Fontenwerkplaats

A Deco letter all the way from LA

2011-04-03T07:56:00.001-07:00

Actually, the title ought to read "A Deco letter all the way from LB", because the school is located in Long Beach. But... LA is far more known than LB, and the title was already in place so I'll leave it there. Long Beach is a little to the south of Los Angeles.

This letter was photographed by John Williams PhD from Los Angeles. The letter B stands for Buffum, as in Buffum Elementary School. The school was named after Dorothy Buffum Chandler (1901-1997) a Los Angeles cultural leader.
I saw the picture on Flickr and my first thought was: this should be mage into a font. Unfortunately there is only this B and nothing else. So the design will have to be made from scratch:

Well, what has to be done, has to be done. The frist thing to do is brush up the B a little, so that it may serve as a template for a complete alphabet. After some twiddling I arrived at:

This looks nice, although I may have tried to round the design a bit too much. For starters this seems OK, but I'll give it some more thought.
Update 1 The first glimpse of the new design. The H is too unclear and the I possibly a little too bold and that O should probably get rid of the flat top and bottom.

Update 1 - As promised the design has been simmering during the week and after a very interesting conversation about typography yesterday evening over a plate of perfect tempura, this is the 2nd result:

Maybe the E and F need some more width, I'll experiment a little with that option. A test with a middle stroke of the E sticking out was abandoned rather quickly. That meant I had to do someting similar to the F, making that character top-heavy.
And yes, I tested the new font with the dreadfull "HiHo", as sung by Snowwhite's 7 dwarfs. That looked like this:

Celebrations in Amsterdam

2010-07-03T02:49:00.000-07:00

Today, July 3rd, marks the beginning of the 'Lustrumviering' (the 75 year jubilee) of the Amsterdam Old Course. This is a golf club that is wedged between railroad tracks, modern buildings and the Amsterdam Arena Football Stadium. The club is active since 1935 and not even the war could break the spirit of the members. It has been tried, though, by dropping a bomb almost on top of Tee 1 (transforming that spot into a huge bomb crater) and the digging of an anti-tank ditch by the German forces. This had a length of 1¾ miles, was some 40 feet wide and had a depth of 19 feet. And all that straight through the course.

Club member and graphics designer Lucy Prijs discovered the font Mokum Stad on the internet and decided that had the right character for this special occasion. The clubhouse was designed by architect F.A. Warners who has had a distinct influence on the housing in Amsterdam.

He was very fond of the concept of apartment buildings, the precursors to modern skyscrapers. He was one of the proponents of the Amsterdam School. He designed - among many other objects - the Atlanta Building and the Oldenhoeck complex. The latter is one of the finest examples of the mid-period of the Amsterdam School.

Yesterday (on the hottest day of the year so far) I got a sneak preview of how the font is used by the club. Score cards, invitations and even golf balls are adorned by the font. I'm holding one of them (topmost image), showing the usage of the font.

Practical application of the fonts (6)

2010-04-20T11:10:00.001-07:00

Publishing house Ginkgo from Leyden, The Netherlands, just came out with a book called "Kijken naar Gebouwen", translated "Looking at Buildings". A great overview of the architecture in the southern part of Amsterdam. My font Mokum Tooneel was chosen as the font for the cover. And yes, I am pleased and honored.

Opening the book I got a nice surprise in the form of an architectural drawing for the Amsterdam Lyceum, a school that was built between 1918 and 1920. The architect was H.A.J. Baanders. The lettering on the drawing is - in my opinion - awesome, and the next project is to reconstruct and digitize it.

Further information about the activities of Ginkgo Publishers may be found on their website.

Practical application of the fonts (5)

2009-08-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

Several times a week I pass the city of Gouda by train. Near the railroad tracks is a wonderful building, called De Kade. It used to be a school, but now it is being rebuilt to house a medical facility. The building was done in Amsterdamse School style, and guess what font is used now?

