Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese Launch

I launched the kickstarter campaign this morning. If successful, Micah Currier and I will convert my typefaces Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese into a new proprietary type family comprising over 185 different characters and ligatures. Any support you can give will bring us closer to our goal.

Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese

In a couple of weeks I will be launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to have Micah Currier at the Dale Guild Type Foundry cut and cast my typefaces Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese as a new proprietary metal type family. Here are a couple of pictures of the digital predecessors of the typefaces in action.

Thoughts on Making New Metal Type

Annie shot this video during my conversation with Gaylord Schanliec and Jane Siegel at the Center for Book Arts, New York. It gives a good sense of my motivations in turning my digital typefaces into new metal type.

Specimens of Diverse Characters Arrives!

Copies of the deluxe and standard editions of Specimens of Diverse Characters arrived from Book Lab II this week. I realize that I designed the books but I am still surprised by their heft—they are BOOKS. The transformation from loose sheets to bound book always takes me off guard, the final metamorphosis in the chain from concept to sketch to drawing to print to book. It is easy to understand why so many printers and book makers have also been drawn to alchemy.

The books are bound using a modified Bradel binding that opens beautifully flat at every spread. The standard edition has a red leather spine with paper covered boards printed from my foundry Lisbon Ornaments. It is housed in a cloth covered clamshell box with an inset red leather label stamped in silver foil. The deluxe edition uses the same structure but the boards are covered in gray leather with a specimen of Iohann Titling stamped in silver foil on the front cover. In addition to the book, the deluxe comes with a portfolio of progressive state proofs of three complex prints and a selection of five unbound prints from the book. The book and portfolio are housed in a clamshell box with a leather spine and foredges. At the back of the box is an inset window behind which is a setting of Harry Carter's passage Type is something that you can pick up and hold in your hand in a special issue of Iohann Titling foundry type cast on a 30pt body.

The standard and deluxe editions of Specimens.

The deluxe edition with its box.

The deluxe box showing the inset form of type. In the foreground the book sits on 

the portfolio of state proofs and prints that accompanies the edition.

A close up of the type form.

The standard edition with its box.

A close up of the patterned paper printed from foundry Lisbon Ornaments.

While waiting

While waiting for the first copies of Specimens of Diverse Characters and Nocturnes to arrive from Book Lab II next week, I decided to make a little booklet of the new foundry types I made this year with Micah Currier at the Dale Guild Type Foundry. Copies will be sent to subscribers on Tuesday. In the meantime, here are some angled photos of the pages.

Nicolas

Iohann Titling

Above and below: Lisbon Ornaments

Finishing Specimens

Yesterday I finished printing the interior of Specimens, which, incidentally,  is now called Specimens of Diverse Characters. Afterward, Nancy Loeber, Micah Currier and Annie Schlechter all gathered at the studio to view the book and head to Peter Luger's Steakhouse for a celebratory lunch. Here are some pictures of the final weeks of printing.

The title page in process. Set in Iohann Titling.

The William Morris page. Set in Nicolas with drawn titling.

Aeschylus page masked for smoking.

Aeschylus page masked after smoking.

Final Aeschylus page with unique smoke drawing. Set in Van Krimpen Titling.

Nancy Loeber curating sheets.

The special casting of Iohann Titling cast on a 30pt body to be used for the deluxe copies.

Transferring 50 lbs of Lisbon Ornaments to the bed of my Vandercook for the standard copy pattern paper.

One of the five title pages from the text settings section. Printed intaglio in Evora Ornaments and a variety of faces form my Ventura Family.

Another title page form the text settings. Set in Saturn and Saturn Shadow.

Iohann Titling spread from Notes section.

Agnese 238 and Nicolas spread form notes section.

Russell with the bounty.

Micah Currier with the bread.

Nancy Loeber with the sauce.

Annie Schlechter with the fries.

Specimens and Nocturnes

It has been a busy month in the shop. After our brief summer break, I had Nancy re-soak the Gustave Flaubert page to flatten it out after air drying at the Center for Book Arts. This second soaking of the paper transformed its surface to such an extent that the original, undampened paper feels like a clay coated sheet by comparison. The twice dampened sheet has the texture and softness of Belgian linen while still retaining the "snap" of a fine handmade paper. The moment I touched it I realized that we would have to put every sheet through the dampening process twice—3,000 sheets of paper each hand dipped in filtered water, blotted, and hung to dry. Twice. We now have two people working full time on this process.

Shortly after the Flaubert re-dampening, Micah Currier brought by the first castings of my Lisbon ornaments. Inspired by, but not based on, the calligraphy of Joaquim Jozé Ventura da Silva, the Lisbon ornaments are meant to work in combination to form diaper patterns. Although Ventura da Silva did work in Lisbon, I chose the name for the ornaments because of the patterned paving stones throughout Lisbon, pavings that work similarly to the ornaments. One set of the ornaments will be used to print the patterned papers for the covers of the standard edition of Specimens. The other set were used on the J L Carr page of the display settings. After publication, the Dale Guild will release a limited casting of the ornaments for sale.

While I began preparing the final files for the text settings of Specimens, we took two weeks to print a small book of 23 short prose pieces by Mark Strand in my new Strand Serif typeface. Nocturnes will ship to Book Lab II in a week or so for binding & a prospectus will be available soon. Five pieces from the same series will appear as one of the text settings in Specimens.

Back on Specimens, I've now printed three of the five text settings: The Planning of Temples by Vitruvius; On the Profligacy of Marcus Antonius by Cicero; and On the Usefulness and Invention of Writing by Joaquim Jozé Ventura da Silva. I will finish up the remaining two this coming week.

Finally, thinking that one new foundry type might not be enough, I decided to make a second one. My typeface Nicolas, which was drawn while thinking of the enamel-work lettering of Nicolas of Verdun, has now been cut, fit, and trial cast by Micah Currier. The type will be used for the William Morris page in the display settings as well as most of the titling in the book. Like the Lisbon ornaments, the Dale Guild will be releasing a limited casting of Nicolas for sale at the Oxford Book Fair.

Nancy and Sarah McDerrmott hanging twice dampened paper.

Two of the Lisbon ornaments cut and cast by Micah Currier at the Dale Guild Type Foundry set up to print the cover paper of the standard copies of Specimens.

Foundry Iohann Titling used for the Harry Carter page.

 Baker used for the Jung page.

Baskerville Great Primer with custom titling used for the Baskerville Page.

Two more of the Lisbon ornaments used with Texto Portuguez for the J L Carr page.

Strand Serif.

Doctoring a plate from the text setting of Cancellaresca Milanese Formata.

The first setting of foundry Nicolas cut and cast by Micah Currier at the Dale Guild Type Foundry.