Impeccable work, as ever – a distinctive new slab from H&FJ: Vitesse

Via the ever-brilliant FontShop mailout comes the lovely sharp-serifed Beaufort Pro from Nick Shinn. This looks to be an ideal choice if you’re after an air of class, a Copperplate Gothic-like feel only without the cliché. Get the PDF specimen here. (716KB PDF)

I’m a sucker for a modern-looking uncial cut. Walhalla by Ludwig Üebele – it’s a decent price, too.

Linotype announces a new serif companion to one of the world’s most popular sans typefaces.

Gentium is an freely available typeface, released under the SIL Open Font License, with multiple weights and an extensive character set. The family was recent expanded to include Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic, which are based on the original Gentium design but with additional weights. The ‘Book’ family is slightly heavier for printing at smaller sizes. Both families come with a complete regular, bold, italic and bold italic sets.

FF Meta Serif, the eagerly anticipated serif complement to FF Meta, is finally ready. Check out the sample specimens over at FontFont, it’s a beautiful collection.

(Thanks to Yves for the tip-off.)

MyFonts interviews David Berlow, co-founder of the Font Bureau.

(Via Quipsologies)

“I Love Typography” covers the Decline and Fall of the Ligature.

House Industries have a $50-off sale on until the 15^th September, which includes the exceptional typefaces Chalet, Neutraface and Paperback. I wish I had enough spare cash to justify buying a set of one of these, they’re beautiful, versatile faces, and currently a bit of a bargain.

Helvetica: the DVD

The DVD includes the full 80-minute feature film, plus over 90 minutes of additional interviews with Massimo Vignelli, Matthew Carter, Erik Spiekermann, Hermann Zapf, and more. (The director Gary Hustwit says, “we basically edited 41 short interview segments, each around two to five minutes long. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll have an idea of the format of these.”)

NTSC Region 0, 16×9 anamorphic widescreen presentation, full-color booklet, English and German language subtitles. Release date: November 6. Pre-order now, you’ll save $5 and receive early shipping (a week before street date) and two love/hate Helvetica film buttons.

There’s also a limited edition 1000-run version that includes three letterpressed mini-posters, a color C-print of a still from the film (one of ten different stills) signed by Gary, two love/hate Helvetica buttons, and a letter of actual Helvetica metal type.

I’ve ordered my copy already!

UPDATE:

DVD extra #1: Hermann Zapf on his work, Univers, Helvetica, and coffee (streaming Quicktime movie)

DVD extra #2: Helvetica DVD extra #2: Wim Crouwel on his “Proposal for a New Alphabet” (streaming Quicktime movie)

There are 38 more interviews like these on the DVD.

(via Typophile)

BBC News has a good overview of the new £20 note. It has to be the ugliest British banknote I’ve ever seen. The front isn’t bad but the rear, oh my, where to start with this monstrosity?

What the hell is going on with that illustration in the centre? The guilloché behind it makes it far, far too busy, it makes my eyes hurt just to try and figure out what’s going on.

The profile portrait of Adam Smith is remarkably ugly; look at the previous 20′s portrait of Edward Elgar and scratch your head as to why they couldn’t come up with something more tasteful.

What’s going on with the stroke around the “£20″ in the top right corner, and why has someone just peppered a load of EURion constellations around it with no effort to make them fit in?

Who was responsible for the punctuation of the horrible condensed sans text that reads “The division of labour…”, and since when did it become normal to end a sentence with a colon, only to follow it up with bracketed, uncapitalised and unpunctuated text? (Is that colon pointing at the design, or what?)

And finally, is that “Twenty Pounds” and “Bank of England” set in Bodoni? Now you’re just taking the piss…