Almost exactly a year since their last redesign, Thirstype relaunches again. This time with a simpler, cleaner look and a type tester that puts all other online samplers to shame. mudTyper displays your custom text, with kerning, as you type. No buttons to push, no new pages to load. Very slick. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s not yet ready for the Lux and Underware subsites.
Also new is chester’s GalaxiePolaris, a modern take on the old school grotesque. It borrows from Helv and AkzGrot and even Univers, but the italics are mostly unprecedented.
Stephen, what do you find unprecedented about GP’s italics? The single-story a (Chalet Book)? The straight arm on the R (Gill)?
>GalaxiePolaris
Well, at least chester has the good grace to admit, in the name, that its a me-too Univers (of northern provenance). Unless it’s some kinda Ford/snowmobile thing.
However, the claim at the site that it’s inspired by pre-modern grots seems a bit off, because the squareness of the curves (dubbed “supercurve” by Zapf, I believe) is so very CRT.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the first face to adopt the trendy shape of a TV screen was MICROGRAMMA, and did so most pointedly, because it was extended, and the O had the exact same proportions. Then Zapf’s Melior (1952), and then Univers.
More recently, Foundry Monoline, Device Paralucent, and of course Thirst’s own Apex Sans. (And if I was chester, I would probably have used a fair amount of digital data from Apex to speed the construction of GalPol.)
The old-style figures are nice and set it apart from the usual 20thC grots, but again, not really pre modern: Futura was introduced with OSF, and while it fell out of fashion in the post WW2 era (for both sans and serif faces) Meta re-introduced the option for sans c1990.
As much as I was disappointed with General, I am very pleased with GalaxiePolaris as a new option for a “contemporary gothic”. It’s all in the details baby. Good job.
BTW General seems to have disappeared from Thirstype’s website and is now available for licensing from Dresser Johnson. Whahappened?
Whoa! A ten weigths OpenType 1-4 CPU license for US$149?! That can’t be right. It’s a steal! Did I miss something?
“mostly unprecedented” was my poor way of saying that the itals are original enough that they didn’t remind me of anything in particular.
The Leapyear font seems awfully familiar to me.
I guess making tribute fonts isn’t too creative after all. :(
>awfully familiar
More like superficially similar. Sure, it’s hyper-heavy and with round corners, but the basic shapes are generally quite different and much more conventionally all-cap, with more cues. The important thing that sets it apart is that it has its own, quite consistent, design principles — suggesting that it is not plagiarized, even if it may have been inspired (consciously or unconsciously). Of course, there is such a thing as “polygenesis”.
*sigh*
I’ll be a bit more generous and assume that Jesse wasn’t making any sort of accusation(Because, really; it’d be rather disingenous for the creator of a tribute to complain that someone else’s work looks like his, now wouldn’t it?) and will instead inform you all that Chester luvs him some Plaid, also.
>Chester luvs him some Plaid, also.
Thanks for spelling it out Su, I get it now.
Being a grown-up, I had missed the nuances ;-/
I must be a grown-up too, because I don’t get it. Is the idea here that both of these fonts are “homages” to an original work by Designers Republic? Does anyone care how the boys at DR feel about this? (I would.)
Is the whole idea itself inherently original enough to prowl around for possible predecessors? It seems like the type of thing a bunch of people could easily come up with independently.
hhp
Hrant:
Probably not. But that’s moot, as Jesse brought it up himself, and he did explicitly show there was a predecessor on his site. No prowling involved. I was merely calling into question the idea that Chester might’ve plagiarized him.
As to how DR feel about either font, Jonathan, you’ll have to ask them. I suppose it’d also depend largely on whether they actually created an entire typeface or if there’s only the letters required for that particular album cover, and how “faithful” either is to their work. The image at Jesse’s site is too small for me to really guess, but I do see at least a few distinct differences. I almost wonder whether they even bother to be concerned about being ripped off anymore.
Oops. Sorry if my reply was a little vague, and therefore suspicious.
I had noticed that both I and Chester had created homages to the same album cover, and I guess I felt a little cheated. Not out of a monetary sense (both fonts are free, as they should be), but mostly out of the selfish notion that I was the only one with such a creative exertion.
It was a cryptic post, and I apologize if I sounded petty and unwilling to share the credit of a Warp-inpired piece.
