And so we chalk up another trip around the Sun. Happy New Year, all! It was a robust year here at Skyline. Type production for 2019: 11,308 lbs. Orders filled: 549. Stock presently in the warehouse ready to ship: 34,771 lbs. And grand total production since our humble beginning in 2004 comes in at 11,980 Fonts, 5,401 Borders, 3,655 Collections, and 1,066 Initial Sets. Our sincere thanks to you our customers for your continuing business, your enthusiastic encouragement, and for stopping by to visit.
Starting off with a blast from the distant past, our first new casting for 2020 is Bruce Ornamented No. 881 in 24 point. This outrageous Victorian was issued by the Geo. Bruce Foundry in 1865, with earlier origins in France. The matrices are from the collection of Chas. Broad, who cast and sold it in the 1960s as “Circus”.
For several months now we’ve been searching the matrix vault for antique typecuts and casting all we can find for a series of Collections. For January we present the first of these, Collection No. 52, Antique Animals. Ain’t they cute? Stay tuned for more good stuff in the coming months.
We don’t normally go in for skullduggery, but here’s Border No. U-29 for all you skull fans. We were cranking out this 19th century typecut as one of the pieces in the new Collections. Our casterman T.H. was insistent that we break it out and offer it as a single-element Border also. There was some debate in the foundry on this matter; he eventually won, so for better or worse, here it is. We’re dying to see what you do with it.
Got an update on Smiley, released last month. This face has been identified as a 1975 design by French artist Claude Mayet. It was done for the French company Mecanorma, which was a major producer of dry-transfer lettering. Our thanks to Stephen Coles and Florian Hardwig on fontsinuse.com for ferreting this out.
Restocks accomplished in December are Borders No. 1424 and U-20, and Border & Ornament Grab Bags. Twenty-five more used type fonts were listed for sale in The Junk Bin. And lastly, we’ve written another article for the Best Practices page (in the About Skyline menu), this one titled Twelve Ways to Avoid Smashing Type and Other Stuff in Your Press. Enjoy.