Yes, it is Mokum Stad. And yes I feel flattered! This is, after all, the reason I recreate the old fonts. Sometimes in the near future I will visit the building to take some more pictures. The picture above was made when the building was just finished, in 1930.

Agony!

2009-05-19T12:19:00.001-07:00

Wandering through Amsterdam I saw this beauty. A (presumably concrete) letterbox, with an awesome font.

This litteraly screams to have a complete alphabet fashioned around it, but I can sense problems around the corner. The word POST was clearly constructed to fit in this combination and not another. The kerning between the O and S is great, but it destroyes the S for other purposes. Try to imagine the combination TS without tweaking the shape of the S.
You can see I have a small problem here.

Descending Upper Case...

2009-02-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

An interesting idea, not to let upper case and lower case share the same baseline. Just let them hang from the same "clothesline", so to speak, and you get:

This looks promising, although there are still some quirks. For instance *is* is a good idea to let some upper case characters peek above the x-height? Or should the whole uppercase set dive even lower, like the S in the original lettering on the entrance in Zuidlaren? I have to bear in mind that people will actually use this font so the deviations from the norm cannot be too big. I'll do some puzzling over the weekend.

Update #1:
First result of the puzzling. This image is stored as a GIF-file, so there aro no JPG artifacts that could spoil the image (like the one above):

Update #2:
I did not quite like the letter Q, so I changed the design. Borrowing some elements from the R gives a much more pleasing image. Judge for yourself:

Update #3:
This follows a suggestion made by Bill, to omit the 'serif' on top of the E and F. You may also call it a flagstaff, and the initial idea was to create more height in the upper case.

Fun in the sanatorium

2009-02-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

I have stopped working on the Esserveld font for the time being. It has to mature a little bit more. In the meantime I'll do some work on the new font Mokum Sana, derived from the lettering on the gate of the old sanatorium in Zuidlaren, Netherlands. To give you an impression:

These are the lower case characters, next in line is the upper case. Like the original wrought iron letters, they will descend below the baseline. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do that. Possibly they will rise above the x-height as well, creating room for the diacritics.
Here is the whole set. They look like upper case, but I'm using them as lower case. The upper case will look more like drop caps (like the miniatures in Medieval manuscripts).

And as always: your input is highly valued!

Inspiration from Zuidlaren

2009-01-27T11:49:00.001-08:00

Zuidlaren is a nice village in the woods just south of Groningen. Driving through the village my eye caught a glimpse of a truly impressive building. A little further down the road I saw the entrance:

The strongly kerned pair OO draws the attention immediately and the other characters are also promising. A new font is in the making. The genius behind all this was architect Egbert Reitsma, who drew the plans for this sanatorium around 1928. To get a better view of the letters, here is a compilation in close-up:

The text was made from forged iron or steel, using a continuous strip for each character. With the exception of the letter T, that was made by welding to pieces together. Whether this will survive in the ultimate font, I don't know yet. Have to do some testing, possibly altering the vertical position of the different elements.

A better look at Esserveld

2009-01-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

I decided to go and see this cemetary myself. Pictures found on the internet are nice, but they do not show everything. So my wife and I went to Groningen (in the pouring rain) to take some new pictures of the entrance gate:

And guess what? The characters are truly 3D, with a rounded bevel and cutouts that look as if they were made by a chisel in stead of a saw. This means I will have to rethink the base of the font. In other words: back to the drawingboard.

News from Esserveld

2008-12-29T06:14:00.000-08:00

The holiday season proved benificial for my new font. I talked a lot, made sketches and waited for some "brainwaves" and all that resulted in a partially overhauled font:

The X, Y and Z are still problem children, and the same is true for the O and Q. The K seems promising, but it's not quite what I want. The H could use an ellipse, probably on the right side. I'll tinker with that. As always: if you have a comment, don't hesitate to share it with me.

