In times of a Font Aid appeal, The Society of Typographic Aficionados organizes charitable designers to contribute to a themed font. Previous Font Aids have included typefaces comprised entirely of ampersands and another consisting of only fleurons. The latest Font Aid, called Made For Japan, is a face consisting of glyphs representing their designers interpretations of Japan.

Flush Left has submitted 2 glyphs, 1 of which i have included the sketches for below. The initial sketches were completed on the iPad, using an application called Penultimate – very natty tool for making visual notes, sketches etc. The glyphs were then created in Illustrator and are currently under consideration for inclusion. As soon as I hear back about them, I will post them here. In the meantime, you will need to be happy with the Penultimate iPad sketches of Glyph 1 below.

I would urge anyone with the talent to do so, to enter your glyph ideas into this worthy cause. I have had a sneak peak and there are some really good things coming along! Further details of submission can be found on the SOTA website. Be warned though, the deadline for submissions is Friday 25th March, so you will need to get your design skates on!

You can also follow SOTA on Twitter (@typesociety).

The Flush Left glyphs can now be seen here.

Written by Simon Garfield (352 pages)
Published by Profile Books (21 Oct 2010)

I must confess I did struggle with the first chapter of Just My Type. That’s because it deals with Comic Sans, and I am an avid Comic Sans Hater! When I stopped for a moment to consider how much I don’t like that font, and how well the case both for and against the dreaded Sans were put forward, I knew this was a book for me. It was great to learn about the font that I consider my nemesis and to learn that its designer, Vincent Connare, is fully aware of the mixed opinions and welcomes the banter!

Just My Type is a great read from start to finish. It’s incredibly well researched and absolutely packed with facts and information that will make you stop and think “oh, that’s why it’s called that!” As you read, you discover the roots to some of the phrases that you throw around the design studio every day, whilst not really knowing what they mean or where they come from!

Engrained in the factual style with which Simon Garfield writes, there is a very wily humour, which took a while for me to notice, but the more you read, the funnier some of his observations are. It wasn’t until I reached chapter 17, that I thought it might have been an idea for me to make notes on the things that I wanted to follow up on, or read more about – the book does offer a huge amount of ideas for further reading for a creative mind! I went back, skim read what I had already read, and now I have quite a lengthy list of further reading.

I can’t recommend the book more. It’s great for new designers to really get a more in-depth knowledge of one of the often-overlooked aspects of design; and like-wise it’s great for people who thought they may have known it all. It’s very easy to digest, but very rich in information. Each chapter deals with a subject, such as ampersands, legibility and metal type. In between the chapters you will find a Font Break – a mini-chapter that details a particular font each time – and these I must say, were a really nice touch. Especially considering that my 2 favourite fonts, Univers and Sabon, were covered in plenty of detail. As a personal point, my favourite chapter was The Ampersand’s Final Twist, which has inspired me to try and create the world’s finest Ampersand.

Just My Type was a refreshing read in a world full of coffee table photo books and in many ways a welcome change. If you haven’t already read it, get to it! If you think you know it all already when it comes to type, you probably don’t and therefore, get to it!

Related Links:

Find out about Just My Type and Profile Books from the publisher’s website: Profile Books
Just My Type is available to buy online from Amazon

It probably doesn’t need pointing out, but these prints will obviously be quite a focal talking point, wherever they are hung. FL will keep you updated as any news and progress become available, so keep your eyes peeled.

Harald is currently taking orders for prints of his Typographic Wall Calendar via his site HaraldGeisler.com

That’s right, you can now get all your favourite typography reviews, content, resource and reference directly on your mobile device! What’s more, if you save Flush Left as a desktop bookmark, you will be able to run it as a Web Application (so no need to even launch your web browser)!

Here are some of the custom navigation icons used throughout the mobile version of the site:

Here is the first crafty glimpse of the mobile version!

There are a whole host of icons, navigation graphics and nice touches littered through the site, as well as the same great content from the desk based version. Enjoy!

The resulting entire years worth of layout will be photographed and then be purchasable as B0 wall sized prints!

It’s a completely unique project, and both an expensive and huge undertaking for Harald, whom I must say is very humble and understated.

He has chosen the Kickstart project to help attract backers and financiers for the project, so please click along to the project page for Harald’s typographic calendar where you can see just how he will go about the project. You can also back the project here financially, which would be fantastic if you are able to! To read more about Harald’s working approach to the project, read Mike McGregor’s Q&A with him. Below is the fantastic result of 2010′s version, and you’ve guessed it… it was made from 2 thousand and 10 keys!

Aside from taking on these large scale projects, Harald runs his own typographic studio in Frankfurt am Main and has produced some pretty stunning typefaces which can be seen at haraldgeisler.com and purchased via myfonts.com.

The selected work was the Admin Angel logo which can be seen, along with my other logo work, at the freelance site.

It is also shown below in the original artwork form.

Download Gridface Facist here. The zip file contains 2 weights (Gridface Facist and Gridface Facist Stroker), plus a large format A3 specimen sheets with size / leading recommendations for each.

I don’t ask for payment, or even a credit on your work, but it would show outstanding designers respect, if you decide Gridface Facist is the right font for your job, if you could contact me and show me examples of how you have used it. You can contact me here – and I’m pretty hot on replying!

GridFace Facist Font by Flush Left is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Stay tuned for some exciting news this evening (GMT), with more resources, downloads, showing off, reviews etc.

Thanks for continuing to read!

This time a series of 4 grid layouts set on a 210mm x 210mm page. As always, they are Illustrator CS4 EPS files.

The following grid structures are included: 2×1, 2×3, 3×3 and 5×1. They have 15mm borders / margins on all edges and all gutters are 7mm. Enjoy.
Download them here

Grid Templates by Flush Left is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.