Typeface Twin Cities Project to be Unveiled at TypeCon2003

Can a typeface communicate the unique character of a city?

The University of Minnesota Design Institute (UMDI) invited six teams of typographers to answer that question. Each proposed a new typeface for the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, as part of the Twin Cities Design Celebration 2003.

During a special session at TypeCon2003, to be held July 17-20 in Minneapolis, invited designers Peter Bilak (Peter Bilak, graphic design & typography/Typotheque), Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum (LettError), Gilles Gavillet and David Rust (Optimo), Sybille Hagmann (Kontour), Conor Mangat (Inflection), and Eric Olson (Process Type Foundry) will present their concepts. The LettError team will discuss the development of the selected font, Twin.

Employing OpenType, and based on custom software entitled the "Panchromatic Hybrid Style Alternator," LettError's Twin font offers an infinitely varied typographic menu. And, in a remarkable first, a live and reactive version can be linked via the Internet to dynamic data, so that urban conditions in the Twin Cities can visibly affect the font's appearance.

"Metro Letters," a 144-page book documenting the project, published by the Design Institute, and edited by Typeface Twin Cities project manager Deborah Littlejohn, will be available for sale at TypeCon2003 for $29.95.

This in-depth, illustrated publication includes transcripts from the jury process; interviews with all six typographers, highlighting their concept development; a focus on the selected font; and specially commissioned essays by design educators and critics Michael Worthington and Gail Swanlund.

Also available at TypeCon2003 will be limited edition boxed sets of Chocoletters, a custom version of Twin created in honor of the Dutch tradition of rendering letters in chocolate.

For further information about the Typeface Twin Cities project, contact Littlejohn. For information about the Design Institute and Twin Cities Design Celebration, contact Janet Abrams, Director.

TypeCon2003 is the annual conference of SOTA, an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, study, and support of type design, typography, and the related arts. Secure online registration and further conference details are available online. For more information about SOTA, please visit the website, or email info@typesociety.org.