Help is much appreciated

2008-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

I'm keeping my focus on the northern part of The Netherlands for a while, getting inspiration from all the fascinating buildings over there. One that caught my eye was the Esserveld cemetery, of which I present this picture of the entrance building:

Notice the lettering that was used for the name. This just HAS to be transformed into a font. First impression: "Hey, piece of cake, I'll do that in a couple of hours..."
Yeah! But then the second impression: "Whoa! This is really complicated", followed after a short while by impression number three: "Gosh, what did I do? How do I get out of this trap?"
First thing I did was recreate the E, S, R, V, L and D, with a little tweaking, like the stem of the R. Then, the rest of the uppercase set was made, as can be seen here:

And this is where the public comes in (I hope). Please let me know which of the letters you find the 'odd ones out'. I have some ideas myself, but in order not to influence anyone I keep my mouth shut for the time being. Please put a comment underneath.

Blues no more, welcome to the city

2008-12-19T02:56:00.000-08:00

Finally the new font Mokum Stad is complete. I added some diacrytics, made a small kerning table and - to top it off - I wrote a new page for my website. On this page is some info about the font, my source of inspiration and, most important of all, a means to download the font.

This is a link to that page

The page is bilingual (Dutch/English) and it might not display properly if you have a small screen. So, for those of you having a 640 x 480 pixel screen, please scroll a bit.

Typographer's blues...

2008-11-28T12:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, the new font Mokum Stad was in the making. I only had an example for upper case, and tried do make my own lower case. That was the first version of the font. It was not quite what I thought it would be. After some talks the original idea was abandoned and a new, rounder version was made. That looked like this:

It was modelled a bit after one of the Broadway typefaces. And guess what? People I showed it to all found it "remarkably like Broadway" and "not quite as nostalgic as it could be". Blast! I couldn't but agree, so there I was. Up a certain creek without a paddle...
Time for some serious thinking, done while sawing logs for the fireplace. Destroying lumber as a means to free your mind... And yes, it worked. A new lower case was born, as a sort of small caps. Looking like this:

Well that's more like it. There are still some wrinkles to iron out, but the result looks nostalgic enough for my purposes. Have another sample here:

A new font, finally

2008-11-14T00:59:00.001-08:00

It took me some time to produce a new font. This time I was inspired by the city of Groningen, in the north of the country. That region has a rich tradition of architecture and the like from the 1920's and 30's.
One of the city maps was done in Amsterdam School style, with a peculiar lettering. This forms the basis of my new font:

The name of the font was a challenge, because I wanted to include the word Mokum (meaning city in Hebrew). This had to be combined with another term belonging to Groningen. The inhabitants call their cjty Grunn, so Mokum Grunn was an option. In the neighbouring province of Friesland the city is called Grins, leading to Mokum Grins. This suggestion was definitely discouraged by Koos Staal, graphic designer from Haren, province Groningen.
Then a third option came into view. The people from Groningen are often called Stadjers, meaning inhabitants of Stad. Presto, the name was born: Mokum Stad, in which Mokum stands for city and Stad stands for city as well! But who cares?

Practical application of the fonts (4)

2008-07-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I told you that I saw my font Mokum Tooneel on the façade of a building in Amsterdam-Noord. Today I hopped on the ferry, to take a closer look. This may seem like a tremendous journey, but the distace covered is a couple of hundred meters, which takes no more than 3 or 4 minutes.
Stepping off the ferry, I was treated to the lettering in all its glory, as you can see on the picture below:

The characters are made of wood, with several layers of paint on it. It looks very nice. Going in, I got my second surprise of the day, a chalk board next to the entrance with the specials of the day (in this case several kinds of pastry from 3 euros). Notice the artwork at the top of the board! Very nicely done. I must experiment a little with texts that are perpendicular to each other.
Anyway, it then was time for the third surprise, when the barkeeper asked me if I had seen the second logo on the back of the restaurant (the side that is visible to the people coming from Amsterdam-Noord going by ferry to the centre). I didn't, so I went to the back, and took the following picture:

