Kent Lew's Whitman:

http://fontbureau.com/fonts/Whitman

James Montalbano's oeuvre:

http://terminaldesign.com/

Mark Simonson's work:

http://www.ms-studio.com

Eric Olson used to hang out:

http://www.processtypefoundry.com

Jean Francois Porchez chimes in from time to time:

http://www.typofonderie.com

The voluble Hrant Papazian finds time to work the beziers:

http://themicrofoundry.com/

David Berlow, whose posts often approach Dada poetry, founded Font Bureau and designed a number their faces, including the Titling Gothic mega-family.

http://fontbureau.com/fonts/sans/TitlingGothicFB

I've seen Christian Schwartz and Jonathan Hoefler post here infrequently.

I haven't actually sold my fonts yet, but there are some in the pipeline that I will be selling soon. I've released some of my earlier work as free fonts here:

http://www.1001fonts.com/member_profile.html?author_id=30468

When I get around to it I'll be updating those too. I didn't know what an ogonek was back then and got them totally wrong, along with a host of other flaws.

Don't forget Christian Robertson, whose Veer releases (Pill Gothic, Dear Sarah) ran the Critique forum gauntlet.

http://www.veer.com/products/typedetail.aspx?image=UMT0000043

http://www.betatype.com

Stefan Hattenbach is a Typophile sponsor and talented designer:

http://macrhino.com/

Herr Spiekermann, who designed a little family called Meta (you may have heard of it ;) and founded FontShop, corrects our mistakes and shares his wisdom (all too rarely).

http://www.spiekermann.com/mten/index.html

Kris Sowersby, rising star of the South.

And Typophile moderators and type designers Paul Hunt and Dan Reynolds.

The Hebrew fonts of David Hamuel have just appeared, with many more to come in many languages.

Speaking of Spiekermann, he, Christian Schwartz and myself are working on a serif version of that little family called Meta. (It's looking pretty damn good as well…)

My own small folio of work is here, with Feijoa being the only public release thus far. But National & Newzald have to be done by August, so that will be good to flesh out the range!

—K

You all forgot the Wiki!: Typophile Type Designers

So what you're all saying is that most of the best new fonts out there are created by Typophile members/posters?

I don't know about the numbers, but without an iota of a doubt
Typophile is the world's primo watering hole for type designers.

Kris, I've always been fascinated (and frankly generally a bit sceptical)
about collaborative type design. Could you shed some light on how you
guys are making the Meta-Serif mechanics actually work out?

hhp

Kris, I've always been fascinated (and frankly generally a bit sceptical)
about collaborative type design. Could you shed some light on how you
guys are making the Meta-Serif mechanics actually work out?

How can you be sceptical? I am not too sure what you mean by mechanics, but I'll try to explain. Christian proposed the idea of working together on Meta Serif, and I agreed. He had Erik's blessing to go ahead. I think Christian did the first sketches (in Fontlab) and gave the file to me, it was passed back and forth until we were both happy with it. Then, based on the Roman, I proceeded to flesh out the italic & blacks, with Christian marking the proof .pdf's and sometimes tweaking the .vfb's if the changes were minute. All the way along Erik is asked to check to make sure he is happy with how it is looking, and also makes suggestions.

So, as you can see, it is a truly collaborative approach. I have to admit it is much easier than trying to make a typeface solo, as certain decisions are made more much quickly!

Is that what you mean by mechanics?

—K

Thanks for the inside scoop!
Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful that you guys are making
this level of collaboration work so smoothly. But it's pretty rare, no?

hhp

As far as I know, collaboratively designing type from start to finish is rare indeed. Christian's work with Kris, Erik, and others is an exception. You could probably add a few more to that list like House, Quay+Sack, RXC & PSY/OPS designers, and Underware. But it's certainly not the norm. Type design is largely a solo operation until you get to the final technical shtuff.

