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Ampersand oxidation tests performed in our fern bed.
Posted 2 days ago by Andy Cruz in Work-in-Progress
Although today was a rough one for cycling with a major doping bust and team leaving the Tour de France, it was a relief to the House Industries cycling team when the UPS truck arrived. Inside was a reminder from our friends at Woolistic that most cyclists are not racing in France this July but are instead out on the roads and trails riding and having fun no matter what speed they’re going. For this year’s Finger Lakes Ramble we took the opportunity to test the chain-stitch-ability of Studio Lettering Slant and Neutraface No. 2. These jerseys will help us forget the troubles of the Tour come August.
Posted 6 days ago by Ben Kiel in House-Products
Although the signing of 1,000 books has our OSHA compliance officer worried about sourcing the proper wrist brace for code compliance, this has not stopped Ken Barber from hand selecting and signing the first batch of Studio Lettering books to come back from the bindery. If you ordered a book or the Studio Lettering font collection, rest assured that they are on the way. If you haven’t ordered the Studio Lettering font set, there is still time to be part of the first 200 customers to receive a free book.
If you’re going to Typecon this weekend, don’t forget to check out Ken’s lecture on the thinking that lead to the development of the Studio Lettering project.
Posted 7 days ago by Ben Kiel in House-Products
My daughter’s 9th birthday was held at the local roller rink today (70s theme, natch) and my wife refuses to go the party store route for goodie bag favors.
For the girls: ultra-suede bags, tri-feathered roach clip (hair accessory, come on now) and a custom leather ID bracelet. Try kerning that type with a hammer and tap. Ugh. That crazy Tuscan leathersmith type is pretty cool though, huh?
Boys get everything but the feathers. With a name like “Noah”, you knoah he’s gonna be holdin’.
Check back later for film footage of Ken Barber shuffling…
Posted 10 days ago by Andy Cruz in events
The House Industries catalog has become a sort of institution, at least in our own minds. When we haven’t done one in several months, folks around the studio start getting a little cranky, become less productive and generally make more frequent trips to the water cooler for another quick shot of overpriced herbal tea. Resampling images for the website re-design, retouching photos and fixing that forgotten bad kerning pair that we just noticed in a ten-year-old font just doesn’t have the same luster as the smell of lithographic printing inks that waft through the studio as Andy brings back a few fresh sheets from the printer. Not to mention that our potential customers tend to stop thinking about us when it comes time to make a font purchasing decision. So even in these days of failing Freddie Fannie Mae Macs and $140 long-wheelbase GMC Yukon XL fillups, we still love the sound of those little suction cups picking up sheets of highly refined forest products and sending them through five or six offset images pigmented by soy-based inks.
Catalogs are in the mail. If you’re on the mailing list and you don’t get one soon, feel free to drop us an email or give us a call to make sure we have the right address. You may get the smaller foldout poster, so let us know if you want the full 32-pager. If you happen to get ten catalogs sent to the same slightly differently-spelled person, you can rest assured that Rich Roat’s sophisticated duplicate-elimination algorithm has failed miserably. Could we trouble you let us know?
Posted 12 days ago by Rich Roat in House-Products
Ever since we started working on the Sign Painter Font Collection ten years ago, we’ve tried to use visual tricks and technology to make script typefaces act more like lettering. For the two Sign Painter scripts we used a free-standing utility created by Just van Rossum called “Lil’ Al’s Brush” to substitute a limited number of optimized ligatures. We borrowed the idea from Emigre, who had originally commissioned the ap to substitute ligatures in their Mrs. Eaves typeface. The advent of OpenType support in design applications rendered Lil’ Al’s Brush obsolete, or at least not worth porting to the OSX platform.
We’ve learned a lot since 1998, and the new Studio Lettering fonts are a great example of how we’ve applied this knowledge. Studio Swing uses a complex array of visual tricks, contextual substituion and optimized ligatures to effectively simulate the syncopation of true hand-lettering. But you don’t have to worry about all that…just use it! Play this movie for a quick demo:
Posted 13 days ago by Rich Roat in House-Products
Sounds a little too heady for House Industries, but one of Ken’s goals when he set on his Studio Lettering odyssey was to incorporate some “colloquial compatibility” into the fonts. The way someone in France writes a script “T” may be totally different than in the United States and different again than someone, say, in Estonia. Ken tried to address these cultural idiosyncrasies by adding contextual glyphs, then working with Tal and Ben to create “localized sets” that substitute these glyphs. The only software that currently supports these capabilities is Adobe InDesign CS3 and our new improved version of LetterSetter that will be live next month. Play this video for a quick demo:
Posted 14 days ago by Rich Roat in House-Products
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be posting some tidbits about the Studio Lettering project to give readers an idea of the massive effort behind these fonts. Tal Leming gracefully articulated his part of this project on his blog.
Posted 15 days ago by Rich Roat in House-Products
After piles of tracing paper, skidloads of bezier curves and tens of thousands of lines of code, Ken Barber’s Studio Lettering font collection is available to the public. Quite possibly the most ambitious Latin alphabet script typeface to date, the Studio Lettering fonts gracefully combine traditional lettering craftsmanship while pushing the envelope with the most current OpenType programming capabilities. The result is three timeless scripts that turn into living and breathing lettering when used with the most current OpenType-compatible design software. Learn more here.
Studio Lettering runs much deeper than simply drawing lots of letters and optimized ligatures. It represents a truly innovative way to think about how the converging disciplines of type and lettering interact with one another. With the help of OpenType guru Tal Leming and House designer Ben Kiel, Ken achieved a dynamic balance between the limitations of digital fonts and the jazz-like syncopated rhythms of traditional lettering. Yeah, we thought about this a lot.
While Ken & company were sweating Studio Lettering’s details over the last few months, the rest of us had plenty of time to devise promotional schemes, create heavy iron and aluminum sculptures, order mousepads, print Smythe-sewn books and knock out a few T-shirts.
Posted 16 days ago by Rich Roat in House-Products
Customized Girard blocks featured in the Japanese mag “JJ”.
Posted 23 days ago by Andy Cruz in Sightings
Older
Ken’s Blaktur font and Studio Lettering collection were honored by the Type Directors Club as part of the organization’s 2008 type design competition.
Posted 149 days ago by Ken Barber in About-House
When we started working on Neutraface in 1999, we took our first cues from the geometric lettering Richard Neutra specified for many of his commercial building designs. The challenge was to strike a balance between the sensibilities of Richard and his son, Dion, and the realities of the regimented world of typography. With the help of Christian Schwartz, we achieved this balance in what has become one of the most ubiquitous typefaces in today’s visual landscape.
Neutraface No. 2 is an extension of the Neutra legacy, where form and function meet at the nexus of practicality and versatility. It is by no means intended as an improvement or replacement of the original Neutraface, but as an expansion of the original concept. Neutra’s highly sought-after residential and commercial designs have stood the test of time, as will the typography that bears his name.
Posted 272 days ago by Rich Roat in House-Products