A new font in the making

2008-06-21T03:34:00.001-07:00

I finally found the time to do some work on a new font. This one will be called Mokum Schip, in honour of Michel de Klerk and his fabulous building called "Het Schip" in Amsterdam. Translation is not that difficult, it's just "The Ship".
In this complex, which has a triangular layout, there is room for all kinds of public spaces, like a school and a Post Office. The school is still in use, the Post Office is now part of the museum. You could buy stamps there, post letters and make telephone calls. To do the latter, a special procedure was followed. In the Post Office there were two Phone Booths. One was behind the counter and that was used to make the connection. When that was done, the connection was rerouted to the "Spreekcel", located in the public area of the Office. The person making the phone call went into the Spreekcel (phone booth) and talked with the other party. With the door closed, for privacy.
For this booth a special font was designed, as you can see on the picture. That sample will form the basis of my new font.

Sailing along to a surprise

2008-06-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I spend the afternoon on a boat, going through the canals of Amsterdam. We also navigated the IJ, the water between the centre of the city and the Northern part (yes, it's called Amsterdam-Noord). Just between to gulps of beer I noticed something in the corner of my eye. Looking closer I discovered a peculiar piece of lettering.

Would that perhaps be....???
On closer inspection it turned out that it was indeed my font Mokum Tooneel, which was used for the new sign on Cafe de Pont (Freely translated the Ferry Pub). The owner was looking for a nice font to use on her newly acquired Cafe, which was built in 1928. Mokum Tooneel fitted the requirements. Shortly I will go over there, to take some pictures of the giant wooden letters.
The font is also used on the website of the Cafe, so I would suggest to take a look.

Practical application of the fonts (3)

2007-08-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

The style of the Amsterdam School (AS) originated in Amsterdam, but later on the architects went to the north of The Netherlands, especially the province of Groningen, to do some wonderful work. Not many people know this, and to promote the richness of the AS architecture in Groningen a new book has been written. The title is Versteende Welvaart (Petrified Prosperity in English) and it will be presented on September 7th. That is the day before the National Monument weekend, a rare occasion to visit buildings that are otherwise closed to the public.

Looking at the cover of the book, the lettering is instantly recognizable. The design was made by Koos Staal who works in Haren, to the south of the city of Groningen. (Province and Capital bear the same name). When I read the title and started thinking about a new blog entry it struck me that the title in English is very powerful. An alitteration with a strong metrum. Anyway, I dug up font Mokum Cohen Topline and made the following:

Practical application of the fonts (2)

2007-08-04T04:50:00.000-07:00

And yes, I use the fonts myself too. For instance on the new nameplate on our front door. The font is Mokum Cohen and the material is bronze colored stainless steel. The plate was made by workshop De Haan in Hilversum, a small engraving studio that likes to do work that is "out of the ordinary". Like using fonts that are not run-of-the-mill.

It proved very difficult, though, to get the whole thing to work. The main problem is, that the engraving machine (it looks like a plotter and has a fast rotating tip that cuts away the material) is being driven by a PC running under Windows 98. Unfortunately there are no drivers for this kind of hardware under newer versions of Windows. Could be a nice challenge for the software community, wouldn't you think?

Anyway, the whole process had to revolve around Windows 98. I brought the design and the .ttf-file on a memory stick, only to discover that a PC under 98 is not capable of reading a USB stick. You can, however, download a utility to make that possible but the owner of the negravingshop decided she did not want internet on the PC that is used to drive her business hardware. One virus-infection was enough to get to that decision. Luckily the font is small enough to fit on a floppy disk (yes, I do have them) which could be read without any problems. A couple of days later the small plate was ready, just in time for our new front door.

People interested in the possibilities of engraving could contact Graveeratelier De Haan. They can be found on the internet, or you could give them a call +31.35.624.50.78.

Nice typeface, does anyone know it?

2007-07-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

My grandfather lived in Winschoten in the province of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. He worked as an apprentice with an agricultural cultivating firm, that also traded in seeds and did some landscaping. The latter mostly in the form of gardens. When grandfather left the job in 1908, he got a certificate, written by the owner himself on company stationary. See the small picture on the left that may be enlarged by clicking on it.

