Gin, Scotch and Making Babies

I've mentioned MyFonts' Creative Characters before when I discussed their inaugural issue, Christian Schwartz (he of Neutra, Luxury and the Guardian family fame) and my first encounter with the Guardian and have been checking up on them from time to time. They've recently highlighted the type designer Nick Shinn, whom I've had limited prior knowledge of before. I read his fantastic essay on the typographic style of the satirical Punch magazine; using that as a springboard for a highly informed breakdown of industrial era typographic styles and necessities. I figured that the face he used for the article had to be of his own creation, and turns out it is. 

He has recently released his newest type family - Scotch Modern - in homage to the type of that era. In the interview he mentions that many people don't like this style, that the thin hairlines and heavy verticals give it to much sparkle. Well, to those people who think that, they're wrong. I want to sex this font. Yes, you heard me loud and clear. 

 

Whenever I was foraging for type at the Printing Museum I always hoped that something like this would come my way. That somehow, somewhere I'd come across a case of some classic Dwiggins or Caslon type, and I could forever live in a make believe Victorian world. Where all the serifs were this sharp, the bowls have as much idiosyncrasies as the C and Gin would be served in mugs for morning tea to keep the grueling day to day pain of living at bay. He's also released a sans serif to go with it, which is probably more important historically than the spunk bomb above. Titled Figgins, it places itself at the pre-birth of the modernist sans. Bridging the gap between the vulgarity of 19th century poster type and the sheer idealist rationality of 20th century modernist faces. I came across a set of shareware revivalist Victorian faces the other week but unfortunately I couldn't get them to open. I suspect that the whole collection wouldn't have near as much subtle genius on display that Figgins has.

The beautiful thing about this family is that House didn't get to it first, so the irony quotient isn't as high as it could have been. Heck, he didn't trace or scan any of the letterforms to get them right, he did it all with the use of a loupe; that's how it looks just so right, so true to form. Oh to dream of being a hard working catholic type setter: working 14 hour days with awful working conditions, handling lead type all day long and then going home to my missus with ink all over my hands.

Comments

[Joel]

Fantastic post Nev. Love your work.

I too would make love to that typeface, except it would be kinky, sado-masochistic sex, what with the sharp serifs and all.

[Fiona]

Is it me, or does this blog post sound uncannily like the comic stylings of Steven Colbert? Such as the way in which you have spoken coherently about the topic then suddenly interjected with random WACKIESS.

[Moses Spatula]

I don't have sex with typefaces; I make sweet love to them, and they to me.

[Chris Lozos]

Shinntilating work Nick has spun here and filled a stylistic void few have ventured to,

[Michael Babcock]

what base(line) desires.

however, define "own creation".

while lovely in a very dated way, and i do like this type, his "creation" is simply drawn (literally and figuratively) from a very old model, culled either directly from an historic specimen (i have my 1889 ATF Desk Book at hand), or hybridized from one or more of the "Modern Romans" marketed for book and newspaper comp. Add some Euro symbols and unicode glyphs and its an own creation?

Anyway, it's amusing your visceral reaction to this old old Didotine model. Perhaps that's what makes it so fresh and novel, er, even sexy, to you? It's the product of the hard reality of analog compass and rule, graver and file, and not the free-form, see it make it, anything goes bezier and mouse, screen and 011010.

nice masthead btw. you should get some engraved letterhead done up for hand written correspondence. um, you know, hand jobs...

[cialis online]

To me this seemed realistic, no promise that I’d open my Clickbank account the next morning and be overwhelmed by the cash pouring into it.

[generic propecia]

The most powerful symbols of wealth, which in turn help generate
money, are the three-legged money toad, three Chinese coins, arowana
fish, money trees crafted from semi-precious stones like yellow
citrine, the Chinese god of wealth and even the creeper plant
popularly known as money plant.

[coach handbags]

How many people actually have 8 true friends?Hardly anyone I know.But some of us have all right friends and good friends.

[Meanesthing]

typeface is important for sexual stimulation. hope find soon for me ones too.

[Steve Marshall]

I love the Scotch Modern family. In my book, Faces in the Street,
( at http://stevemarshallphotographs.com/books ) I refer to the use of the the Scotch Modern typeface by Australian publisher Angus & Robertson, who in the 1880's published mostly in Scotch Modern.

Thanks Nick for sending me the Modern Suite Handbook.