Only at ATypI…

We are just back from ATypI late last night, still reeling from a wonderful week in Amsterdam – learning, absorbing insane amounts of information, being a fellow geek amongst type geeks, catching up with old friends and making new ones, and taking in the incredible atmosphere. This year the conference coincided with no less than three prizes/awards. Living legend of Dutch typography Gerrit Noordzij was awarded the TDC Medal from the Type Directors Club of New Tork, pioneer of digital type Donald Knuth received the Dr. Peter Karow Award, and the Prix Charles Peignot was given to Russian type designer Alexandra Korolkova. All these warrant their own posts, but I would like to start with one little epic happening in the fringe of the Peter Karow award.

The award presentation at the ATypI Gala Dinner on Saturday night was a touching event. Although it went smoothly, it was blemished by an unfortunate typo on the banner that was set up next to the ATypI registration desk on Thursday. When the mistake was eventually discovered on Friday morning there was of course no time to order a new one. And this is where the wonderful ATypI spirit of comradery kicked in. With simple white-out my compatriot, type designer and Type & Media alumnus Frederik Berlaen, with the help of KABK teacher Paul van der Laan, used his type design skills to correct one of the DTL Fleischmann's Gs into the proper C and made it look as if it was meant to be this way. Like Frank Blokland puts it:

Johann Michael Fleischmann himself would have been satisfied with the result, although he never designed a medium weight, of course.

Frederik Berlaen and some whiteout, ready to turn a DTL Fleischmann Display Medium 'G' into a 'C'.

With the help of a cardboard envelope Type & Media teacher Paul van der Laan offers valuable support – quite literally.

Mission accomplished! Other typefaces based on the Fleischmann model are amongst others Fleischman by Charles Gibbons, and Christian Schwartz's Farnham.

Images by Tânia Raposo