What struck me immediately was the typeface of the print. A peculiar, somewhat fin-de-siècle design, with unexperted curls. Notice the way the C and H are formed into a ligature in the name Winschoten.

My big question: does anyone recognize the typeface, of could someone point me in the direction of a good enough resemblance. I could of course recreate the font myself, but that takes a lot of time. I searched the archives in Groningen for more information about the company building, and yes! they did have a picture postcard of it:

Struggling with Japanese Katakana

2007-07-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

When working with non-Western characters you sometimes encounter special problems. For instance the Katakana syllabary, a set of 47 different sounds from Japanese that are used to represent Western names and objects. The basic sounds are not enough to get all the different sounds in languages other than Japanese. Therefore it is possible to combina two characters to create a new one. When doing this, the first character is standard in height, the second is smaller. An example may be seen in the chart I scanned. Take the "nyo", which is made from the character "ni", followed bij a smaller "yo". The result is pronounced as "nyo".

The problem I now have is: how much smaller should the second character be in relation to the first? It looks like 50 percent but it is hard to tell. It could be dependant on the style of writing (whether the text is indeed written or printed) or the person writing. I guess I'll have to do some experimenting, unless someone has a bright idea.

Practical application of the fonts

2007-06-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

It's always nice to get feedback, from people who like my fonts and do something with it. The latest is Jan van Cadsand, a true fan of the Amsterdamse School. He likes to take walks in Amsterdam, visiting famous spots like "Het Schip" (The Ship) a building designed by De Klerk. This complex houses a museum nowadays, but there are also lots of ordinary dwellings in it. Not all the people who live there are happy with the hordes of architectural tourists that bring their cameras along and photograph everything that's in sight. Some people do tend to stretch the posibilities, by putting their camera against the window and take pictures of the interior of people's houses.

But, if you just take pictures of the outside, without invading anyone's privacy then Het Schip is the place to be. Jan did that, and he uses my font Mokum Betondorp to put text in his pictures. Well done, Jan. If anyone has used my fonts in a remarkable way, please let me know!

Just In Time

2007-05-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

I like to retrace my steps sometimes, just to see if everything is still like I thought it was. I did that this week, only to find out that I had been just in time to photograph the original steel letters that were designed by Dick Greiner. These formed the basis for my font Mokum Betondorp.

The Vereenigingsgebouw (Community Building in English) as I photographed it in 2005 no longer exists. It has been sold (or rented) to a religious group, see the right-hand side of the picture. The building now is a temple. When I checked on the internet I first searched voor Shri Luru, the name that was attached to the building. That turned out to be a mistake, the second word is Guru, not Luru. This proves immediately that the font used voor the sign is not all too clear. But, perhaps the Western alphabets are difficult for scholars versed in Sanskrit. I don't really know, I'm just glad I went there in time to capture the original lettering. Judge for yourself, click on the picture to get a larger version on your screen.

The Rudelsberg-font by Eckmann

2007-04-29T03:04:00.000-07:00

Andreas Höfeld from Germany pointed me in the direction of type designer Otto Eckmann, also from Germany. Eckmann designed a number of fonts in 1900, that appeared with the Klingspor Foundry. The regular font contains echos from Roberta (or the other way around, I do not know which of these fonts was first) and the old handwritten texts made by monks. Especially the captital T, with the sickle-like stem.

The alternate font looks more like the lettering found in the Berlin Zoo. The latter font could have been modified, bij adding the peculiar top on the "o". I made a print (click to enlarge) with the fontset downloaded from the website Andreas mentioned:

http://moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/steffmann/samples/r/rudelsberg.htm

Nice typeface in the Berlin Zoo

2007-04-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

I went to Berlin for a short vacation. At the same time I went hunting for typefaces and in the Zoo I saw this one. It looks a bit Art Nouveau and I have the distinct impression I have seen this one (or a good lookalike) somewhere before.

