Sunday, October 3, 2010

wanna know some more?


"Hoefler and Frere-Jones create fonts that stand out with the clarity, elegance, and durability of a well-cut diamond.... An H&FJ typeface is always exquisitely legible without sacrificing high style." –Time Magazine

Interstate is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in the period 1993–1999, and licensed by Font Bureau. The typeface is closely related to the FHWA Series fonts, a signage alphabet drawn for the United States Federal Highway Administration in 1949. Frere-Jones' Interstate face, while optimal for signage, has refinements making it suitable for text setting in print and on-screen, and gained popularity as such in the 90s. Due to its wide spacing it is best suited for display usage in print, but Frere-Jones later designed another signage typeface, Whitney, published by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, which bears a resemblance to its ancestor while being less flamboyant and more economical for general print usage, in body copy or headlines. Familiarity lies at the heart of legibility. Interstate is based on the signage alphabets of our Federal Highway Administration, letterforms absorbed at a glance everywhere we drive. Interstate provides a real edge in swift communication.

The terminals of ascending and descending strokes are cut at an angle to the stroke (see lowercase t, and l), and on curved strokes (see lowercase e and s), terminals are drawn at a 90° angle to the stroke, positioning them at an angle to the baseline. Counters are open, even in the bold and bold condensed weights, further contributing to legibility. The font is used by a number of large organizations in their logotype and branding materials. Notable examples include Sainsbury's Supermarkets, recent signage for Southwest Airlines, Invesco Perpetual, UK rail company c2c, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, Lamborghini and Cognizant Technology Solutions. In May 2008 Ernst & Young adopted the use of Interstate in marketing materials and reports as part of a new global visual identity.In 2004, The Weather Channel started using the fonts on-air and on IntelliStar systems. It was added to TWC's WeatherSTAR XL in a graphical update in 2005. It was mainly retired in 2008, for Helvetica Neue and Akzidenz-Grotesk. In November 2006 the US Army launched its Army Strong ad campaign, utilizing Interstate as its primary typeface for all ad material.

Tobias Frere-Jones (born Tobias Edgar Mallory Jones, 1970[1]) is a prolific type designer who works in New York City with fellow type designer Jonathan Hoefler at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a type foundry in lower Manhattan. Frere-Jones teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program, with type designer Matthew Carter.

He is a son of Robin Carpenter Jones and his wife, the former Elizabeth Frere, and a brother of music critic Sasha Frere-Jones. He is a grandson of Alexander Stuart Frere-Reeves, the former chairman of the board of William Heinemann Ltd, the British publishing house, and a great-grandson of the writer Edgar Wallace, who wrote the screenplay for the film King Kong.[1]

After receiving a BFA in 1992 from Rhode Island School of Design, Frere-Jones joined Font Bureau, Inc. in Boston. Over seven years as a Senior Designer, he created a number of the typefaces that are Font Bureau's best known, among them Interstate and Poynter Oldstyle & Gothic. He joined the Yale School of Art faculty in 1996 as a Critic. In 1999, he left Font Bureau to return to New York, where he began work with Jonathan Hoefler. Since working together, the two have collaborated on projects for The Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart Living, Nike, Pentagram, GQ, Esquire magazine, The New Times, Business 2.0, and The New York Times Magazine. He has designed over seven hundred typefaces for retail publication, custom clients, and experimental purposes. His clients have included The Boston Globe, The New York Times, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the Whitney Museum, The American Institute of Graphic Arts Journal, and Neville Brody. He has lectured at Rhode Island School of Design, Yale School of Art, Pratt Institute, Royal College of Art, and Universidad de las Americas. His work has been featured in How, ID, Page, Print, Eye Magazine, and Graphis Inc., and is included in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. In 2006, Frere-Jones received the prestigious Gerrit Noordzij Prize, an award given by The Royal Academy of Art (The Hague) to honor innovations in type design. He married Christine Annabelle Bateup in 2006.

Feeling that experience from one style can inform new efforts in another, he aims for the widest possible range in his work. He feels equally at home with a traditional text face as with a grungy display face. He seeks inspiration from deliberately non-typographic sources; the music of Schoenberg, the theories of Tesla and Pythagoras, and a row of shopping carts have all provided the initial spark.
When asked if the world really needs any more typefaces, he replied, “The day we stop needing new type will be the same day that we stop needing new stories and new songs.”

The World

A combination of factors including the mass mobilization of capital markets through neoliberalism, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and reconsolidation of economic and political power across the world, and within countries. The 1990s is often considered the end of Modernity and the dawn of the current Postmodern age.[1] Living standards and democratic governance generally improved in many areas of the world, notably East Asia, much of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa. New ethnic conflicts emerged in Africa, the Caucasus and the Balkans, and signs of any resolution of tensions in the Middle East remained elusive.[2]

The public generally uses the expression "the Interstate" to refer not just to specific highways but to the concept of a connected national system of freeways.

Interstate Program 4.0 Congress designates Future Interstates; more leniency on tolling

The Font Bureau, Inc., a Boston-based typographic firm that counts Apple, Microsoft, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune and Wall Street Journal among its clients, filed suit against NBC this week, alleging the network did not secure the rights to the typefaces it used to promote “The Jay Leno Show,” “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night Live.”

According to the 118-page complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court, the Font Bureau says that NBC infringed on its trademarked and copyrighted fonts on NBC.com and CNBC.com. It is seeking “no less than $2 million” in damages.

The Font Bureau says NBC and CNBC used its Bureau Grotesque, Interstate and Antenna fonts without permission.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/howmany.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Frere-Jones

http://www.fontbureau.com/people/TobiasFrereJones/

http://typography.com/about/press.php

http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/nbc-sued-over-use-fonts-8462


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