Notices by Letterform Archive (letterformarchive@typo.social)

If you’re a foundry looking to give back to the font community, expand access to type design, and reach the next generation of students, check out our new initiative: The Small Foundry Fund for Type West. https://letterformarchive.org/news/the-small-foundry-fund-for-type-west/

Thanks to @djrrb for helping us shape the Fund!

#TypeDesign #Scholarships #Fonts #TypeWest

“The series immediately drew me in—a row of colorful spines, uniform in height and typography, with a hint at the hand-drawn variety that awaits you on the covers. … Every little tome charms you. While the books are a regular fixture in Czech households, they are rarely seen in the U.S.. I knew we had to bring some home to the Archive.” — Stephen Coles @stewf

From the Collection: Sylvie Vodáková’s Book Covers for Květy Poezie. Meet the Czech designer who shaped how generations of readers encountered poetry. A new blog post by @tanyatypes. https://letterformarchive.org/news/sylvie-vodakova-book-covers/

#Lettering #CzechDesign #BookCovers #Poetry #GraphicDesign #Illustration

Announcing
Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabets

Our latest book takes an immersive look inside the large lithographic portfolios that inspired public lettering in Belle Époque France. With in-depth research from sign painter Morgane Côme and dozens of rare alphabet plates, it’s an essential reference and delightful guide to the fashionable letterforms that defined the classic French streetscape.

#SignPainting #Alphabets #Lettering #ad

https://letterformarchive.org/shop/lettres-decoratives/?utm_source=Mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Lettres_Announcement

Online Workshop: Transform Your Typeface into a Variable Color Font with @sophiatypelove

Apr 19–Apr 20, 2025
9:00am–12:00pm PT (5:00pm–8:00pm GMT)
2 sessions, 3 hours each

Learn more and register: https://letterformarchive.org/shop/transform-your-typeface-into-a-variable-color-font/?utm_source=Mastodon

#DesignWorkshop #TypeDesign #VariableFonts #ColorFonts #Ad

Leopold Forstner, Poster (facsimile) for “Wiener Kunst im Hause” (Viennese Art in the House), 1903.

Get to know another nouveau through Jugendstil, the Vienna Secession, and Die Fläche: https://letterformarchive.org/news/die-flache-facsimile-and-the-vienna-secession/?utm_source=Mastodon

We did our best to transcribe the text in the image description. Help us fill in the blanks!

#Jugendstil #ViennaSecession #VerSacrum #LeopoldForstner #Lettering

Bob Dewhurst of Sign Language, hand-painted example of signpainters’ “drop casual”. Handwritten on back: “‘Drop Casual’ because of how you end the horizontals by twisting the brush off downwards… all the guys at New Bohemia Signs (@nbsigns) basically use this same one.” #SignPainting #Lettering #Alphabet

FFF (Filipino Folk Foundry) is a book about sign painting and lettering in the Philippines, with profiles of practitioners and other documentation and resources. (2015, 2nd edition).

Edited by Lobregat Balaguer
Designed by Dante Carlos and Kristian Henson
Published by Hardworking, Goodlooking

#FilipinoFolkFoundry #HardworkingGoodlooking #Philippines #FilipinoArt #Graffiti #Signpainting #Lettering

⁠“The square shape with narrow curved angles is a typical architectural expression of our times, much as the round arch was of the Roman period, producing the inscriptional characters, or the ogive arch of the Gothic style, which in its turn produced medieval types.”⁠

⁠Aldo Novarese, diagram accompanying his article, “Eurostile, a Synthetic Expression of Our Times” in Pagina, International Magazine of Graphic Design, No. 4, January 1964.⁠
⁠
#AldoNovarese #Eurostile #TypeDesign #Architecture #InformationDesign #Typography #HoHoHo

Letterform Archive is a nonprofit organization and would not be possible without your support. With your partnership, we can:

– Rescue important artifacts from obscurity or the dumpster
– Expand the design canon by acquiring work from underrepresented people, places, and scripts
– Preserve the collection by funding repairs and safe housing
– Underwrite digitization and expansion of the Online Archive
– Keep student tours free, and research visits open to all

https://letterformarchive.org/give/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=givingtuesday&utm_medium=social

Martin Venezky, detail from “The World is Hungry for More Than Food” for Speak magazine, 1995.

More #MartinVenezky in the Online Archive: https://oa.letterformarchive.org/?dims=Name_KEY&vals0=VENEZKYMARTIN&friendly0=Venezky%25comma%20Martin

You heard it here first: https://letterformarchive.org/shop/tezzo-suzuki-calendar-25-2025/

#TezzoSuzuki #Calendars #GraphicDesign #Lettering #Typography

1. Noah Fielding in this week’s episode of Bake Off.
2. Oz magazine, no. 16, 1968. (Design: Martin Sharp and Philippe Mora) https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_periodicals_oz_0002

#GreatBritishBakeOff #BakeOff #OzMagazine #Psychedlia #1960s #Sweaters #Jumpers #NoahFielding

Jacinto J. Quirarte, poster for El Bazaar Sábado in Colonial San Angel, Mexico, ca. 1965.

Quirarte is best known as an art historian of Mexican and Chicano culture. Born in Arizona in 1931, Quirarte soon moved to San Francisco where he studied art and lettering. He lived in Mexico in the 1950s and ’60s which is likely when this poster was made.

#LetterformArchive #1960sDesign #Lettering #MexicanDesign #VintagePoster #Posters #BazaarSabado

Our last Mastodon post of 2023 is also our 500th. We love it here and intend to keep on sledding. See you for the next 500!

Image: Arctic Hams Sugar Cured in Artificial Temperature, Schmidt Lithography Company, ca. 1870. Read more about the Richard Sheaff Ephemera Collection: https://letterformarchive.org/news/richard-sheaff-vintage-ephemera/

#TradeCards #Victorian #Ephemera #VintageEphemera #SnowCappedLetters #Lettering #SanFrancisco

This box of 600+ specimen cards holds a complete snapshot of the last metal type foundries in Germany.

Produced 1958–1971, the Schriftenkartei (Typeface Index) represents the final effort to catalog all the country’s typefaces in production at the time. The cards are useful for researchers and designers as they share a common format and show complete glyph sets. Thanks to Michael Wörgötter, a set of these cards is now in our collection, and his high-res scans are online. https://letterformarchive.org/news/schriftenkartei-german-font-index/