NEWS LTR №8: Summer Drawings
A bitey, dextrous hexapod named Practice appears in passant attitude (below), while the fish (top) appears chilled as a sinister passant. You can tell I’ve been reading up on the heraldic attitudes of beasts and learned some exciting new words. Anyway, this one goes: “I have teeth!” said Practice, “I will bite anything and anyone.” “I smoothly skip around obstacles!” said Process. “We are not the same!” they exclaim together. “But we are best friends!”. Perhaps design theory should told by cute animals. It would be entertaining to look at and they would not take themselves too seriously.
With still some weeks left in this summer, there is traveling and drawing and writing to do. The trains in Europe do not have a weight limit on luggage, which means you can buy as many books as you are willing to carry. If your suitcase rolls: pack your books close to the wheels so the center of gravity remains low and your traveling library remains stable. This is also true for bibliophile bikepackers: store the heaviest titles low in the panniers. For instance, you could place H.D.L. Vervliet’s Sixteenth Century Printing Types of the Low Countries in the left pannier, and then Reynolds Stone, Engravings and Twyman’s Printing 1770-1970 on the right for balance. Of course it is alright to keep the lighter summer reading (Puffin by Design, by Phil Baines for instance) in the saddle bag or in the back pocket.
This NewsLTR seems to be more about drawing than trying to sell fonts. Well, blame the absence of typographic gravitas on our hazy lazy days! I know you know there are nice fonts for sale at letterror.com and the new LTR Limited Grotesque variables can be yours with 20% off with coupon LTRLTD. (Some fancy arrow work, in those fonts. I love a good arrow.)
My summer schedule includes working on some non-variable OpenTÿpjes of these humanist sans serif show-ponies. I’m a huge fan of variable fonts and have invested a lot of time getting the math and the tools to work. But, while I think we all celebrate advances in font technology, I realise that adopting them happens at different speeds. I will let you know as soon as the fonts are available!
Oh boy, did you see the LettError ad in EYE 106? Admittedly a small one, but you can be sure the entire LettError Drawing Office is chuffed to be in print in such a great magazine! Whether you’re traveling, reading, drawing, chilling, or writing: have a great summer type-friends!
