Big update of our website

The actual version of our website that you have under your eyes has been first designed and coded by Raphaël Bastide back in April 2014. Since then, it has grew a lot, has been slightly updated many times and has seen the number of fonts displayed drastically increase. We love our website has Raphaël made it. Its black and white, its marquees, its blinking look and feel. This website is the cornerstone of our identity and our main link between our fonts and their users.

The increasing size of our catalogue, the increasing diversity of the fonts that join it and the increasing number of styles per families — when we where used to release mainly single-style family — asked for a slight re-thinking and redesign of how we show our fonts.

Here are the main changes

1. Total redesign of the homepage with the hability to sort and filter our typefaces with many parameters such as the number of styles, release date… This was made thanks to David Desandro’s Isotope. We also created a new way to display font-families with numerous styles which put emphasis on a master style.
   
   
2. Wider display. We got rid of our right column to give more room to every page. Some of the content moved to the still exisiting left column when some other moved to our brand new footer.
3. Body copy font. Thrilled by this font we were about to publish, we decided to change our text font for our newly released Minipax by Raphaël Ronot. It’s now used for pretty all the small size and longer texts you’ll find on the website. We hope that you’ll like it as much as we do. It’s almost to comfortable to read, isn’t it?
4. Web specimen. Goodbye our former never-changing template, now each font has it’s own web-specimen that shows its particular qualities way better. Those web-specimen will even show you the opentype features embedded in our fonts. Are we in 2013?? Also, goodbye our good ol’ test zone, because now every piece of specimen text can be modified by our visitors.
   
   
5. Charset. Our charset now shows every character in the fonts, even the ones without any unicode code, thanks to the opentype.js tool.
6. Version history. Certain of our fonts have an insteresting story to tell. They been updated, modipfied, upgraded, sometimes by their original author(s), sometimes by different people, over time, during years for some of them. We needed to tell this story. Our new version history section tells what has been made on each version and by whom and gives access to the files of each version! This allows some deep time traveling. We also coded some pretty neat automatic family tree.
7. Better credits. We now provide more precise credits about the team who worked on each typeface.
8. Fontlog! You can have an overall chronological view on each release or update that has been made to each of our fonts, since the beginning. Dive inside our history.
   
   
    
9. About section. Our about page became a whole section with sub-pages such as a handy and growing F.A.Q. or a summary of our activities along the years (workshops, exhibitions, publications, awards…). We even had a ressources pages where we will list and add any tool that we used or find handy.
10. Footer. Let’s introduce a plain and simple footer that allows some straitforward navigation threw the pages of our website.

Credits

This update has been mainly designed and coded by Jérémy Landes with some help of Anton Moglia and helpful thoughts and feedback from all the Velveteam. The content has been edited and updated by all the community. Thanks everybody! We hope that you’ll enjoy the new look!

Pilowlava

Anton Moglia and Jérémy Landes create an organic bespoke typeface for the last issue of Cercle Magazine

We were commissioned by Cercle Magazine to design a titling typeface for their last issue dedicated to the burning issue of Volcanos. Cercle has an history with bespoke typefaces as they ask a different designer(s) to create a new font for each of their annual issues. Together with them, we decided that this would be a libre font (surprise!!!) and that we would release it on Velvetyne the same day the magazine was published. This day was the 26th of April 2019.

Pilowlava is born from intense exhanges between Anton and Jérémy, each of them modifying the first sketches of the other. Anton started with a very curvy and dynamic script typeface that Jérémy calmed down with some tense curves and geometric outlines: strait lines, almost circular curves…

Sketches from Anton (left) and Jérémy (right)

Basic letters and their mirrored or shifted alternates

Pilowlava stays dynamic while being now more contained. The contrast of Pilowlava is always shifting, no singular orientation of repartition of the thicks and thins has been decided. This leads to an always changing text, where you don’t really know where the next explosion will come from. This is even enouraged by a set of alternates, mirrored versions of the basic glyphs, shifting again the dynamic. This could be useful for some logo work where you can pick the version of the glyph your prefer.

Download Pilowlava

 

Type Workshop: Imago Mundi Mei

Discover Imago Mundi Mei!

[ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW]

Imago Mundi Mei est un atelier gratuit qui aura comme objet l’exploration graphique de deux méthodes méconnues : la typométrie et la psychogéographie. Il est proposé par la fonderie typographique Velvetyne dans le cadre du festival Fanzines! et en partenariat avec la Maison du Libre et des Communs.

Au long de cet atelier, nous concevrons ensemble des caractères typographiques dans un format carré qui, placés les uns à côté des autres (typométrie), nous permettront de dessiner des paysages émotionnels, conceptuels, psychologiques (psychogéographie).

Les participant.e.s sont prié.e.s d’apporter leurs ordinateurs portables pour pouvoir travailler dessus.

Où et quand

L’atelier aura lieu à La Paillasse (226 Rue Saint-Denis, 75002 Paris, métro Strasbourg-Saint-Denis) les 8 et 9 juin 2019.

Inscription

Pour vous inscrire, veuillez écrire un mail à : contact@velvetyne.fr (atelier gratuit limité à 20 places, merci de nous écrire si vous avez un empêchement et vous souhaitez libérer votre place).

Déroulé du workshop : 

Samedi 8 juin :

9h30 : accueil des participantes, café, thé.

10h pile : Présentation des objectifs de l’atelier, présentation sur l’histoire de la typométrie et de la psychogéographie.

10h45 : Distribution de post-it et pluie d’idées pour déterminer les concepts/symboles qu’on développera pendant le reste de l’atelier.

12h30 : Mise en commun des premiers croquis. Pause déjeuner.

13h30 : Retour à la production !

17h : Mise en commun des dessins, distribution du travail pour la journée suivante, joie générale.

Dimanche 9 juin :

10h : Point sur le dessin de caractères sur l’ordinateur. 

11h : Finition du dessin au papier des caractères, début de la vectorisation pour certains.

12h30 :  Pause déjeuner.

14h : création de la bibliothèque de caractères, partage de fichiers, finalisation de la version numérique des caractères. Création d’une petite publication sous forme de fanzine qui servira de guide utilisateur de la fonte (si le temps le permets).

18h - 21h : apéro, exposition des résultats, cartes typo/psychogéographiques partout.

Le caractère typographique créée pendant le workshop sera distribuée librement par la suite sous la forme d’une fonte open-source.

Hourra !

[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]

Imago Mundi Mei is a free workshop that will have as its goal the graphic research of two little-known techniques: typometry and psychogeography. It’s proposed by the Velvetyne Type Foundry as a part of the Fanzines! festival and in partnership with the Maison du Libre et des Communs.

During this workshop, we will create together typographic characters in a square format which, placed side by side (typometry) will allow us to draw emotional, conceptual, psychological landscapes (psychogeography).

Participants are asked to bring their laptop computers so we can work on them.

Where and when

The workshop will take place at La Paillasse (226 Rue Saint-Denis, 75002 Paris, Strasbourg-Saint-Denis metro station) the 8th and 9th june 2019.

Signing up

To sign up for the workshop, please write us a mail at : contact@velvetyne.fr (the workshop is limited to 20 people, please tell us if ever you can’t no longer come and you wish to give your place).

Workshop program

Saturday 8th june :

9h30 : Reception of the participants, coffee, tea.

10h o’clock : Introduction to the workshop’s goals, slideshow about the history of typometry and of psychogeography. 

10h45 : Distribution of post-its and brainstorming in order to choose the concepts/symbols that we’ll develop through the workshop.

12h30 : Overview of the first sketches. Lunch time.

13h30 : Back to production!

17h : Exhibition of the first drawings, distribution of work for the next day, general joy.

Sunday 9th june :

10h : Quick presentation about drawing type characters on screen. 

11h : Finishing the drawings on paper of the characters, begining of the vector versions for some of them.

12h30 :  Lunch time.

14h : Set up of the character library, file sharing, preparation of the final digital version of the characters. Design of a small publication (zine) that would act as a user’s guide (if the remaining time allows for it).

18h - 21h : aperitif, exhibition of the results, typo/psychogeographic maps everywhere.

The typeface produced during the workshop will be freely distributed afterwards as an open-source font.

Cheers!

Download Imago Mundi Mei!