Where is this idea coming from that type design is done by a solitary genius? Paul and Christian work like this all the time. Erik and Christian have been collaborating for years. Slimbach & Twombly designed Minion together. Frutiger & André Guertler have done piles of work the same way, just not with computers. And what about Edward Hoffmann, who basically designed Helvetica through Max Miedenger's hands? I would say that most major releases are via collaboration, one way or another.

—K

> Slimbach & Twombly designed Minion together.

And from what I gather that cemented their mutual dislike! :-/
BTW, Myriad.

> most major releases are via collaboration

I can see what you're getting at, but I think you're over-playing the nature of collaboration in type design. Maybe we need to dissect the mechanics to get a better grasp of what tasks can and cannot be shared? For example, Gill used to draw the letters then leave the spacing to the Monotype "boys". Is this OK?

hhp

Kris, in your opinion, what are some big reasons that certain people collaborate in type design? Is it that one of the parties is too busy, do certain people simply enjoy collaboration, or maybe they realize the end-result would be better with certain skills they don't have?

Like why do you think Christian called on you?
I could ask him, but since you're here... :-)

hhp

>why

Basically I think it's two very talented and hard working guys with open, generous personalities, personalities which enable them to collaborate well.

Christian has great 'type eyes' and of course saw Kris's talent. It helps that Kris and Christian are both part of Village, and Chester I suspect played a role in starting the collaboration.

I agree with all that, but I think in terms of motivation (as opposed
to facilitation) there must be more - a certain practical element.
If not in this particular case, in general. But really even in this case:
do you think Christian was incapable of making a good Meta-Serif
on his own?

Again, just to clarify: I'm very happy Christian and Kris are working
together - I think quite highly of both of them. In fact I think they
can help us understand collaboration in type design, since they tend
to be very open in public.

hhp

And from what I gather that cemented their mutual dislike! :-/
BTW, Myriad.

One instance doesn't make the rule! Myriad… thanks for the correction!

I think you're over-playing the nature of collaboration in type design.

Am I? Perhaps I am. I can only speak from personal experience.

For example, Gill used to draw the letters then leave the spacing to the Monotype "boys". Is this OK?

I don't see why it isn't. It gets the job done.

Kris, in your opinion, what are some big reasons that certain people collaborate in type design?

I like it because two minds are much better than one! Decisions are easier to make, mistakes are picked up by the other, the revolving set of fresh eyes is hugely beneficial. It is a hard, tedious slog making a larger family with multiple weights and smallcaps etc. A problem shared is a problem halved.

Like why do you think Christian called on you?

You'd have to ask him, I think.

Basically I think it's two very talented and hard working guys with open, generous personalities, personalities which enable them to collaborate well.

That helps! We get along very well, which makes things easy. We also have larger similar aesthetic taste.

But really even in this case: do you think Christian was incapable of making a good Meta-Serif on his own?

Woah! Easy on man. He is more than capable of doing it all himself, let me assure you. Remember that he mostly drew the first round, establishing the style & shapes. I am just translating all of this through the weights & into the italics!

—K

Man, I'm glad I started this topic. Wonderful discussion on the nature of font collaboration has broken out in what could have easily been answered with a blunt, "read the wiki."

For example, Gill used to draw the letters then leave the spacing to the Monotype "boys". Is this OK?

Does anyone else see this one as just being obvious and falling under the law of comparative advantage?

Woah! Easy on man. He is more than capable of doing it all himself, let me assure you. Remember that he mostly drew the first round, establishing the style & shapes. I am just translating all of this through the weights & into the italics!

Kris is being overly modest here, but I'll go back to the beginning first. The idea of Meta Serif has been floating around since 2002 or so, and after a several false starts, Erik and I finally figured out the basic look for the Roman at ATypI last fall. I forget how Kris and I first got in touch with each other, but we had worked together on a few small things and gotten to know each other when I asked him to draw Meta Serif with me. I don't remember the specific circumstances, I just had a gut feeling that it would work out. I thought there was a good chance the typeface would turn out better and be finished faster if we drew it together. He thought I was joking at first, but the rest will be history soon enough.

