P22 Type Foundry and Hamilton Wood Type Museum present Brylski
Posted on June 2nd, 2017 by Heather West
P22 Type Foundry and Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum announce the newest addition to the Hamilton Wood Type (HWT) Legacy Project: Brylski.
“HWT Brylski” is a typeface by Nick Sherman, named for retired wood type cutter Norb Brylski, and designed to be cut as wood type at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. It incorporates several themes that were common in 19th-century type design, including split Tuscan serifs with angled mansard-style sides, heavy weight placement at the top and bottom of letters (traditionally referred to as “French” or “Italian/Italienne,” regardless of any actual relation to those countries), and an extended overall width.
Sherman explains, “Though not a strict revival of any one historical typeface, Brylski takes cues from various old-fashioned designs including Midway Ornate, Aldine Extended, Wm. H. Page & Co.’s No. 121 (a.k.a. Mansard), French Antique Extended and Hellenic Wide, among others. The digital typeface includes alternate forms of several characters plus a few arrows and stars, like all good wood type should.”
Following traditional wood type production methods, several limitations were employed in Brylski’s design process to simplify manufacturing and composition of the physical wood type. For example, in traditional fashion, all glyphs were designed with the same minimal amount of sidebearing space. At the intended size, all glyphs have widths in half-pica increments. Kerning is simplified to a minimum group of glyphs and is designed around the idea of wood blocks being sawed to interlock with each other. The design was started in 2011 and, after being fine-tuned for both wood and digital font formats, released in 2017.
Brylski joins the ranks of the HWT Legacy Project where noted designers have created new designs produced in traditional wood type, as well as digital releases, for letterpress printers and designers of all stripes. Graphic design legends Matthew Carter, Louise Fili, Marian Bantjes and Erik Spiekermann have created “Van Lanen,” “Mardell,” “Bernice” and “Artz” respectively, and now, Sherman adds “Brylski” to the series. The fonts each carry the names of residents of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, who worked at the Hamilton Manufacturing company and kept the art of wood type alive into the present day.
The digital version of Brylski along with all other HWT Legacy Project fonts are available through P22’s Hamilton Wood Type Collection. Proceeds support the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum mission of printing heritage, preservation and education, and engagement with contemporary designers.
For more information on ordering the digital font (at an introductory discount), please visit https://www.p22.com/family-Brylski.
About P22 Type Foundry
P22 Type Foundry is dedicated to producing quality fonts and related products. Its goal is to present historical materials in a contemporary, relevant form. By doing so, great art and design are made accessible to every level of computer user. P22’s research and design teams are committed to developing typefaces that are not available anywhere else.
P22 works closely with museums and foundations toward the development of historically and aesthetically accurate products. Each font set is uniquely packaged with background information on its source and inspiration.
About Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum
The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum is the only museum dedicated to wood type preservation, study, production and printing. With 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton’s collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world. In addition to wood type, the museum is home to an amazing array of advertising cuts from the 1930s through the 1970s, all of the equipment necessary to make wood type and print with it, as well as equipment used in the production of hot metal type, tools of the craft and rare type specimen catalogs.
Hamilton Wood Type began producing type in 1880 and within 20 years became the largest provider in the United States. Today, the Two Rivers Historical Society preserves this legacy and museum staff hosts educational demonstrations, field trips, workshops and opportunities with this vast wood type collection.
Follow Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum on Twitter at @hamiltonwoodtyp, on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram or YouTube, or visit www.woodtype.org.
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