Jesus,

Are you sure you do not find none interesting?
Cosider Meta. Amazing font from an incredible designer.
Not talking about Futura, I mean, Paul Renner and geometric fonts,
more histoy to dive in than ... whatever. Fascinating subject of study

Forget Avant Garde, too many posting on typophiles.
I love City, maybe because slab serif drive me crazzy

Universe and Gill Sans... well great fonts and tons of info everywhere.
Came on make a choice you like! theres great stuff in your list,
and then start your research and you will be surprised how much info you find...

let us now your choice if other than OCR-A

G.

Yeah, I know... I want to avoid the fonts from the “upper” list.. the fonts from the upper list are the fonts where it should be easy to find much info.. but I would prefer to pick one from the lower.. the city would be my second choice..
Don’t worry, if I don’t find anything about the fonts from the lower list, i will pick meta.

Pick a font where the designer is still alive and is willing to talk to you about their work - I’d go with Sparky’s Chicken - it’s a klassic!

that’s what i had in mind too.. you mentioned sparky’s(??) chicken.. regarding my sheet, it’s a font from david carson and betsy kopshina, made 1994.. but i can’t find it online.

Maybe - but this was the Chicken I was thinking of...

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/news.aspx?NID=1334

Cheers, Si

no.. thats the wrong one.. it looks more like a trashy, handdrawn typewriter face.. (with filled bowls)

I would go for Avant Garde, Herb Lubalin is a great character to talk about and you can discuss the different incarnations of Avant Garde as well as it’s role in the magazine.

Héctor

http://www.identifont.com/show?SR

http://www.recogniform.com/ocra.htm

http://homepages.cwi.nl/~dik/english/codes/charrec.html

I decided to do the work about Avant Garde.

While I found some examples where you can see the font in use (Travis CDs, Adidas Logo, etc.), I am still searching for pages of the magazine (for which the font was made) and general information about Lubalin...

I looked through some typography books, but I didn’t find anything beside of his biography..

If you have any information which could be usefull, please let me know..

Thanks,
Michi

http://81.64.51.158/web-herb-lubalin/index.html

Héctor

Of all the typefaces you could have chosen on the list you showed us, ITC Avant Garde Gothic is currently the most controverial and misrepresented type design whose true origin is masked behind myth and “marketing spin”. In other words, most of what you will find “published” on AGG has been “glamorized” in order to continually remarket a typeface that was never meant to be a typeface.

If you search Typophile and Typographica (typographi.com) you will find conflicting viewpoints on both the expansion of the type family and even the viability of its usefulness. Unless you are willing to really dig behind all the bullsh*t, your project will just be dumped into a cesspool of criticism.

Besides basic research, if you could interview some of Lubalin’s contemporaries and get some yet undisclosed background on how the design really evolved from the magazine’s cover to a full upper and lowercase type family released by ITC, then that would really be a story to tell.

Actually, considering Avant Garde Gothic made its debut on Ralph Ginzburg’s magazine in January of 1968, we should be calling it Après Garde Gothic by now.

great link, héctor! exactly what I am looking for..

I agree with you in all points..

I think there was a statement which said that the only good application of the font was at the logo itself..

Besides that the typeface is unusable for copy text, it has also a very restricted use as display/headline face (i hope you know what I am trying to say with my bad english ;))

For the work i have to do, the most important thing is that I choose a font which is interesting to talk about (and what could be a better choice than a controversal typeface like this).

I am interested why people still buy a typeface like this nowadays - and there have to be many people because otherwise the foundries wouldn’t republish/update the typeface.

Where do you see the Avantgarde Gothic in use (except of works which deal with the late 60ies / early 70ies / spaceage, etc.)? Have you seen the typeface in contemporary publications?
I would be interested in getting to know in which situations / for which projects you would consider this typeface..

Thanks for all your input so far,
Michi

— HBO has used it several times last year —

— Prominently used on New Zealand’s banknote.

— Yet another article on AGG.

— Comments (started by Mark Simonson on Typographica) on ITC’s recent release of Avant Garde Gothic Pro.

The older stuff is still much nicer:

ChrisL

I am interested why people still buy a typeface like this nowadays

1. It is evocative, and they like nostalgia.
2. They can’t be bothered to work with new faces, finding it easier to slip into proven cliches.
3. It’s fun to play with the alternates.
4. It’s rewarding to take a classic for a spin - at least once.
5. They bought the hype, and hope some of the Lubalin glamour will rub off. Let’s face it, type designers (with the exception of one or two rock stars) are a dull bunch.

“Let’s face it, type designers (with the exception of one or two rock stars) are a dull bunch.”

LOL!!! Ah, the truth hurts :-)

ChrisL

Sorry about staying with Trajan. Much to my surprise, that is what the original “Rock Star” movie used. :-)

ChrisL

Just call me Slowhand.

“Just call me Slowhand”

You go Eric and I’ll just start Clappin :-)

ChrisL

Lawson’s opening phrase of page 209 comes to mind.

Michael, forget AG (the both of them). OCR-A would
be an interesting choice. There’s tons about it, like
in serious journals such as Visible Language.

And here’s some tantalizing trivia about it:
Newlyn’s Missionary was based on it! Strange
but true. Maybe you could address the two as
“sensible-twin/crazy-twin” fonts. Teacher will
like that for sure.

hhp