I probably could have drawn the family myself (even that would have been a collaboration between me and Erik), but Kris brings his own sensibility to the mix, and he's doing a lot more than translating the basic design into a full family - he's really helped to shape the design. To be honest, the trickiest part is managing the files and knowing what the most current version is at any given moment, not working together. In the end, it won't be what he or I or Erik would have done on our own.

It was a similar scenario with Guardian Egyptian, Guardian Sans, Publico, and the other projects Paul Barnes and I have worked on together - I don't think he or I would have come up with any of these typefaces on our own, but together the work (sometimes quickly, sometimes eventually) came pretty naturally. When Paul and I work together, the division of labor is really unclear. One or both of us draws some characters, then we pass files back and forth until we're both happy with what we've got. Then one of us does the kerning, and I generally do the Superpolating. Not a very exciting story, I'm afraid.

A shared design sensiblity is important for collaboration, but I think the rest is just chemistry. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I've been pretty lucky in finding people to work with, and have various projects in the works with Kris, Erik, Paul, and others right now, plus a few things of my own. I think it keeps my work fresh, and each of my collaborators knows things that I don't, which keeps things interesting.

I usually do everything myself these days, but I have had some help recently mastering files prior to release, and worked with Alexey Lisovsky on a Cyrillic version of Handsome. Well, he did all the work actually, I art directed and provided some technical help. Of course, a little bit of art direction can go a long way, as the proverbial sketch on the table napkin demonstrates.

My retail fonts have no outside input, which is fine by me, that's the main reason I started the foundry. But it's also very valuable to get direction in commissioned work, whether it's from a client who is a designer/art director, or "just" a client. For instance, many times I've prepared alternate directions for a project, and the client has picked what at the time I considered the least promising option. And then it was a struggle to develop it into something that pleased the client and myself. But often, despite the headaches, that produces the most interesting results.

Ho! Looks like we killed the thread, CS…

—K

Patience...

hhp

Concerning the Gill angle, the obvious problem is that the intent and planning of good notan is very hard to convey from one person to another, and I have to think Gill and the Monotype boys attempted no such thing; and I hope we agree that the White is Important. The interesting, and quite broad and deep, question here is: if you're making a "conventional" Latin text face, are the norms of what instances of letterspacing "simply work" perhaps reliable enough not to require any discussion beyond things like "I think it should be looser"? I would have to say that from where I stand, perhaps yes, but then "conventional" becomes quite distant from "ideal"; and when Kris says "it gets the job done", that raises a red flag for me.

> the revolving set of fresh eyes is hugely beneficial.

I agree fully. When you're too close to something it's hard to see it clearly (like how one typically sees many things to fix in one's own design after a while of not looking at it). The danger of course is the potential occasional truth of the maxim: "If it takes one person one day to finish a job, it takes two people two days." :->

> Woah! Easy on man.

Easy on man right back at ya! It was a rhetorical question. :-)

My point was that incapability could not have been the reason for Christian to have initiated this collaboration. Although it can be sometimes, like if a person [thinks he] is not good at spacing (re: Gill) and passes the job along to others; but like I said, this can be dangerous to "total" quality.

But there still has to be a practical dimension. Although possibly I need to see things like "I wanted to work with this guy" as in fact having a "practical" core... in an "I, Robot" sort of way. :->

> When Paul and I work together, the division of labor is really unclear.

Would you say this slows things down but results in something better?
(BTW, since Paul is a member now, maybe get him to chime in too.)

hhp

Concerning the Gill angle, the obvious problem is that the intent and planning of good notan is very hard to convey from one person to another,

Notan? What on earth is that! I would say the Monotype chaps did a good job, I love metal Gill at text sizes, it has a lovely feel. Not too keen about the digital, though.

if you’re making a “conventional” Latin text face, are the norms of what instances of letterspacing “simply work” perhaps reliable enough not to require any discussion beyond things like “I think it should be looser”?

