Articles by John Boardley

Novel Constructions

A sudden bolt of inspiration would makes for an enticing story of a typeface’s beginnings, one that would perhaps be helpful when marketing it. However, in reality, not all typefaces come into the world that way. Sometimes, as was the case for Novel, the idea slowly percolates. Even the somewhat unspectacular name […]

Read More

Offscreen

Based in Melbourne, Australia, Kai Brach is a 30 year-old web designer, working on user interfaces and websites for more than 10 years. Mid-2011 he started Offscreen, a quarterly print publication about the people behind websites, apps, and digital products.

Read More

A Pocket Cathedral

There are two different interpretations of the concept of the private press. There is an approach that takes the term in a very wide sense. The hallmark of the private press is that the profit making principle is non-existent. Financial gain is not part of the process. The printer produces […]

Read More

Type Matters

A review by James Puckett Jim Williams is a senior lecturer at Staffordshire University, where he compiled an excellent series of student handouts about typography. In 2010 the handouts were featured on Creative Review’s blog which generated interest from publishers. The handouts have now been published in book form as […]

Read More

Make the margins bigger

If you’re like me and use the margins in books for commentary (‘Interesting idea.’ or ‘author is nuts!’), cross-references (‘see also Book X by M. Malaprop.’), and comparisons (e.g. ‘cf. p.58.’), then you might also share my frustration: In many, if not most books, the margins are just too small.

Read More

The design of a signage typeface

The story begins in 2006 with a trip down Route 66. Day in, day out, I looked at U.S. traffic signs that were either set in the old, somewhat clumsy “FHWA font series” or the new Clearview HWY typeface. Approaching the signs, I would often test myself: which typeface works […]

Read More

Designing type systems

Peter Biľak I remember a conversation from back in my student days where my typophile friends and I debated what the ultimate typeface of the twentieth century was, a typeface that summed up all of the era’s advancements and knowledge into a coherent whole, one that would be a reference […]

Read More

Type Camp India

The day before leaving for India I had a client photo-shoot — pretty simple, no lighting — to show that choosing your bike over your car is good for the world and is also safer. And then I got on a airplane, pretty much setting an entire gas station on […]

Read More

Letters & Stone

Based near Burford, Oxfordshire, Fergus Wessel is a letter cutter producing fine memorials that can be seen throughout the UK, including St Paul’s Cathedral. Naomi Chapple interviews him in his workshop on his love of lettering and, in particular, the relevance of good typography in his work.

Read More

We love your streets

Save our signage Recently, I posted an interview with type designer Verena Gerlach in which she laments the disappearance of shop signage & lettering (sources she’d used to design FF Karbid). Shops change hands, old signs are taken down or painted over and, in the process, numerous examples of wonderful […]

Read More