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The amateurization of type design

The amateurization of type design. Odd examples in the slideshow though…where’s Chank, Joe Gillespie, or Ray Larabie? They’re the real amateurs.

Reader comments

Alex FoleyAug 31, 2004 at 1:56PM

Ray Larabie is perhaps the most visible of online fontologists (that's what they should be called :P). I am truly disappointed that they weren't included here.

daveAug 31, 2004 at 2:13PM

Yeah no kidding, I pretty much learned how to make fonts with this article by Chank. He seemed like one of the gods of the font-scene in the late nineties. I want to try my hand at making a real typeface at some point, but they're time consuming. I'd spend 48 hours making a font and it would be lucky to have most of the characters.

AndrewAug 31, 2004 at 3:29PM

Seriously. How "amateur" is a list of fonts available from font companies?

jkottkeAug 31, 2004 at 4:12PM

Yeah, it's a weird list. You probably shouldn't be considered an amateur if your profile contains the line "while he was studying typography at Yale under the master digital-type designer Matthew Carter". Bit of a white flag there.

JohnSep 03, 2004 at 7:00AM

Plazm perhaps is a better fit for the article because they're much, much smaller and more amateurish than House or H&F-J. But yeah, if you want to talk about how ANYONE can make a font, why bust out Licko, who's one of the elder stateswomen of the font scene? "Font making is for everyone, look, here's Matthew Carter and Hermann Zapf!"

This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.