I read this in Updike: "The eye is the sovereign ruler of taste". It is as simple and complicated as that!

I would have to say that from where I stand, perhaps yes, but then “conventional” becomes quite distant from “ideal”; and when Kris says “it gets the job done”, that raises a red flag for me..

Your ideal may be different from mine or Christian's, but we can all tell when it is wrong, it's just a matter of making it as right as we can. What is wrong with "getting the job done"? It is a job to me, it is part of what I do when I work. And I was brought up with the working value of "if you are going to do something, you might as well do it properly". So when I say get the job done, I mean it in the fullest sense of the word.

Although it can be sometimes, like if a person [thinks he] is not good at spacing (re: Gill) and passes the job along to others; but like I said, this can be dangerous to “total” quality.

The total quality? What if you picked your favourite 5 typefaces and investigated the production method? It might be revealing…

But there still has to be a practical dimension.

There is: two heads (four eyes) are better than one! Don't be so empirical ;-) This is type design, done with the hand, heart & head to be ultimately judged by the eye.

—K

> I would say the Monotype chaps did a good job

I think so too... but it's not the same.

That Updike quote, I don't get the relevance here.

> we can all tell when it is wrong

You really think so?
What about the notan of Legato? Some people think
it's very right, but other people think it's... pointless.

> There is: two heads (four eyes) are better than one!

In some ways, certainly. But it's telling that collaboration (the way I suspect most people define the term) is still very rare in type design. For example the Gill stuff I agree was collaborative, but I don't agree with your previous claim that "most major* releases are via collaboration", at least not in a useful (to me) definition of "collaboration".

* And what's with "major", anyway?

hhp

Just a note: I suspect most of the Monotype drawing office staff back in Gill's and Morison's day were female....

I think so too... but it’s not the same.

Not the same as what?

That Updike quote, I don’t get the relevance here.

All I am saying is that it will always be judged by the eyes, and this is easier to do with collaboration.

In some ways, certainly. But it’s telling that collaboration (the way I suspect most people define the term) is still very rare in type design. For example the Gill stuff I agree was collaborative, but I don’t agree with your previous claim that “most major* releases are via collaboration”, at least not in a useful (to me) definition of “collaboration”.

If you think that collaboration is rare, then fine by me. By "most major" I mean the more established foundries. The ones that typically have more than two people working for them. This is a guess on my part.

You really think so? What about the notan of Legato? Some people think it’s very right, but other people think it’s... pointless.

Sorry, what is notan again?

—K

Not the same as the notan being done by one mind.

BTW: http://typophile.com/node/14819

> By “most major” I mean the more established foundries.

I agree that the larger the foundry the more collaboration is likely.

But I don't see how this is a reflection on anything but scale; I don't see it
as a reflection on quality, at least not the type of quality I personally value.

hhp

Not the same as the notan being done by one mind.

And the typeface wouldn't be the same as that done by one mind!

Ah yes, notan is interesting. Legato is an interesting one, and it is no surprise that people don't like the notan. Do you think that re-spacing it might make it more palatable for them?

But I don’t see how this is a reflection on anything but scale; I don’t see it
as a reflection on quality, at least not the type of quality I personally value.

True—but we are talking about collaboration, not quality. That is a separate matter in which I'll keep my opinions to myself!

—K

Eric Gill had an apprentice who later on in life proposed a theory on fitting of type. His name is David Kindersley. He worked with Monotype and Letraset before his death.

> Do you think that re-spacing it might make it more palatable for them?

The nature of Legato is such that respacing it can only make it worse.
This is because the inside white is "virtually ligated" with the outside
white; the inside white is what makes the font strange (if only to geeks
like us) and hence unappealing to some.

What would be interesting though is to make a "conventional" sister to
Legato and try to gauge any difference in how the two affect readers.

hhp

Kindersley is co-author of one of my most favorite types, Octavian.
It would be great to have a proper digital version of it.

hhp

There's an improper digitized version?