Websites like www.myfonts.com don't know this font and in my old catalogues I cannot find it either. So... If anyone has a bright idea? I'd really love to hear it!

First proof of concept

2007-03-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is the first sample of my new font, based on the sculptures made by Van den Eijnde for the main Post Office in Utrecht (see my post from March 8). The font was actually used in a "Japanese way", meaning the texts run from top to bottom. Not yet having produced a font file this is too difficult to do, so I just put some letters on a normal line. There are still some quirks in the font that have to be eliminated, but I didn't want to keep the preview from you too long. As always, comments are welcome!

Art in concrete

2007-03-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

Question: Am I willing to drive several miles into the wilderness just to look at some letters? Answer: yes, especially when those letters were poured in concrete in the 1920's. The text is a bit faded, but it is still decipherable. If you know that the words for "radio" and "station" are exactly the same in Dutch and in English, you'll have absolutely no problem reading the name of the building.

In between the words are two figurines, the left one with distinct oriental features, the one on the right with caucasian looks. The face in between symbolises the Aether, the medium in which radio waves travel. The artwork can be found above the entrance to the main building of the Kootwijk radio station which was built to have a wireless communication with the colonies at the other side of the earth. Before 1923 the communication went through cables but in the 1st world war these were sabotaged and eavesdropped on. The Dutch government decided that a wireless solution was necessary. The result was a huge building made from reinforced concrete, so to speak in the middle of the desert. Actually it was a heather landscape, and it still is, as you can see on the second picture.

I do not plan to make these characters into a font, I just wanted to show them to you.

Dutch characters

2007-03-24T06:41:00.000-07:00

My language, Dutch, has a few specific characters, not found in any other language. Besides that we use the diacritics in a peculiar manner. Not to change the sound of a vowel (like the Umlaut in German), but to indicate a specifiek pronunciation. For instance, the word zoëven (so avon) is pronounced differently than zoeven (soofin). A typeface should have these letters with two dots above them, in order to produce texts in Dutch.

Another character that we cherish is the ligature i-j, that over the years has become a character of its own. Some fonts do have this ligature, such as Ancestory SF that I used to produce the word Lijst (Dutch for list). It is not a good idea to simulate this ij by placing two dots on an ypsilon (ÿ), the difference is just too great.

And finally the long f, the earstwhile symbol for our national currency the Guilder. It used to be called Florin, hence the letter f. This symbol is not used very much any more, but it survives in the heading of Het Financieele Dagblad, the biggest financial newspaper in The Netherlands. On the image (top) a copy of the FD's heading on their website. For more information in Dutch about fonts, typefaces and their use, you may consult Alexander Overdiep's website.

Oops!

2007-03-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

I guess someone has got some explaining to do, and it isn't me. What happened? I contacted the sales rep of the Rotterdam Cruise Terminal, to get some more info on the typeface of their logo. During the telephone conversation I got the following answers: "The typeface was especially designed for the Terminal, and therefore it is not commercially available. The font does not have a name and no, the lettering has never been used before". Case closed, you may think? Until yours truly mentioned the 1929 and 1931 travel brochures, designed by Machteld den Hertog... For which there was no reply. There could be some copyright issues here, because whoever designed the original letters is probably not "dead for 70 years" as the law states. When you are making big money (as I suspect) selling fonts you should abide by the law.

Anyhow, I won't touch this typeface. I decided not to recreate this particular font, which should give me more time to complete the Mokum GGD and Mokum Neude (a new one, derived from the statues in the Main Post Office in Utrecht).

An unexpected find

2007-03-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes my work takes me to strange places, like the Cruise Terminal in Rotterdam. This was the place where large ocean liners used to dock and let passengers ashore. The building now functions as a conference center. The owners have decorated the exterior as well as the interior with a font that bears a vague resemblance to the lettering that was used in Amsterdam around 1920, 1930. This Rotterdam typeface is a bit less sophisticated and I'm still trying to find out if it is an existing font or something that was especially designed fot the Terminal. I'll let you know what the outcome of this small investigation is. I added an extra picture, this one from the side of the building, where the text is placed in a box. This feature is also present on the windows on the ground floor. Even the plates in the restaurant have a boxed-in text, this one is a bit rounded to fit into the curves of the porcelain.

