One of Blackbird’s favorites adorns her jack-o-lantern this year.

The show itself was pretty minimal, which bummed me out a bit. House does tons of great work in type design, hand lettering, and illustration, as well as industrial design. The objects on display were pretty focused on their recent release of Neutraface Slab family. Now, don’t get me wrong: I loves me some Neutraface, and the introduction of the slab branch of its family tree is a fantastic one. But I was hoping for more variety. The photos on their site cover a significant portion of the exhibit, aside from the nice little retail space where they had books, blocks, pillows, and other cool object on offer (most of which were well out of my petty cash range).

But, really, the reason I went was to chat with people who love design and create it. And House is one of the best firms/foundries out there, particularly given their passion for their niche of vernacular typography and lettering, as well as period illustration (some would call it retro). This was certainly the best part of the show for me. Because I arrived early on, before the place began to fill, I got a chance to chat with Rich Roat of House about their upcoming and long-awaited online custom Photo-Lettering tool.

They’d set up a kiosk with a demo version of their Photo-Lettering custom typesetter (I don’t know if it has a proper name, so I’m going to call it “PLINCer” for brevity and self-amusement). I didn’t even realize what I was looking at until Rich came up to me and started to run me through the demo and talk excitedly about its capabilities. (One of the things I love most about type is the people who do it. You don’t get into type because you kind of like it. You have to love it.) Rich was clearly very eager to get this baby out there in the real world. And I can see why. If PLINCer works the way he says it will (and it appears to) it could be the first step toward a completely new way of selling digital type; one that is very much in tune with the ethos of online digital content distribution as it’s developing today.

The basic concept behind PLINCer is pretty straightforward, but Rich’s demo showed me that this is more than a novel way to sell type from the library they bought. Photo-lettering, the original use, changed the way that type was set and sold, ultimately killing metal type as the standard, just as digital type killed photo-lettering. PLINCer takes the photo-lettering mentality of purchasing a specific type setting that can be stretched and sized photographically and brings that process up to date with a web-based interface and e-commerce storefront, driven by server-side multiple master scaling technology and OpenType dynamic typesetting.

Imagine that you want to use Ed Interlock to create a logotype. With PLINCer you can log in, take advantage of the full OpenType dynamic typesetting features (which substitutes the ‘custom’ interlocking character pairings based on the overall word form and surrounding pairings), test colors, and even things like drop shadowing, highlights, and other typeface-appropriate styling, then save that specific setting for later viewing, emailing to other people, whatever. And once you’re satisfied, you can then buy that specific setting as a vector graphic for around $7. The whole typeface is $160 (as part of a set of typefaces that come packaged). This is the iTunes model for type. This changes the game, which is currently all about licensing full typefaces and often entire family packages for potentially hundreds of dollars (and sometimes more).

I could go on and on about this new system, but I’ll spare myself the four additional hours of writing and just say this: if PLINCer succeeds (it’ll like also have a subscription option, by the way), the model it establishes could ripple out to every major foundry and retailer of type. I bet that designers and clients would be waaaay more open to exploring new type when the cost can be kept so low. So, you can see why this was a highlight of the night.

Unfortunately, I was short two wingmen (Alisa and Blackbird, who would’ve made the event totally awesome), so I didn’t hang around too long. But it was worth it to get a look at what House has cooking. For more info on PLINC, check out snappy-new-design-blog idsgn’s feature as well.

UPDATE: Looks like it will simply be called “Photo Lettering”. Keep an eye on this space.

1) Someone please pack the commentators into a van and make them disappear. I didn’t even know it was possible to be that inane.

2) I don’t have an image to link to at the moment to support this, but I would like to officially announce here that I’ve renamed China’s “Bird’s Nest Stadium.” The new name is The Va-China.

It was good to be back. I missed last year’s TypeCon in Seattle, so I was very happy when I purchased my pass and booked my room for this year’s TypeCon in Buffalo. It was my third, and it was great.

