Typographer’s lunch 6: the coming demise of PostScript fonts
When I recently opened a book file that had been created several years ago, InDesign informed me, “Type 1 fonts will no longer be supported starting 2023. Your document contains 1 Type 1 fonts.” It was...
View ArticleTypographer’s lunch 7: NYC subway map debate
In 1978, in the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York, a heated debate took place over a proposed redesign of the NYC subway map. In 2021, Gary Hustwit and Standards Manual published the transcript of...
View ArticleTypographer’s lunch 8: hey, look!
I would like to direct your attention to a typographic element that is often ignored. Allow me to point out what makes it unique. That element? The manicule. It’s also known as a fist, a hand, and by...
View ArticleTypographic memories: designing for Copper Canyon
After a bit of a hiatus, I’ve come back to my sporadic typographic memoir, this time to talk about the years in the 1990s when I was the house designer for Copper Canyon Press. In that time, I designed...
View ArticleLittle, Big
Its origins are lost in the mists of time. Ron Drummond, the one-man publisher of Incunabula, reminds us that he first broached the subject to John Crowley thirty years ago: the subject being a...
View ArticleEvan S. Connell
I’ve just finished reading Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. Connell, by Steve Paul (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 2021). Connell is a peculiar writer, impossible to categorize; he’s...
View ArticleAdverbially challenged
My usual self-description is “editor and typographer,” and most of the time this blog concerns itself with the second part of that description. In this blog post, however, I am putting on my editorial...
View ArticleThe completion of Little, Big
At long last, after more than 17 years of ups, downs, and circuitous side trips, the 40th anniversary edition of John Crowley’s Little, Big was published in late 2022, and the limited Numbered and...
View ArticleA plethora of books
I’ve been engaged in a wide variety of book projects in recent months. First, the limited editions of Little, Big (numbered, lettered) were finally released, after an extraordinarily long gestation....
View ArticleKatherine Small Gallery
Last week, on a visit to Boston, I got to visit the Katherine Small Gallery in Somerville. It’s a gallery, because it does have exhibitions, but it’s most obviously a bookstore. An inviting, dangerous...
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