Mirror images, almost

2007-03-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

This week I went to the main Post Office in the city of Utrecht. This building was erected between 1918 and 1924, architect J. Crouwel. Inside there are a lot of statues, made by Hendrik Albertus van den Eijnde. At the very first glance I knew these letters were screaming to be transformed into a typeface. This will be done.

The sculptor Van der Eijnde also was involved in the Scheepvaarthuis (the office of the combined shipping companies) in Amsterdam. On the picture the similarities are striking. On the left is the statue representing the Indian Ocean (Indische Oceaan in Dutch) which is located next to the entrance in Amsterdam. On the right the statue representing Asia (Azie in Dutch) located in the grand hall of the Post Office in Utrecht. The letters on the right will be the ones I'll tackle first. They are bolder than bold, so to speak, and I see a lot of possibilities there.

Vive la différence!

2007-02-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

The title is an exclamation by the French, to celebrate that not all things are the same. I don't know if there is a direct English equivalent. Anyway, I want to celebrate a small difference in font Mokum GGD, which I decided to keep CAPS only. This gives room for different characters, to wit the uppercase and the lower case set. That way I can combine the two fonts found on the building in ons ttf-file.

To give an idea about the looks I did a test run with the first six letters of the alphabet. Please tell me what you think.

First version of GGD

2007-01-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

The first version of Mokum GGD is ready. The lettering was taken from sevaral old pictures of a building that is no longer there. It used to ne on Waterloo Square in the middle of Amsterdam and it housed the Municipal Health Dept. In Dutch that is the Gemeentelijke Geneeskundige Dienst, or GGD for short. Hence the name Mokum GGD. The texts that were painted on the walls of the building are not, as I first thought, from the same "font". So I'm playing around with the two styles, and try to produce something that is rather wild as well as pleasing to the eye. Clicking on the small image will bring a largers version on your screen.

It's surprise #1

2006-12-31T02:51:00.000-08:00

What I already suspected, the typographers from 1920 have prepared a nice surprise. It can be seen on the picture which shows the lettering on both sides of the building. My guess is, that the sign with Gemeentelyke (Municipal) is older than the sign with afd zuigelingenzorg (Baby Care Dept.) on it. Or, the second sign had to be put up in a hurry. Anyway, the nice E with the white stripe on only the upper part got transformed to an E with a larger white stripe on the other side of the stem. This means I'll have to do some serious experimenting.

Promising new Deco-font

2006-12-30T03:18:00.000-08:00

On the imagebank of the Municipal Archives Amsterdam I found a picture of a wooden building that was meant to give medical care to babies and toddlers. The building was run by the Health Care Department of the city. The lettering on the facade was - I guess - specially made for this building and it is striking in its simplicity.

I'm sure that trying to recreate this font will give some surprises, but I'm used to that. I see it as a nice challenge to widen my Mokum series of fonts. As always, you be the judge.

Trying to recreate Medieval texts

2006-12-30T03:02:00.000-08:00

I got a question whether it is possible to transform Medieval handwriting into a ttf-file, to use on a PC. Having such a tool can simplify the transcription of a text. The person transcribing the document can guess what a word is, type that into the computer and then compare the result on the screen with the actual manuscript. It remains to be seen if this is indeed possible, due to different forms of characters (depending on their ppsition in a word) a bit like Arabic script, where there are three different letterforms (start, middle and end). The picture shows a sample of the handwriting, a collection of sentences pronounced at a local court in 16th century Netherlands.

Nieuwe letters komen er aan

2006-10-27T03:01:00.000-07:00

Ik ben nog bezig met een update van het font Kruijswijk, met daarbij ook nog de boterletters van Wijdeveld. Oogproblemen zorgen er echter voor dat dit even een lagere prioriteit heeft.