A quick note: unfortunately, my camera battery died during my first full day in town and I didn’t have the charger, so my photos are from Wednesday afternoon through lunch on Thursday.

Buffalo is an odd town. You might be able to see it in this panorama from next to my hotel or in this one taken along what appears to have once been a main shopping thoroughfare. The thing that first struck me was how empty the city is. I’ve never been in a large city with so few people occupying it. Once I noticed this, I realized that many of the storefronts were empty as well. For example, I stopped into the “Main Place Mall” and would guess that 40% of the storefronts were operating. More than one person described Buffalo as a dying city.

In spite of this, there’s a lot to appreciate, if you’re willing to look for it. I ended up going on Paul Shaw’s walking lettering and type tour of Buffalo, recommended by a friendly and fun young woman I met named Steph. Thank you, Steph for recommending it. In fact, you should check out her photos of the tour to get a sense of some of what we saw. The City Hall shots are particularly fascinating. Buffalo’s City Hall is a good indication of why I found the city so intriguing, in spite of the fact that it’s about two steps away from tumbleweeds. Just look at that mammoth Deco temple, erected to lionize industry, art, the native cultures (in the way that you say sorry to a spider you’re squashing), and Buffalo’s place as a vital conduit of commerce. The interior is hard to capture in photos, this and this are just two slices of the beauty that encrusts every inch of the space. Just for contrast, compare it to the more recently built courthouse, which is a testament to the thoughtless brutality of much modernist architecture in the 70s. You can get a bit more info here as to the purpose of this unsettling design.

The M&T Bank (formerly the Buffalo Savings Bank) near our hotel was another example of this optimism from earlier economic heydays:

That dome roof is all gold leaf, by the way. Pretty crazy, given the rest of the town.

Buffalo had a lot to offer those looking for interesting bits of visual history, including a fantastic former newspaper building that was essentially a temple to the art of printing and newspaper making. Regardless, TypeCon’s not really about the city it’s in, although it’s certainly influenced by that. It’s about type and people who make, consume, and love it.

The first event I attended was Stefan Sagmeister’s presentation at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum (warning, stupid musical website). It was quite fun, even if the museum was so cavernous that Sagmeister’s heavy Germanic accent reverberated almost to the point of abstraction. The talks by Sagmeister that I’ve seen have all been very similar, in that he pretty much does whatever the fuck he wants and talks about it in a laid-back, humorous manner. It can be inspiring, but it can also be a bit like watching leprechaun tell you how easy it is to have a pot of gold. For most of us, this sort of life just isn’t possible. It’s escapism, in a way. Side note: Karpeles was also displaying a collection of original design drawings from Star Trek: The Next Generation. This was the geek equivalent of finding out that your steak dinner comes with a free side of bacon: delicious. The evening wrapped up with free eats and free beer from a local brewery, the name of which escapes me now.

The morning after my first half-day and evening in town, I went to Will Powers’ “What’s a Ludlow?” workshop. It was well worth it, as we not only got to check out some great old type technology, but we got to cast some hot lead type of our choosing. The Ludlow Typograph differs from what most people think of when they envision working with and setting metal type. The two typical methods involve either placing small metal sorts (the bit of lead with the letter on it) in rows, inking it, then printing with it, or typing away on a large, complex machine (such as a Linotype) which does the setting and casting for you. With a Ludlow, you hand-set lines of matrices (or “mats”) onto a composing stick.

Matrices are the impressions from which metal type is cast. In a Ludlow you insert this stick of mats into the machine, hit a switch, and hot lead is forced into the matrices.

From this, you get something like this:

These cast metal lines are called slugs. These are set up on press, inked, and used to make the actual printed impressions.

Will did a good job of explaining the process, getting us familiar with the machine and the type, as well as making sure we were having a good time and getting our slugs made. It was exactly what you want from a workshop. Will’s years of professional experience running a Ludlow came through and we all benefitted. Thanks, Will.

And not long after this class, my camera’s battery died. So, unfortunately, my personal photographic record of the week ends here.

