Reminiscing about wood type

Back in November (yes, finally getting around to posting this!) Tom Rickner, Jim Ford and Terrance Weinzierl ascended upon the Hamilton Wood Type Museum for the first annual Way-z-goose. The weekend included extensive reviews of the museum's wood type holdings as well as demos of a printing press and a pantograph. Matthew Carter was on hand to introduce his wood-only typeface Carter Latin and sign prints of his fellow typographers.

Naturally, some delicious pizza and micro-brewed beer garnished the trip to frigid rural Wisconsin.

Special thanks to Jim Moran and the volunteers that made the event possible.

More on the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers Wisconsin:
http://www.woodtype.org

New Windows Phone 7 Series makes things interesting

Microsoft today introduced Windows Phone 7 Series, which features a very typographically rich User Interface. The initial reviews all seem to be very positive, especially regarding the UI. Gizmodo had quite a few articles including this one on the Windows Phone 7 Interface. The Windows Phone 7 features fonts from the Segoe family, designed by Ascender's Steve Matteson.

Fonts in eBook Readers

Is 2010 the year of the eBook reader? In the past six months quite a few new eBook readers have been introduced. From the Barnes & Noble Nook to the COOL-ER reader, almost all of these devices use similar screen technology.

When you look at text on the screens of these different devices, you will notice that there are some interesting differences in font rendering quality. Ascender has worked with a variety of companies to develop and license fonts specifically for use in eBook readers. We have had great success in tuning fonts for the screen, improving the legibility and readability of text, especially at small sizes.

There are lots of reviews being written about eBook readers. Unfortunately most of the focus seems to be on features and technical specifications, and not much time spent on the how the text looks and the fonts selected for the device. Here is one set of reviews that we found interesting because it covered a wide variety of devices: eBook Reader Review at Top Ten Reviews.

A video game with text rendering issues

Ars Technica had a story on a popular video game with text that was illegible on standard TVs. A lot of users had complained about the text not being readable on screen.

The moral of the story of these recent articles is that not all fonts are designed for on-screen viewing, either for websites or on TVs. Game designers need to take proper care when selecting fonts for their titles and not rely solely on their Photoshop mock-ups.

Many headline fonts have design attributes that are difficult to render on any screen - HD or otherwise - so care needs to be taken in selecting fonts for optimal legibility and visual impact.

Ascender Corp, works with a wide variety of game developers and user interface developers in licensing off-the-shelf fonts and creating custom fonts. Ascender can fine-tune fonts for optimal display in a wide variety of product scenarios.

Coming Soon - FontAid IV ampersand font to aid Haiti

Coming soon - Font Aid IV: Coming Together, a Collaborative Typeface

The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) has announced the Font Aid IV project to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders to assist with their relief efforts in Haiti. Ascender has contributed to a typeface being developed for this effort. When the font is completed, hopefully next week sometime, it will be available from AscenderFonts.com and other type resellers. Chank Diesel is doing the heavy lifting on this project, and here is a sample of the work in progress.

Fonts for Tattoos

We are always interested with the many creative ways in which fonts are used. Tattoos represent a unique 'canvas' and the fonts used are often quite unique. This article on misspelled tattoos is quite humorous and something we thought you'd also enjoy. If this inspires you to go out and get a tattoo, we can definitely recommend Old English Text. -:)

New Verdana / Georgia fonts

Jay Nelson just posted this article about Verdana, and the new Verdana/Georgia fonts that Ascender is developing with Matthew Carter and The Font Bureau. You can read the article on the MacWorld website.

Happy Holidays from the Ascender Team

The entire Ascender team wishes you a very happy holiday season, and best wishes for a wonderful 2010!

Ascender talks type at RIT

Ascender's Steve Matteson and Tom Rickner recently took part in a panel discussion on type & typography at the RIT School of Print Media. Also on the panel was Michelle Hill of Microsoft and Charles Bigelow, the typography professor at RIT who helped organize the event. Read the full story.

New fonts in Microsoft Windows 7

The new Windows 7 ships with quite a few new fonts. How many? Read this article to find out!

Font licensing in the news

Here is a good story at Graphic Arts Online about font licensing, and the intrinsic value of fonts, by note author and pre-press consultant Brian P. Lawler. In the story he even quotes Ascender's Steve Matteson on the tireless behind-the-scenes work that goes into designing and developing high quality font software files. Read the story: Jaywalking on fonts

Verdana & Georgia font enhancements coming in 2010 !

Matthew Carter, the original designer of the Georgia and Verdana fonts, has teamed with Ascender Corp and The Font Bureau to develop new and improved versions of these popular font families. In an announcement made today by the companies, the Georgia and Verdana fonts will see new weights and styles added to the families, along with enhanced character sets and OpenType features. The project to develop these new fonts begin over a year ago, and the new fonts are expected sometime in the first quarter of 2010. Read the news release.