Good, bad, or ugly, it was a historic type face: released in Germany by Bauer Foundry in the 1920s, it was met with acceptance in the USA and arguably triggered the subsequent rise to primacy of the plain gothics–Spartan, Airport, 20th Century, Helvetica. For April we present Futura in 18 point.
Ready for a shot of border euphoria? Pick up the new Border U-4, hot off the caster! The origin of this striking and refreshing 14 point design is unknown, but the unfinished electrodeposited matrices came from the estate of Paul Hayden Duensing. We finished them up by careful hand-lapping and took them into production. A European design, perhaps? If anyone can identify the source of this border, by all means let us know so we can give proper historical credit.
And while on that size we did up three new Monotype designs as well: Borders No. 117, 1424, and 1425. The first two of these are single-element borders, and we invite you to check out the different effects achieved in the specimens just by using multiple orientations of the type.
We were caught with our pants down (uh, typographically speaking, that is) last year when our 16pt Jessen Schrift sold out before it was even released. So we’ve done a second casting and it’s now back in stock—yes, with lowercase supplements available too.
And now it’s time to pack our box with five dozen liquor jugs and head for the Bay Area Printers Fair on Saturday, April 9. This growing event was excellent last year, and we’ll be there with plenty of new type for sale. For details go to the San Jose Printers Guild at https://printersguild.wordpress.com/. See you there!