Rather than try to resurrect my memories of the con, I’ll touch on some highlight moments, in no particular order:

Meeting Mike Parker and his girlfriend at an after party gathering involving The Knot and Bushmills’ Black Bush, and hearing about how they met.

Seeing so many people who not only recognized me, but welcomed me back as a friend after my absence. You really can’t beat that.

Meeting some new people (you know who you are), many of whom are the type of people you aspire to be.

Seeing Spiekermann speak, obviously punchy from jetlag, brimming with the energy and sharpness he always brings to an event.

Meeting some great Australian designers on the bus back from the museum event and discussing, among other things, the fact that Foster’s is Australian for beer as long as you take into account that it’s not really drunk or sold there.

Chatting with students. I remember being in their shoes, and they all impressed me, even if they didn’t all exactly know where they were headed.

Stewf’s birthday. Not a big party, but an honest, heartfelt one.

TEXAS RED HOTS, which, for the record, are neither from Texas, nor red hot. But they are damn good.

Studiously avoiding beef on weck. The name alone kept me at bay, even if the sandwich is actually pretty mundane.

Finally buying Helvetica (the film).

Showing off pictures of Blackbird.

And many other moments. Thanks to the SoTA board, and specifically to Tamye Riggs. It was a great Con. To finish off my post, images captured in my first few days in Buffalo.

Also check out these Flickr queries: typecon & typecon2008. And some proof that I was there.

See you in Atlanta…

Welcome, everyone, to the new year. I hope you’re all finding it to be the cornucopia of possibilities that I do. This year the Voteprime crew found itself once again in Philadelphia. Last year Alisa and I bought a house and so did Alisa’s sister and her husband (our good friend) Brian. Our houses are within about four blocks of each other, so Philly was the obvious choice.

Much fun was had, as you can see in Adam’s photos. Many firsts occurred that year (all photos taken by Adam):

First VP NYE featuring someone on the verge of motherhood (no photo).

First VP Guitar Hero battle sessions (and my first time playing).

First VP Bob & Barbara’s gathering.

First VP t-shirt screen printing (we’ve used iron-ons up to this point).

First VP with our good friends Mike & Jenny (seen here experiencing the cow hat).

First VP trip to the absolutely wonderful Cafe Spice.

As well as many long-standing traditions: lots of good friends together, good food and drink, dressing in our finery, counting down to midnight with my great uncle’s watch instead of watching TV, lots of champagne, and playing great rounds of telephone pictionary.

For Alisa and I, 2007 was a lot like the second movie in a sequel: it serves mainly to set up the third, and raise the stakes. A few highlights: at my job I brought in a freelancer, Alisa and I continued to work on improving the house, we got pregnant, R Design, Ltd became just a little bit more substantial, and friends and family were married and got engaged. I predict that 2008 will be the year of life-altering changes, new chapters, and big decisions. I’m looking forward to it with anticipation and the thrill of the unknown.

What do you want to do this year?

For those who don’t know, Nate Wiley was the leader of Nate Wiley and the Crowd Pleasers, a regular weekend fixture at Bob and Barbara’s, one of the coolest dive bars you’ll ever see. The band was relentlessly consistent from weekend to weekend, but always perfect for the atmosphere. Watching them play felt like witnessing one of the few un-canned, genuine musical experiences left for someone to enjoy today. To quote Wiley, “I don’t play jazz. I don’t know how to play jazz. I play liquor-drinking music.” There’s no better way to put it.

Check out <a href=http://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/taste_nate” target=” _blank”>this short film to experience a little of Wiley and the band, if you haven’t already. And if you miss that great sound.

This year, Alisa worked the door in my absence. She strung our porch with pumpkin and ghost lights, which actually looked quite cool. But next year, we will be taking it up a notch. That I can promise.

That is some very, very impressive stuff right there. Congrats, Becca.

*Oh, I kid.

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…” — Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Perhaps I sound a bit melodramatic, but it’s hard not to when speaking about the near-hyperbole of war.