Neutraface: Functional Novelty

No, Richard Neutra is indeed a real person. However many of his buildings (mostly homes) have been torn down.

Though not my thing, the fonts look good. But how in the hell can they possibly afford to make chairs, pillows, steel letters etc.? Do people actually buy that stuff?

yes, Neutra was a real (and brilliant) architect in the International style. in fact, Cal Poly Pomona owns/maintains one of his homes in the Los Angeles area, for all of you locals. I didn't bother reading House's version of his life story, so I've no idea how accurate it is.

back on topic, the type family has some very nice possibilities. as Steven said, it might have been just another not-so-useful novelty face had it not been for the myriad of options -- nice text variation! my only complaint is with the specimens: could those animations have been any more irritating? just give me a second to compare those numerals before you go changin' things around!

Jaw, meet floor.
Floor, meet jaw.

> There is a display family with a reduced x-height.

An interesting flip of normal practice.
In this case, I think it works.

> scant mention of Christian Schwartz

Yes, House leaves something to be desired in terms of crediting. John Butler does their price-ramping OT wizardry, but he gets a passing mention at most (and nothing at all on the site, the last time I checked).

hhp

Huh? Most of the cuts made for text use I’ve seen have a larger x-height to increase legibility at small sizes. Neutraface is in line with that trend.

Thanks for mentioning Butler’s role. I’m sorry I missed that.

There are two ranges where x-height increases (or should increase): below and above the immersive reading range, about 8-12 point. Below 8 point you increase the x-height to increase legibility (readability is shot), and above 12 you increase it for impact. But in the latter case you could sometimes decide to go with a *smaller* x-height to convey a certain elegance.

hhp

I used to consider House Industries as a "novelty type foundry" (their early production was... well... let's call it "gimmicky" :/) but since Simian all of their subsequent releases have been top-notch typography with all the trimmings. I purchased a license to House Gothic 23 as an alternative to Eurostile this summer. The attention to detail, number of alternate characters and possible combinations between different weights just blew me away. And although I have major problems with both ITC Avant Garde Gothic and especially Helvetica, I think I'm gonna purchase a license to their Chalet Collection just to be able to play with it: I haven't got any project to justify this purchase.

Say Hrant, I thought the trend to increase the x-height for impact in display sizes disappeared together with the silly haircuts and platform shoes of the late 70s? That's why I dislike the ITC revivals from that period so much: you could drive a freight train through those x-heights. Yes, Ed and Tony, I'm talking about you... ;)

for the record...

the lowercase has a lot more Avenir in it than Nobel, i think. (plus some Spartan, and the italic owes a lot to Tempo...) Nobel seemed too organic and too quirky to be a good model for this face.

but more importantly, i am fine with how much credit i get from house! why does everyone keep harping on this?

> I thought the trend to increase the
> x-height for impact in display sizes
> disappeared together with ...

ITC used obese (not just very large)
x-heights in *text* fonts - big difference.

Functionally, it makes sense for a display cut to have shorter extenders, because boumas don't matter nearly as much as during immersive reading; except if this would counter the character of the given design. Case in point: Garamond likes long extenders, so ITC Garamond was particularly unfortunate.

> i am fine with how much credit i get from house!

Peachy. Nonetheless:
1. You can't pretend that Stephen didn't slightly raise your value just now.
2. Adequately crediting somebody who doesn't necessarily demand it creates a good precedent for people who would like it - and designers generally like getting credit; it takes a lot of crediting to embarass a designer...

Considering it's much cheaper to give credit online than in print, what's the excuse for not putting something, somewhere on the site?

hhp

Hrant - I believe Christian when he says he's satisfied with the recognition he receives, however minor. Yes, I'm still puzzled why House doesn't note their designers as prominently as, say, Font Bureau. But I think we've sufficiently saturated the topic. I'd much rather discuss Neutraface.

Avenir and Tempo! How dumb of me to overlook their influence. Thanks for the nudge, Christian.

Big x-heights for display: check Quadraat Headliner.

Again Hrant baits me:
Yes, House leaves something to be desired in terms of crediting. John Butler does their price-ramping OT wizardry, but he gets a passing mention at most (and nothing at all on the site, the last time I checked).

Hrant, while I am flattered by these unsolicited attempts to speak for my interests, I am perfectly content with the relationship I have with House Industries. They send me a continuous stream of work and pay their invoices literally immediately. I wasn't very involved in this Neutra project... I just did some Python scripting and some contextual features for one of the display fonts. Most of the OT features in this set were done by other people... mainly Rich Roat, I believe.

House Industries is among the best companies someone in this field could hope to work for, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to work for them, and I hope to continue doing so.

Rich Roat does most of their in-house font engineering and QA himself, and you don't see his name in lights either. The credits are generally reserved for the guys who draw the letters, which makes perfect sense to me.

