Category Archives: Typography

Typography, type fonts, type design, type applications and type management.

Meet Lorem Ipsum

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Brian Lawler

I’m not making this up. Three years ago I was looking at my roll sheet for my Introduction to Graphic Communication course at Cal Poly. About a third of the way down the list I stopped at the name Lauren … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, History, Language and grammar, Typography | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Printing on a 126-year-old press, and loving it!

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Brian Lawler

I am engaged as a human printing engine this week (and next). The president of our university and his wife want a letterpress Christmas card this year, so have engaged the design and production forces at-hand to produce these cards. … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

More in my GREPping drama

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Brian Lawler

In past blogs I have expressed my love for the GREP functions in InDesign. GREP is not only functional, but for me it’s a lot of fun. I enjoy working with strings of text, manipulating things en masse to cause changes … Continue reading →

Posted in Printing and Printing Processes, Typography | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

You wanted kerning! You get kerning!

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Brian Lawler

Last week I promised to write a blog about the next step in making my Lining Livermore typeface. I thought I was farther in the process than I was. Getting letters to fit adjacent to each other is a difficult … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Software, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Drawing the lozenge for Lining Livermore

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Brian Lawler

…continued from yesterday’s blog I’m probably never going to need the lozenge character in any typographic project I do. Nonetheless, it’s there, ready for me, whenever I choose to use it. That’s exciting. The lonely lozenge. I don’t know what … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Typographical archaeology for Lining Livermore

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Brian Lawler

Continued from yesterday’s blog… After I created the scan of my type proof, I opened it up in Adobe Photoshop and made some corrections (I rotated the G and the O), and I did some tonal clean-up to make the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Technology, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Digging into history for a “new” digital type design

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Brian Lawler

I am the faculty advisor of the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. The museum is a working collection of type and printing presses that collectively represent the history of relief printing from 1850 to 1950. This is one of … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Software, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Calligraphy in a Millennial world

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Brian Lawler

I’m teaching Advanced Typography this quarter to students in their 20s. Part of that course involves studying the origins of letters and letterforms, pen-drawn lettering and constructed lettering. I wrote this today with the Copic Wide pen, which uses an … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Typography | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Another GREPping drama

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Brian Lawler

My dear wife is producing a book for a local author. He has typed his own manuscript in Microsoft Word, and it’s going to be about 300 pages. The author has a habit of substituting the letter l (el) for … Continue reading →

Posted in Printing and Printing Processes, Software, Typography | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Resurrecting Ottmar Mergenthaler

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Brian Lawler

In 1960, John W. Reed, President of the Linotype Company, presented a bronze bust of Ottmar Mergenthaler to the students of Cal Poly’s Printing Department (now called Graphic Communication). The bust is about 2/3 life size, and is mounted on … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, People, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments