NEWS LTR №13: This & That
Book Cover Review
When David Pearson asked me for a contribution to the Book Cover Review I jumped at the chance. Of course for the moment ignoring the fact that when it comes down to it, my writing is terse and slow at best. Oh well. The Towner Museum in Eastbourne has a fantastic collection of Eric Ravilious materials and last summer we went there. The Rav’ room has a small library and I had to browse. Books on Rav, of course, but also Edward Bawden and this unexpected book by Barbara Jones, The Unsophisticated Arts. Jones was a student of Ravilious and Bawden, I think that is why it was in the library. Anyway, Jones’ book is amazing and that’s why I picked it for my review.
Book Cover Review: The Unsophisticated Arts by Barbara Jones
While you’re there, these are some of my favorite reviews: Gargoyle Cartoons by Timothy Donaldson, The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear by Andy Altmann and Akróasis by Paul Barnes. but really, this site is almost as good as visiting a bookshop with a friend and you can browse for hours.
UvA Lettering! Again!
Over the holidays I met up with Aleksandra Samuļenkova, Anya Danilova and Bahman Eslami to have a look at our massive and shiny architectural lettering project that we drew letters for in in 2020. [more on the project here]
The library will probably be opened around September 2025. But if you’re in Amsterdam, head to Nieuwe Doelenstraat and you can see the lettering today.
Christmas Letters
I heard someone refer to LTR Very Bauble as my Christmas letters and, while absolutely true of course, I was not ready to wrap it in tissue paper and store it until next December. I’m pretty sure that you can think of something these precious caps would be great for? I know this is the diametrical opposite of the versatile, general purpose and neutral sans friends keep telling me to draw, but here it is.
LTR NCND Clocking
Vasilis van Gemert, digital horologist extraordinaire, made an animated, physical version for his typewriter clock that uses my LTR NCND. You can see all his clocks here. With equal parts Orwellian & Sisyphean dedication and energy, this clock erases its previous work, rolls a fresh line and commits a new time to paper. The case is made from layered lasercut paper which gives the clock a friendly texture. Check with Vasilis for pricing and availability.
Research
This was going to be my holiday research project, but it is evolving into an ongoing project. But it is super interesting! Designspaces based on triangles have different properties from the ones we know from MutatorMath and Variable Fonts. For one, such spaces are much more flexible and can easily accomodate intermediates. Where Variable Fonts fracture, these simplex spaces thrive. “This refreshes parts variable fonts can not reach.” Let me know if you’re interested.
Thank you for signing up!
While algorithmic platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Xitter get worse by the day, by signing up to mailing lists like this you can keep in touch and hear from independent designers and foundries like mine. Oh, I updated the subscribers to the list with people who checked the YES mailing list box in my shop. I can’t verify if you already signed up with a different address -- so my apologies if you’re now getting multiple copies. The Buttondown.com machine should make it easy to unsubscribe some of them.
Activate LTR fonts!
If you (or your employer) have an Adobe CC subscription, check out my foundry page on fonts.adobe.com. Activate any of my fonts there and they pop into your font menu immediately, ready for all sorts of different typographic challenges. (Also, all these fonts are included in your subscription! but it makes a huge difference for me: each activation counts)
More reading?