All the credit belongs to the Designers Republic anyhow. Firestarters!
Hmm, Designer’s Republic. Use a lot of Helvetica. Could be that GalaxiePolaris…? Naaaw.
Chester started working on Galaxie a little over two years ago. When I saw the drawings in his sketchbook, I implored him to complete the typeface quickly. With many other projects to keep him busy, Galaxie was ready just in time for me to use/beta test in my thesis book last spring at Yale.
Having worked at a Modernist graphic design studio for several years before school, I had about 6 typefaces to choose from in my daily work, among them were: Helvetica, Univers and Akzidenz. While I use many other typefaces today, I find myself returning to the classic grotesks often. One of the things I loved about Chester’s early drawings of Galaxie was that it felt like it could slip in as an alternate for one of these typefaces, yet it still felt new.
I can’t comment on some of the earlier posts that read into the influences behind Galaxie — I am not a type designer, but I am a skilled typographer. I know that Galaxie was not made from any other faces — it does not literally borrow from any other typeface in its construction; Apex Sans was not cannibalized in its making, and neither were Helvetica, Univers or Akzidenz cracked-open and cut and pasted or otherwise mixed into its forms. (Even if the designer has, on one or two occasions, given in to making tribute fontsďż˝)
While the name Galaxie is a nod to Univers, and its forms evoke classical Modernist typgraphy, Galaxie is not intended to be a *universal* typeface. According to Chester, the name Polaris was carefully chosen; it is the pole star, the guiding point for other members of the Galaxie family that are on their way. And none too soon, in my opinon.
Pardon me for wondering if chester may have borrowed some data from Apex for Galaxie, just because that’s often the way I work!
As to where the slight squareness of the curves comes from, given that it’s not a characteristic of the older grots which Apex shares an affinity with, I am inclined to believe that it doesn’t come from Univers et al, but is probably a personal style.
Oh! I just rediscovered a Thirstype that I think deserves more attention: Claudio’s Exegetic.
Which sucks big time in terms of spacing and overall usability (speaking of that AIGA Cyrus Highsmith article), but whose kind enough to buy it have my word they will get an updated text version whenever I’ll design it. In terms of design I think it’s always interesting, dealing with the rarely explored territory of early Christian-related epigraphy and lettering.
After Post’s faces, of course (probably my biggest influence when I designed it in 1997).
Tracy wrote: “While the name Galaxie is a nod to Univers”
I think Univers referred to universality, not to the univers in spatial terms. Am I wrong?
Note that “Galaxie” was one of the original candidates (along with “Monde” and I think one other) for a name for Univers.
hhp
Where did you get that information, Hrant? If I was Frutiger I would have not found the name Galaxie (or Monde for what matters) fit to his Univers.
> Where did you get that information
Here and there.
hhp
There’s some info on Univers here (scroll down).
‘Galaxie’ is not mentioned as one of the candidates for naming Univers.
Ah, now I see, “Monde” came probably out of Peignot direction. Adrian says in the end:
“I therefore decided to adopt a neutral, universally comprehensible numerical system, arranged in the form of a star.”
“Universally”, so maybe I wasn’t so far away in saying Univers nodded to universality before than the universe in spatial terms. :)
Adrian adds, speaking of the new expanded Univers family (which I should definitely buy!):
“I created the italics by using scissors to remove the distortions of the typical 16-degree sloping of the upright version.”
Now this is creativity! I’m still deciding how to construct the italics for my new Thirstype DIN/Univers-related face I mentioned here and there.
This is always an exciting challenge: to avoid mere obliques and to avoid the pitfall of classic italic models based on calligraphic forms. Looking at both is problematic, I’d like to avoid both instead. The thing is SO geometric… I’m still thinking…
Claudio, if you want to see a high-quality but progressive italic, check out FF Olsen’s.
hhp
Thanks, hhp.
FF Olsen Italics are interesting, but I fear I can’t make you see the problem, at least not until I’m home. I’ve not the face with me. Try to imagine a DIN condensed (not a Univers whose curves are more complex), and think of an Italic which is not an oblique, *strongly* geometric but not so close to the upright basic Latin.
An headache, but I’ll solve it…
I just tried the MudTyper with DSL speed at home. Wow, it rocks!