Eye: Journal of typography

[Nick Shinn]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Great special issue on Monotype history.
Respect, Dan Rhatigan!
**
Most of the advertisements supporting the publication are from indie type foundries.
This is an issue all about type (except for some of the book reviews), but usually most of the ads are for type anyway.
Is it my imagination and it’s always been that way, or has this skewed the editorial content to type, and history (which is a big part of serious typography).
**
Going a step further, are there a greater number of books about typography being published now relative to graphic design books in general, than there were in the past?

[5star]

Thanks Nick! I'll grab a copy of that one....

http://www.eyemagazine.com/magazine/issue-84

n.

[Nathaniel Hebert]

http://issuu.com/slanted/docs/slanted20

Couldn't say with any certainty if there's more than in the past, but have noticed plenty of attention paid to type of late, such as Computer Arts' typography edition and loads of smaller publications popping up.

If you haven't seen Slanted yet, the link above directs to their newest edition with a focus on slab serifs!

Cheers,

Nathaniel

[5star]

...but have noticed plenty of attention paid to type of late

Yep me too, especially since the rise of Adobe software going through educational institutions ...there's a new gen coming on.

I really started noticing the attention because of all of that bespoke letter that was/is showing up on mag covers ...FRONT mag being one of my favs of course. And ya SLANTED is dope. There's a bunch now just killin' it.

I regularly check in http://nascapas.blogspot.ca/ to get my fix on what's happening on mag covers. But nothing beats a trip over to the my local magazine store ya.

n.

[J.Montalbano]

Most of the advertisements supporting the publication are from indie type foundries.

I wonder what the state of these publications would be when the indie type companies tire of placing their ads. I know I'm growing tired of it. I wonder who else is.

[piccic]

Eye has been a truly fundamental publication in developing my increasing interest and passion for letters (and typefaces), and it’s just great to see an issue largely devoted to type (and Monotype history!).
I used to drop my subscriptions in the late 1990s, when the magazine became too “intellectually design oriented”, so to speak, and I’m really glad to read this: I’d love to have this issue!

@.00: What are you talking about, addressing Eye as "these publications"?

[J.Montalbano]

@.00: What are you talking about, addressing Eye as "these publications"?

"These publications" = Design Publications AKA design rags. HOW, Print, Creative Review, etc.

Once upon a time these rags were filled with stock photo ads and paper ads. Now the major advertisers are type companies.

The stock ads and the paper ads are gone, most likely because they decided they were no longer reaching their market.

If and when the type ads go what will these publications do for revenue?

[hrant]

{Sorry, Nick - nevermind.}

[JamesM]

> The stock ads and the paper ads are gone, most likely
> because they decided they were no longer reaching their market.

I think the stock ads are mostly on the internet these days. The same may apply to paper companies, plus I imagine their business is declining as more and more communication is done via the web, email, PDFs, etc.

[piccic]

@.00: I think it makes little sense to generalize as such. Eye covered many topics which were barely touched by HOW and Print. Don’t know Creative Review, but Eye was an outstanding magazine.
Surely they do not depend merely on ads from type producers, I’m pretty sure they have ways to market and sell the magazine. Advertisement in some cases is not needed.

[J.Montalbano]

Surely they do not depend merely on ads from type producers, I’m pretty sure they have ways to market and sell the magazine. Advertisement in some cases is not needed.

Methinks you have never worked in the magazine business.

Eye is Eye, just another design magazine, different then the others but quite the same as well.
I've run ads in all of them, I'm deciding whether to continue or not.

[Nick Shinn]

My theory is that designology tends towards type, as it provides objectively manageable markers for learned discussion about culture, history, economics, politics and technology.

The mash-up of post-modernism, for instance, is well demonstrated by architecture, of course, but also by types such as Fudoni and Dead History (now in the MoMA collection).

And of course, everyone wants to know about Nazi fonts.

Basing designology on type is an alternative to the Great Man narrative.

And now, scientists want to get in on the act, with their measurements of readability as a key to brain function. Kevin Larson has written for Eye.

[oldnick]

Nick,

Print—thanks to movable type—was the first true mass medium: do the math…

[Nick Shinn]

Not speech?
It’s said that Homer’s epics captured a pre-literate oral history.