Moskau, Moskau … *

From our mobile conference report correspondent:

Everybody should visit Moscow! I was lucky to recently spend 4,5 days in this fantastic city, and in fantastic company.

The occasion of my visit was Serebro Nabora, a typography conference organized by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan with the help of other local type people like Maria Doreuli or Ilya Ruderman. It was the third installment of the event, this year luckily not in freezing late November as the years before. And girl was the weather perfect! Bright 22–25 picture-book degree sunshine end of September — a time in late summer that apparently Russians as well as German denote as “old women’s summer” — бабье лето. More similarities in the two languages unfolded which I couldn’t make out in the stream of charming-sounding Russian around me before but then heard in every second sentence: the German word Schrift, a term that English is sadly missing, is also used in Russian (but with just one character for “sch”): шрифт.
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Turn That Frown Upside Down? The Project Faces Debate.

The typographic twitterverse is aflutter today. The subject? Project Faces, an iPad app by Adobe that allows users to customize the skeleton of a typeface and watch it magically change from flat to fabulous in a matter of seconds. Well, not exactly. At least, that’s not the consensus on Twitter. The application itself, demoed at Adobe Max last week, is perhaps less interesting than the ensuing discussions. Here are a few collected tweets worth sharing. Continue reading

Orchard of Typefaces — Talking With Sol Matas

For the second interview in our series, Alice chose Sol Matas to be interviewed. (Beware, personal comment ahead) I was instantly happy – my husband is Argentinian, like Sol, and I have heard so much about Buenos Aires (and can even recommend where to eat without yet being there!) that I was super excited to hear what Sol had to say. 

This interview is posted right before ATypI São Paulo, as a small tribute to the type scene in Latin America. So get yourself a nice plate of Argentinian Alfajores or German baked goods, or better yet – both, and enjoy Sol’s thoughts about two places, about type, and life. 

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Alphabettes News — September 2015

Welcome to the first edition of what hopes to be a monthly roundup of women making news in the world of type design, typography and lettering. To not miss any exciting news from the months before September, this time we’re turning the clocks back a little, so sit back and catch up on the amazing things these ladies have been up to this year.

Ruxandra Duru’s report Type Foundries Today goes live on Typographica
Last month, Ruxandra Duru’s census and accompanying analysis of contemporary type foundries based out of Europe, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand was released by Typographica. This report is a timely first step in understanding the nature of the type business better, and a must-read.

Mary Catherine Pflug wins four CSPA Collegiate Gold Circle Awards
Mary Catherine Pflug has bagged not one, but four, CSPA (Columbia Scholastic Press Association) Collegiate Gold Circle Awards for the campus magazine, The Independent; including one for “General use of typography throughout magazine.”

Jessica Hische’s book In Progress is out
If you dig hand lettering, chances are you already know that Jessica Hische’s book In Progress hit the shelves this September. Read more about the book in Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn’s review, or get yourself a copy.

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Verena Gerlach is September’s Creative Character…
Read Verena Gerlach’s interview in which she speaks about her work as a typeface and graphic designer, FF Karbid in particular, and about the arts and culture scene in newly-reunited Berlin in the early nineties when she was a student.

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…and Julia Sysmäläinen was May’s
Julia Sysmäläinen, probably best known as the designer of FF Mister K, talks, among other things, about her love for language and how being fluent in more than one language and script has influenced her work in this great Creative Characters interview.

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Isabel Urbina Peña’s launches Yes, Equal
Late in August, Isabel Urbina Peña launched Yes, Equal, a directory of sorts of women creatives. Next time you hear a conference organiser bemoaning the very limited number of women they can invite to their event, you know where to point them to.

Nadine Chahine becomes Monotype’s first female director
With her promotion to UK Type Director, Nadine Chahine became the first woman to hold this position at Monotype.

Nicole Arnett Phillips launches the third volume of Typography.Journal
Typography.Journal, a boutique print journal, is the brainchild of Nicole Arnett Phillips, aka Typograph.her. Its third volume, which explores the intersection of maths and magic in visual communication, is now available for purchase.

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Rebecca Bartola receives the first TDC Beatrice Warde Scholarship
Rebecca Bartola, who is an American student currently studying at Central St Martins, London became the first recipient of the TDC Beatrice Warde Scholarship this July. Check out her work here.

Another Lettering Video

Some very sped-up drawing, for your vector-scrutinizing pleasure. My favorite parts, if you can catch them, are when I realize halfway through that the ascender tops are leaning the wrong way, and when my boyfriend’s iMessage pops up with some solicited feedback that the “a” and “l” are too close together.

Music is Jenny by the bird and the bee.