“Purple Haze All In My Eyes”
Launched yesterday, Future Fonts is a new marketplace for unfinished fonts.
It is “a platform for collaboration between type makers and users. Get fonts while they’re still seeds and give ’em the fertilizer to grow.” — Typographica
The initial set of offerings includes twenty in-progress typefaces from twelve designers/studios. Paul Tuorto jumped right in and got his hands on Eckmannpsych. This psychedelic variant of Otto Eckmann’s Eckmannschrift (1900) is currently at v0.1, featuring “a basic set of capitals [A–Z], and nothing else.” To the surprise of type designer James Edmondson (OH no Type Co.), it has sold the most licenses of his four future projects so far.
Tuorto’s faux vintage record sleeve is a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, made on the occasion of his brother’s birthday. It is the first documented use of a Future Font. I’m looking forward to more in-use examples of these ultrafresh fonts.
2 Comments on ““Purple Haze All In My Eyes””
In a way, the original Eckmann was a Future Font itself, too. In the first official specimen, Rudhard’sche Gießerei proudly mentions that the typeface was already acquired by a large number of companies, although it had been advertised in an advance showing only, and lists twenty of the early adopters, with several leading printers among them. “By the time this specimen is released, the typeface has become a household name already, and has been introduced by more than a hundred print offices in Germany and abroad!” On the next page they add: “While this specimen is being printed, the typeface has been acquired by the following companies, among others”, and lists another 18 addresses from Brussels to Riga.
Detail of an undated specimen (c. 1900) included in “Bleisatzschriften des 20. Jahrhunderts aus Deutschland” by Hans Reichardt (ed.)
Love this, Florian! Also, just realized this Eckmann masthead (done a year earlier) was perhaps a prototype. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_W…