A Spare Update — No. 4

I start­ed writ­ing this for last mon­th’s Headline Heads Up and did­n’t fin­ish, but here it is now. Feeling bad, I decid­ed to throw in an early Christmas present for those that cel­e­brate. (I recent­ly sort­ed out my RSS and got it loaded into Google Reader so now time just gets away from me as I con­tin­u­al­ly have inspir­ing things to look at and resources to read and eval­u­ate. I guess it’s time to work on some cura­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion and time man­age­ment.) But here’s to get­ting back on track with a wrap up of awe­some fonts and fun links to check out.

 

Desk

Foundry : UPPERTYPE
Designer(s) : Pedro Lobo
Cost: €10

Desk Typeface by UPPERTYPE - Alphabet Example, Narrow Shadowed

Desk by UPPERTYPE makes the list this month because it’s a bold state­ment. It does­n’t try to be a lot of things; Desk is built for dis­play pur­pos­es — end of dis­cus­sion. It has upper­case, numer­als, and punc­tu­a­tion. There isn’t a filled in vari­ant, just the shad­owed ver­sion shown.  The nar­row­ness leans slight­ly art deco but the curves and shad­ow update it a bit. Somehow I read both high fash­ion cat­a­log and emo band nos­tal­gia album cover.

 

FM Bolyar Ornate

Foundry : The Fontmaker
Designer(s) : Jordan Jelev, Vassil Kateliev
Cost: $29

FM Bolyar Ornate by The Fontmaker - Alphabet Example, Spikey Ornate Medieval Copperplate

Next on this mon­th’s list is an ele­gant cop­per­plate adorned with spikes. FM Bolyar Ornate is upper­case only, but still comes with a few styl­is­tic alter­nates, swash vari­ants, and orna­ments. It has a medieval look which lends itself eas­i­ly for use in crests, seals, and labels. The let­ters have so much per­son­al­i­ty — espe­cial­ly the swash­es — they could also form the basis for a logo or the head­lines in an iden­ti­ty sys­tem. If the spikes are too much, there is also the more tame, plain ver­sion of FM Bolyar to check it out.

 

Caustic

Foundry : Alias
Designer(s) : Gareth Hague
Cost: $96

Caustic Typeface by Alias - Alphabet Example, High Contrast Angular Type

Third up is Caustic by Gareth Hague. It’s a suc­cess­ful merg­er of seem­ing­ly oppos­ing ideas. Straight lines and point­ed angles are com­bined with an ital­ic, almost cal­li­graph­ic lean. Add to that the high con­trast among strokes and you have a type­face built full of move­ment that is notice­able and screams to be used at large head­line sizes.

 

Chalk Hand Lettering

Foundry : Fontscafe
Designer(s) : Fontscafe
Cost: $79

Chalk Hand Lettering by Fontscafe - Alphabet Example, Distressed Upright Script, Handwriting

I had just read this great tuto­r­i­al on cre­at­ing a chalk­board effect, when lo and behold I run across this gem of a type­face via Webdesigner Depot. Chalk Hand Lettering is a dis­tressed, upright script with swash-filled cap­i­tal let­ters. There’s a slight rough­ness around the edges that rein­forces the hand­writ­ten aspect. Along with the plain and shad­ed vari­ants, there is an ele­ments set of flour­ish­es, bor­ders, badges, and words to help add to the vin­tage magic. These fonts would be the per­fect tool for dig­i­tal­ly recre­at­ing side­walk street signs and adding sim­i­lar lit­tle touch­es to a cof­fee shop or restau­rant website.

 

The Christmas Present

As a lit­tle treat this year, I present a snowy pixel won­der­land. I’m think­ing of mak­ing a poster with it — once I incor­po­rate some pixel type of course. I’m offer­ing it up as a free, pub­lic resource for any­one who wants it. It’s not much but maybe it’ll inspire you with the hol­i­day spir­it to make fun things.

SpareType Christmas Present 2012 - Pixel Christmas Sweater, Pixel Reindeer, Pixel Snowflake, Pixel Tree

 

Down­load the packaged vector file! (.ZIP — 276KB)

 

Final Mentions

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