colophon

platform and fonts
colophon
Interesting type on shop front. Spotted in Antwerp. 

Current platform

This site is built on the Ghost platform using the Tuuli theme from Biron themes. I mostly inherit typographic design choices from the theme, although I do make some changes uninformed by any very well-developed design knowledge.

However, I have certainly enjoyed swapping fonts in and out and I have become more interested in fonts and font choices – in a very non-initiate way – since moving to Ghost (see my discussion of Ghost here). Of course, I am not doing anything very elaborate with them, as I am staying within the reasonably simple blog structure.

Current fonts

Now that I am working at the University of Washington iSchool I qualify for educational discounts on fonts from some foundries, including both currently used on this site. Before this, I would occasionally license something on Future Fonts, the interesting platform of works in progress.

3/17/24: I swapped in Metrify from Nan for PolySans a while ago. I really liked PolySans but I found it a little wide and kept noticing some letters. I may go back to it. Metrify is described as a 'workhorse' new-grotesk by Nan (i.e. Helvetica-style) and is contrasted with some of the 'wild horses' in the Nan stable. Perhaps the distinction is workhorse vs quirk-horse. Thanks again to Nan for their steep educational discounts.

Font history

After some experiment, I swapped in a more unobtrusive body text for easy reading, Aeroplan from TypeTogether, which I hope is a nice reading experience while retaining some character. I am using PolySans for headings and captions, influenced by my liking of it on The Verge website.

Before that, I was alternating two fonts for body text. One is Messer, by Inga Plönnigs. I love how it combines spikiness in larger sizes with energetic legibility. It is available on Future Fonts. The other is Nan Tragedy, by Jean-Baptiste Morizot. This has now graduated from Future Fonts.

I was also switching heading/accent/caption fonts, most recently between Phantom and Nan Holo. Phantom is by Phantom Foundry, the independent vehicle of Morizot. It is a modern geometric sans with some nice features, including the lower case 't'. Alongside it, for captions, I used Token Mono, also by Phantom Foundry. Token Mono and Phantom were available on Future Fonts.

NaN Holo is also from the NaN foundry, and I had been using for a while, although I didn't have all its features. I was very lucky to receive this as a 'prize' when I supported the always interesting Pimp My Type on Patreon. I will use it again. I notice Jean-Baptiste Morizot was also a contributor to its design.

When I first transitioned to this platform, I used the well-known Adelle through Adobe Fonts. It is also created by TypeTogether.

Later I did quite a bit of experimenting with different options. I settled on Piazzolla available from its creator, Huerta Tipográfica, and from Google Fonts. I occasionally also used a combination of Rowan and Plein, available from Fontshare, the platform of free fonts provided by the Indian Type Foundry (both designed by Inga Plönnigs). I loved how Piazzolla and Rowan both work so well for text, and then display a stronger personality in bigger sizes. Although a very different typeface, Nan Holo also showed this characteristic nicely with its rounded tops.

I also experimented for a while with Recursive the intriguing multi-dimensional variable font.

Platform history

This blog began in 2004 on Typepad. It was eventually moved to an internal instance of WordPress at OCLC where I worked, and then to a hosted WordPress at Libchalk. It now has over 1900 entries together with associated material. With the heroic assistance of Brian Pichman of Libchalk, I moved it to Ghost in 2021. There are occasional glitches in older entries, and unfortunately we lost the comments.

Updated: 4 June 2023. 4 January 2024.

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