bit behind, i am...

FontFont 2002 catalogue arrived in the mail on Friday. Um, yeah...you’ve had yours for half a year now. Truth is, I wrote in to request a copy of font 002 and the catalogue tagged along. This is a good thing; looking at the fonts online is nice, but seeing them on paper is a necessity. You’ve already formulated your thoughts; here are a few of mine.

The first thing I noticed is that the catalogue is thicker (no surprise), expanding from 144 to 192 pages. The second is that it’s roomier; more white space, and some of the stock samples are now large enough to be useful.

Third, the categories – once a bit arbitrary – have been reduced in number from nine to six. Gone are Geometric, Intelligent, and Destructive, and several of the faces formerly therein have found their way into Typographic. One could still make some arguments for misidentification (Why aren’t Hardcase, Maverick, Karbid, and Schulbuch typographic?), but overall, the arrangement makes sense.

Fourth, larger font families are now supplemented with matrices of weight by style, providing for a quick read on the combinations available.

Fifth, and finally, the notes are now in Mike Abbink’s Kievit (2001), replacing Spiekermann and Schaefer’s Info. I’ve developed a new appreciation for this open, unserifed face. Kievit might conjure up Myriad or Frutiger, though it is not as restrained as either. It’s available in six weights and includes text figures and expert characters. It is just one of the several new faces issued semiannually by FSI that make the FontFont 2002 catalogue a necessary part of one’s specimen book library and the FontFont collection the most comprehensive – and perhaps the most important – series of new types today.

19-August 2002