“The first step on the road from thought to website is text. Text is the most fundamental kind of web content. When websites have images, audio, or video, responsible authors will make sure these things have textual equivalents. However pale such alternate text may be compared to the media it represents, it’s a baseline. Text is the common denominator of web communication.” — Tim Brown, of Nice Web Type, on his new tumblelog, Making Nice Web Type.

And,

In the last year, this website has been powered by Expression Engine, Drupal and later, once I found the appropriate fit, WordPress. It has been skinned with a handful of publicly available free themes — present one included. I will say, I have a great respect for any individual willing to put their code out there for free — however, of the themes I have personally tried, none have focused on what I value most: legibility.

Legibility is very dear to me because, well, I have difficulty with that which is near to me.

Second, though we have all embraced short-form communication, I’m afraid, generally speaking, we’re collectively ignoring the value of long-form articles.

That said, I felt it was time to do something. I have been working on a WordPress theme that puts the reader first — if its worth it, I’ll even try and make it public. My hope is that, once in place, it will allow me to focus on writing longer posts and have them presented in a manner that encourages you, the viewer, to read them.

(ilt.end, from Feel Script by Ale Paul/Sudtipos.)

There is always a bit of a voyeuristic thrill when looking at a thing of beauty such as this. I hold a great deal of respect and admiration for the work of Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos, and am looking forward to the launch of Adios Script, which I hope to be able to write about in depth once I get my hands on it.

Paperfont for Neo2 magazine. Custom type for every issue by Ipsum Planet.

Folded Paper by Daniella Spinat.

Folded-Font in standard A4 paper by Vienna’s BUSK, via LetterCult.

Fold Font, by James Machin.

The Folded, by Anton Studer for Neo2 magazine.

(FF Mister K specimen, from FontFont on Behance.)

Sadly, information online regarding Julia Sysmäläinen‘s FF Mister K—beyond regurgitating the original press release—appears sparse, save for an excellent post on the Font Feed. The abridged version: Ms. Sysmäläinen, of edenspiekermann, struck by the grace of Franz Kafka’s handwriting has digitized the script for our enjoyment. The family consists of three faces, Regular, Onstage and Crossout, each with extensive ligatures and alternates.

Please take this as further evidence of my growing love affair with OpenType handwriting faces.

Printing as a vocation attracts many young and women, because it offers real opportunities for steady work, good pay and advancement.

Job security, stable earnings. Sounds good. Perhaps you’d like to cross-train on a Linotype machine.

For the record, I think about this line of education every day.

Regarding the design of characters, I believe it is especially essential to do so by hand, where one can observe the calligraphic character. […Working digitally] limits of the very vision of the designer. In any case I believe that the design of characters is a complex issue and should be [evolutionary, so as] not to over-design. In designing courses I choose a specific topic, but very wide and with just a moderate amount of restrictions and parameters to be met, because violating the rules is easier than creating alone, and the most original follow the opposite path. [–Translation via Google, with some cleanup. Original.]

I’ve spent the evening searching and turned up very little English-language information on this face, much less examples in use. Commissioned by the Università Iuav di Venezia, and designed by Luciano Perondi in 2004 for use in Venice’s wayfinding systems, it’s not readily apparent to me if this face was ever actively used for wayfaring in the public realm. That said, I’m awfully enamoured with Miniotype‘s character at large sizes, and surprisingly delicate grace when set small.

We think of signs–the task is to bring a person from one place to another but can be [visually] very strong, even evocative. Perhaps we need to reassure the user of a danger, or simply make them feel comfortable in an elegant place. [These are] messages that are not attributable solely to writing, but also to a form of rhetoric of another type; a second level of reading. [–As before.]

I may be late to the party, but I’m willing to suggest Luciano Perondi, and his typefaces, just gained a new fan.