Compensation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you really want to help me out, send some jobs my way. Like House has been doing. :-)

> send some jobs my way.

Well, the next time you get a job, ask them who referred you, and just maybe they'll say "that obnoxious guy on Typographica".

hhp

I forgot to add Process Type’s wonderful Bryant to the list of this year’s architectural sansies.

I have to speak up here because John Butler is being a bit too modest. He did the OpenType features file for the two Neutraface Drafting fonts, which is a nifty little piece of code. It contextually looks backwards and forwards several charaters and substitutes glyphs to give the fonts a more "handwritten" look and feel. We actually stole this idea from the Letterror boys, who were doing it with PostScript code way back in the day. Anyway, I hope any readers out there who find themselves in need of some OT coding help will consider John to help them out.

“sansies”

I am totally working that into my everyday vocab:

“That Flemish Script is way too busy. Let’s try some sansies.”

Damn fine typeface... I just wish that character sets were available on the site. Can't find them... with my luck, though, they were front-and-center.

> ITC used obese (not just very large)
x-heights in *text* fonts - big difference.

Hrant, blame it on me being a "kid of the nineties" for not seeing those faces as text faces: I first learned to know them as Letraset rub-off at humongous type sizes (I'm still in shock). I couldn't imagine ever setting 9 point ITC Garamond, Bookman or Souvenir as body copy (shudder).
All right, I admit it, I twisted the argument a bit just to be able to get a cheap shot at Ed'n'Tony.
Vision, you're right: there isn't a full character set on the website. The most you get is this.

> I couldn't imagine ever setting 9
> point ITC Garamond, Bookman or
> Souvenir as body copy

Or even 11. But some people do just that, and many "famous" designers think it's simply a matter of aesthetic preference.

BTW, Quadraat Headliner: I love it.

hhp

Try all those Benguiatians and Lubaloids at 5-7 points and lemme know what you think.

Hey, good point. At very small sizes, the huge x-heights (as well as the curvy, open forms) can actually help, as long as you use a darker weight and track things much looser* - maybe even do an expand by as much as like 10%.

* None of that tight-not-touching 70s claptrap.

hhp

Thanks troubleman... but that just doesn't sate my hunger.

*sigh*

So, if ITC Garamond is not appropriate for text, is Adobe Garamond PRO?

I like the letterforms, and find them easy enough to read...

I just ask, as I'm self-publishing a book later this year, and am leaning to Adobe Garamond PRO for the body text. D'love any input on the matter.

I'd say most Garamonds are fine, as long as the x-height isn't too big, and the color not too light (which happened a lot when metal type was being digitized: they didn't account for the much lower gain these days - stoopid). Adobe Garamond Pro is probably one of the best.

One thing to be careful about Garamonds is that there are to main sources: Garamond himself, and Jean Jannon; you can tell the latter by the phlegmish (not Flemish) bulb on the lc "a".

hhp

Adobe Garamond Pro is a good choice. Also worth a look are 1530 Garamond and Jannon Text Moderne.

Aaack. This is about Neutra. Sorry.

Neutra seems to fit nicely inside some kind of continuum with Mr. Schwarz's other recent face, FF Bau. Add Neutra to the recent "Christian Schwarz is everywhere" list. I read somewhere there are some italics in the works for Bau, yes?

Thanks for the heads-up.

My apologies for the de-rail.

*back to dreaming about buying Neutra for his computer, and some Neutra house numbers for his, um, house*

Sorry, not about Neutra...

Another good alternative to Adobe Garamond, and much less common since it is brand new, is Jean-François Porchez's new Sabon Next, available from Linotype. See if you can get Linotype to send you a copy of the excellent specimen, which contains two essays (by Chris Burke & Jean-François) that explain the origins of Tschichold's original design and reclaim Sabon as a genuine Garamond.

(thanks!)

After perusing House's printed specimen mailing I have reached an ahh, yes state with Neutraface. It's now on my laughably long "To Buy" font list. My only complaint is that the crossbar on the cap 'A' seems too low. I understand that they wanted to avoid a clog-prone counter, but at small sizes the glyph almost appears as a triangle.

House’s printed specimen mailings are exquisite full-colour glossy drool-goodies. Man o man, I always feel a sudden urge to whup out my credit card and bolt to the sales section of their website when I’m thumbing through one. And as far as I can judge from their e-mails and phone calls they’re extremely nice people too.

BTW Has anyone tried out the OpenType features in InDesign yet?

The thing I particularly like is that you can use Neutraface both in "Futura"-mode and in "Avenir"-mode, which is way kewl. Same goes for Chalet that morphes from Helvetica/Akzidenz Grotesk to ITC Avant Garde Gothic to ITC Bauhaus-like. These guys really know what gets a typographer on. ;)