An occasional review of type at work in design, advertising and publishing. By: Neil Macmillan
Issue 3 In 1983 Berthold introduced the Barmen types, designed by Hans Reichel and named after the Barmen quarter of the German city of Wuppertal. Promoted by Berthold in one of their series of Exclusive Probes (No. 014), innovatively designed by Adrian Lacour, I expected to see much use of these types. The unconventional character shapes of Barmen blend together to create dynamic words and harmonious text. Perhaps the unconventionality factor discouraged potential users as it didn't seem to 'happen' as anticipated. Released by Adobe in PostScript format as Barmeno , it still struggled to make an impact. I'm pleased now to be seeing more evidence of its use. Its working well for Lloyds TSB in nice little ads which I've seen in The Guardian. And it's doing a good job too for the Coffee Republic chain. Now released as a FontFont family by FSI and renamed FF Sari, Hans Reichel has expanded the family from four weights to six complementing each with italics, small caps and old style figures. Branders with type should now give it serious consideration. FontFonts can be purchased from Fontworks' sister company CPS Fontshop ( sales@cpsnet.co.uk or telephone 01242 285100). Nick Cooke's types have made a more immediate impact, on advertising art directors particularly. Barry Brand at M & C Saatchi has used Nubian on a series of PPP Healthcare press ads. It works well complementing the PPP Healthcare exclusive corporate font created by Bruno Maag. And in a pastiche of fashion brands through posters and press for brewing client Tennents' Velvet brand, The Leith Agency are capitalising on Houschka's retro quirkiness. For design companies, rebranding an airline must be an enormous exercise requiring much attention to detail. As a result of EasyJet and Go's success Buzz appeared, and now, British Midland has become bmi. With so many sans serif options available, it's surprising that both Buzz and bmi have chosen Jeremy Tankard's Bliss as their dominant typeface. The Independent on Sunday has relaunched its Reality Magazine with a new format and some new types. Myriad, the dominant display face, is also used in text to support Utopia which has replaced Charter. The Evening Standard has introduced Utopia as their dominant display face, successfully in my opinion, with FF Meta as supporting sans. Myriad is also starring in the News of the World's Sunday magazine where, in a much improved layout, it replaces Frutiger. The choice of Nick Shinn's typeface Beaufort for text in Sunday is innovative and works. The mention of Utopia earlier reminds me that hawk-eyed typos may have noticed its appearance in current VW press ads breaking a long Futura-only tradition. Adobe's brilliant specimen books for Myriad and Utopia can be purchased from this web site. Over the years we've had many enquiries to Fontworks about the availability of Tiemann, the serif display face used very effectively in the German newspaper, Die Zeit. Designed by Walter Tiemann in 1923, and modelled on Didot, it's a heavy face with short descenders ideal for display. Walter Tiemann, a positive influence on the careers of Jan Tschichold, Georg Trump and Günter Gerhard Lange, made a huge contribution to twentieth-century German graphic design as book designer, type designer and Director of the Royal Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Trades in Leipzig. The typeface Tiemann, released in light and roman weights by Linotype Library is now available from Fontworks . Flicking through a Guardian Weekend mag, which makes brilliant use of Font Bureau's Griffith Gothic (display) and Mathew Carter's Miller (text), I spotted a minimal usage of Jonathan Hoefler's Knockout in an ad for Carapelli olive oil. Knockout, a development from Hoefler's Champion Gothic, is a sans serif family of 32 weights. Hoefler designed Knockout for both display and text use and, if you can get hold of a copy of Scotland's business, financial and political daily newspaper 'business a.m.', you'll see how effectively it works. Contrary to an earlier report from the Travelling Typographer crediting Gary Cook, Sonya Dyakova of Frost Design styled the type for the FTs The Business magazine. Finally, a new press and poster campaign has launched for Cunard using Weiss in such a way as to make you think that booking a cruise may entitle you to a free Jeep. Disclaimer:
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