I have been showing an image of 3 Aldine (Griffo) r shapes around. You may have seen them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/2416920076/in/set-72157604556594...

But today I noticed something else. All three of the bases are quite different too. This is starting to look less & less circumstantial to me now. What do you think?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157604955393401/

Images of the Original 15th C Subiaco type as distinguished from the revival (UK) Ashendene version. These image come from Cicero & St. Augustine (pre 1465 & 1467) in reproduction ( hence the dots ) taken of the Book "The Ashendene Press" by Colin Franklin. This is a marvelous book in many many ways. Highly recommended.

What is interesting about these images is that they show plenty of contextual alternates being used, and they are very very obvious. Just to get started have a look at the "ra" and "ta" and then look at an "a" in another context.

Jenson: De Re Rustica

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157604858114211/

Image of the type in Elzevir: Opera, Quae Extant 1663

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157604853771626/

Today I got a copy of Colin Franklin's "The Ashendene Press" 1986 from Interlibrary loan. It is really the specific magic rabbit! Not only does it have very good images, it includes letters written during the development of the Ashendene type. :-) It's also a well made book.

I have posted new detailed images of the type from the famous book "Hypneroromachia" on flickr.

Here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157604825884265/

Here is a cropped sample

I am going to the SF Rare Book Room in the main Library at 10 to look at original Aldus books and other wonderful stuff. Come see what treasures you have in easy reach (if you live here). Most likely I will be there until 6pm with a break for lunch.

I just got a JF Rosart Specimen book. It's from 1973 and is a facsimile of the 1768 edition he put out. Oddly enough it was printed in the GDR. The book was put together by Fernand Baudin and Netty Hoeflake.

Does anybody else have this book? If so or no what do you think of it as a reference & why? Is there anything I should keep my eyes open for?

Thanks!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157604087201263/

It's moving forward again...

I received the 1st volume of the John Dreyfus Type Specimen Facsimiles today. I am hoping to get the second set soon as well. James Mosley recommended them to me after I started to ask him questions about Elsevier Books and Type.

I am interested in any advice about things to look at and for in these.

Here are some images.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157603883339677/

I just had an extrodinarily pleasant conversation with Lida Lopes Cardozo. She was telling me about David Kindersley's spacing system. Even though she is sending me a book about it I thought that I would ask my fellow typophiles their experience with it & opinion of it might be.

I have been lucky to be able to get Doyald Young's two larger tomes "Logos and Fonts" and "Logotypes and Letterforms" from my Library. Hooray for Interlibrary loan!

I am doing logo this for a pal. It's a Lit Journal. Just for fun I got out the Calligraphy pen in Illustrator to see what I could do. This is what I made. I think I will try it with a real live copperplate nib next.

Comments & Crits are welcome.

The Languages at a glance project took a step forward today. You can now download the compiled and regularized lists of test words in:

- Basque
- Latin
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Italian
- Lingala
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swahili
- Swedish
- Turkish

It's free. Try it and let me know what you think.

http://typophile.com/node/31399

I have finally added some additional images from one of the 15th c. humanist manuscript I was looking at in Sept. They are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157601975232363/

Here is a sample:

-e.

I had a great day researching about Linotype Logotypes at the Museum of Printing in Andover MA today. While I was there I got to meet and talk to both both Gardner J. Lepoer and Larry Oppenburg. Thanks you guys! I will be posting some pics to Flickr... Not sure when exactly.

http://www.museumofprinting.org/index.html

I am excited to be visiting Douglas Coffin a carver of letters today

http://www.lettercutter.com/carving.html

check his QT movie too.
http://www.typeculture.com/academic_resource/movies/

My final TypeCon 2007 images are up. They are of Marian Bantjes' wonderful talk.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/typecon/pool/

-e.

I just spend the afternoon looking at two 'books of Hours' for 15th Century Flanders/Belgium. The illumination was so interesting it was really hard to keep my focus on m primary goal of noticing contextual letter alterations. Photos from the visit will go up on Flickr at some point including the Lombardic Caps, strawberries & snails.

Marianna Rossi asked me where the TypeCon Bringhurst shots were ( Where indeed!) which prompted me to find a bunch of TypeCon photos I had forgotten to post somehow. They are going up tonight. Thanks Marianna!

The photos from Microsoft's Post-TypCon 'Mini-Tyecon' Presentation are all up.

My faves are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157601867898046/

You can see the complte set in the TypeCon Photo pool or in my stream

http://www.flickr.com/groups/typecon/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/

The next type related sets I expect to post will be related to

- the Printing Museum in Andover MA, and
- Carving letters in Stone with Douglas Coffin.

I took some photos while I was visiting Jim Rimmer in BC Canada to learn about casting metal type after TypeCon. They are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebensorkin/sets/72157601705177162/

Here's a sample:

This 'a' is from the monospace I had critiqued at TypeCon.

I found the experience fascinating. All the materials awareness is amazing. The wrong brass. Your done. Wrong mix of Lead, Tin & Antimony. It's over. Done. It goes on & on. There are so many ways to go wrong. It really shows you what was involved in getting superior printing. The machines themselves are amazing too. They are hugely precise - to the thickness of cigarette paper, 1/1000th of an inch. And Jim was a very very nice guy.

Thanks again Jim!

All of my Typecrit photos from Typecon 2007 are up.

The are here
http://www.flickr.com/groups/typecon/pool/

Also, Checko's photos are starting to show up in the stream too. Yea!