For the May 2012 edition of their Creative Characters newsletter, MyFonts interviews Monotype’s Steve Matteson, arguably one of the “unsung heroes” of digital type.

A hearty congratulations to my friend Erik on what is a well-earned, and well-deserved award.

From the site: “[Steve Miggas’] tattoo script inspired Keepsake family has five members that can be combined to provide a range of creative options. Rich with OpenType features including discretionary and contextual alternate characters and ligatures, and other stylistic alternates (check out the Keepsake type specimen PDF), each face includes three options for every capital letter and multiple lowercase options. All five fonts support Latin, Eastern European and Baltic languages. Other features include four decorative elements, and optional old-style figures accessible by supporting application’s OpenType menu.”

@kerryrm Thought of you: #type #signage #map #trifecta

From the site: “Fakt Slab is [Thomas Thiemich’s] third typeface for OurType, following Alto and Fakt. It is designed to complement its sans serif counterpart. The two font families share the same proportions, weights and widths and so work beautifully together. But Fakt Slab also performs superbly on its own. Well built and balanced, vigorous and full-blooded, the design continues in the tradition of fully planned slab serifs such as Memphis, Beton and Karnack, created in the inter-war years. Updating the tradition, Fakt Slab offers a 'core' design partnered with a thoroughly resolved italic. A wide variety of stylistic alternates are also incorporated into each font. Ranging from precise and geometric to gentler and more humanistic, these alternates enable users to customise word-images and refine texts to suit typographic preferences.”

“The other bricklayers laughed at him. Teased him. And for good reason: Erik Marinovich was the boss’ son. The college kid. And worse — he was the slowest, fussiest mason in town.”

The official trailer of Kartemquin’s “Typeface” — a film about The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, WI. Directed by Justine Nagan.

Sarah Lincoln covers Matthew Butterick’s recent presentation at Typo Berlin.

From the site: “The Synthese project [by Gilles Poplin & Jean-Baptiste Levée] combines various influences from major sans-serifs of the XXth century [including Futura, Gill Sans Titling, Helvetica, Neuzeit Grotesk, Recta, and Mercator] into a unique typeface family. Equally functional in screen interfaces as in signage, Synthese also features the complete set for demanding publication designs. Tough at first sight, Synthese is indeed flexible and round. It offers a neutral yet welcoming voice. This rational and rigorous Grotesk develops a sensitive approach in its shapes. The Ultra weight represents an ‘exercise in style’ questions the concepts of blackness and extremes in typeface design. This very dark series reveals its full potential in display sizes, whilst other cuts, including Light, will perform well at all sizes. Alternate glyphs are the place where german, anglo-saxon and even latin influences are reminiscent. According to the custom, Synthese does not have italics but obliques. The alternate shapes of a, g and l (available in both upright and oblique series) allow for a finer setting when needed.”

From the site: “Inspired by Jason Santa Maria’s terrific talk at last year’s Ampersand web typography conference*, [Fontdeck’s] own Richard Rutter created a simple body text tester.”

“From Ruling Pens to Wood Type” is a special three-day lettering and type intensive with Luca Barcellona, Lucio Passerini, and Paul Shaw at the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione — July 25th to 27th.”

Craig Hazan curates beautiful lettering in tumblog format.

Ben Yagoda for the New York Times: “As I noted in my earlier article, rules and conventions about when to use and not to use commas are legion. But certain errors keep popping up. Here are a few of them.”

From the site: “Join pan-European design collective Underware as their the Tour Du Champagne stops in [Grand Rapids, MI] for a one day type workshop at the UICA. The workshop will run the complete day, from 09:30 till 5:00. No internet, but lots of good music instead. A good moment to focus on type, and let your brains go woooeeh on letters.”