I’m gonna start something new here on Inspiration Lab. I was trying to organize my fontarchive last week and in the process I looked at so many great fonts that I think are so overlooked and I thought HANG ON! why not give credit to these great pieces of design.
I think I had about 10000 fonts in my Linotype Fontexplorer and after clearing out all the crap dingbats, grungy 90′s fonts, free really badly drawn fonts with awful kerning and just plain weird ones that I’d never use I ended up with about 3000 usable ones.
So each week I will name a font from my archive that I think should be used. This is of course totally subjective and you are welcome to drop comments on my choices. It would also be great if you know of work done with the fonts I post. Please send links if you do.
The first font I want to show you is one of my first great loves when I got into font design. Zapf Book was designed in 1976 by German legend font designer Herman Zapf (he’ll be 90 this winter and still working). Zapf Book has such a timeless elegance and will bring grace to any text set with it. Look at the details and see the diagonal stroke going down to the bowl of the a, the sharp contrast of the Kk and the curvyness of the leg on the letter R. I declare my undying love for this font!
Buy Zaph book at Linotype.
Let’s end the week with something rude. Alison is a hand lettering artist and I just love this piece promoting herself. Yes, everything does indeed look nicer handlettered!
See more: http://www.alisoncarmichael.com/
I’ve had Nazario’s work bookmarked for a few years now. He’s an Italian illustrator and graphic designer based in Rome. He does a lot of collage style work but at the same time his work still manages to be pretty clean which really works.
See more: http://www.ngdesign.it
Filed under: Graphic Design
Projekttriangle is a German design studio based in Stuttgart. They have done great work and span pretty wide style wise. They do both high end fashion work and heavy corporate design. Check out their work for Hugo Boss and Avenger.
See more: http://www.projekttriangle.com
Filed under: Illustration/Art
I recently stumbled upon Lorenzo Petrantoni at Anamorphosis. This guy is amazing, plenty of people use retro influences but this guy takes it all the way. Even the music on his site fits the mood.
See more: http://www.lorenzopetrantoni.com/
Check out Process Type Foundry, they gave birth to one of my all time fave workhorse fonts: Klavika. It’s still beautiful! The only thing I don’t like about it is the J, so I can never write my name in it. Did anyone say nerd? Anyway, they also have a lot of other great fonts. I am so in love with Stratum Light, Locator Display Light and the caps in Bryant Compressed Light (yes, you’ve guessed it, I like light fonts) They are all designed by Eric Olson.
See more: http://www.processtypefoundry.com
Filed under: Graphic Design
Sea is a graphic design agency in London. Their work is very classic but is always executed with perfection. They released a book with their work in December and it’s really great. They are also the designers of the masterhead on one of my fave design magazines “Grafik“.
Go to the Sea.
Buy the book at Amazon.
Filed under: Web
I recently browsed my way into photographer Kurt Staellaert website. His photos are great, but what is even greater is his website done by Belgian agency Milk and Cookies. The use of full screen video is very effective and immediately sets the mood. Lovely work!
View the Kurt Staellaert site.
See more of Milk and Cookies work.
Filed under: Typography
I was recently Googling Joan Trochut to learn more about his typesystem SuperTipo Veloz from the 40′s when I stumbled upon his grandson Alex Trochut who is coincidently also a bit of typebuff. Alex Trochut does wonderful lettering! It sure must run in the family.
See more of Alex: http://www.alextrochut.com
The man behind Obey is artist Shepard Fairy. He does old propaganda style street art, sounds strange? well it is, but it’s spectacular. I first noticed his work when I saw the cover of a new edition of George Orwell’s book Animal Farm released by Penguin. This book incidently inspired the name of my own one woman company; “My Animal Farm”.
Go and Obey!
There’s also a really cool interview with Shepard on Fecal Face.
