. 2006, documented early use of an Alternate Gothic with serifs on the bottom) [edit: it’s probably the earlier Serifedsans], Helvetica Condensed (outlined, Stempel/Linotype), ITC Avant Garde Gothic (Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, 1970) and Hamilton (Font Bureau, 1993).

Back cover

Channel 3, released in June 2004 (pictured behind is the pink cover): Agraphicus (VGC before 1982, digitized by WSI in 1996 as Arruba), Tank (Ray Larabie of Typodermic, 2004 – the year this album was released in), ITC Busorama (Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, the creators of Avant Garde Gothic, 1970), Buxom (Bob Trogman of Fotostar/Fascimile, 1975), ITC Pioneer (Ronné Bonder, 1970), ITC Serif Gothic (Herb Lubalin and Tony Di Spigna, 1972), a condensed sans (probably a bolder style of FF Meta or similar), Shatter (Vic Carless, Letraset, 1973), Futura Black (Paul Renner, Bauer, 1929), Clarendon (Hermann Eidenbenz, Haas, 1953), Umbra (Robert H. Middleton, Ludlow, 1932), ITC American Typewriter Light (Tony Stan and Joel Kaden, 1974), and Raphael (Central Type Foundry, 1885)

Back cover with copyright and remix text in Helvetica (Max Miedinger, Haas, 1957)

Example spread of booklet that comes with the tracklist

Channel 4, released in September 2005: Fiorello (Photo-Lettering Inc., before 1965), Futura Light (Paul Renner, Bauer, 1927), Blackline (Wolf Magin, Berthold, 1973), Shotgun (J. Looney, VGC, 1972), ITC Busorama (see Channel 3 for info, here used with the asymmetrical A), ITC Zapf International (Hermann Zapf, 1977), Isabella (Herman Ihlenburg; MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan; 1892), Novel Gothic (shaded variant as seen in Solotype’s 3-D and Shaded Alphabets; Charles H. Becker and Morris F. Benton, ATF, 1928), Crypt, Sauce (unknown), University Roman (Letraset, 1972), Cooper Black (outlined variant) and ITC Serif Gothic Bold.

Back cover

Spine