Farewell to an Old Face
10 July 2011
Ben Pentreath
5 Comments
I don’t know about you, but I’m not quite sure what to make of the News of the World debacle. Good riddance the evil Murdoch empire, maybe? Sad that our Sundays will not be quite so interesting? A little while ago, we were quite surprised in the architecture office when our project in Truro made it to page 17, for reasons that I will go into another day.
Amongst all the noise, I would merely like to have a moment to mourn the passing of the last decent typeface on Fleet Street. I have quite a thing for large scale 19th century type; so much more descriptive, so much bolder, more interesting, richer, than the diminished alternatives that are displayed on other, more bland mastheads.
If, like me, you are inspired by that good old fat face, here are a few suggestions (Figgins Brute, Clarendon, Egyptian MT):
For an even better alternative, may I recommend the perfect wesbite of Hoeffler & Frere-Jones, www.typography.com, and their superb Ziggurat font, shown below. Heaven on a page. RIP, News of the World. May your tombstone be handsomely carved.
5 comments on this post
I love the H&F-J website. Type porn, really… if I had tons of money I’d delete my font folder and fill it with their work exclusively. Divine stuff!
It really is typography porn. Yes. Although even more interesting 😉 B
Agree with you. Although it was never shown to its best advantage. A very sixties typeface, ought to have blocks of colour and lots of white space.
Rosemary, I’ve been mourning the loss of Habitat for a while! Because let’s face it, they’ve been a bit hopeless for a while, I am afraid. But you’re right. i feel a blog about 1970s Habitat catalogues coming on…!
Hopefully it will be goodbye to Murdoch! However, I am mourning the loss of the Habitat Stores.