Metroscript a “Rising Star” at MyFonts

In mid-March I began selling my Alphabet Soup fonts through MyFonts. To my surprise, in that short period of time “Metroscript” rose to the top of their list of “Starlets”. The Starlets list ranks all fonts that appeared on MyFonts within the previous 50 days according to their sales volume. MyFonts just sent out their May newsletter Rising Stars highlighting the best-sellers among their new fonts, and I’m proud to say that Metroscript is prominently featured.

This is all very gratifying to me—I arrived at font design by way of my career as a lettering artist—which is not the route taken by most font designers. Font design is a very different discipline from lettering in that it is a much more disciplined craft. I can make a piece of lettering sing by using all kinds of tricks and devices to create visual excitement. It does take a keen eye and lots of imagination and know-how to make a piece of lettering stand out, but font design is much less forgiving: you are limited to one letter next to another in a straight line, and every letter in a font must be in harmony with every other letter. I think much of Metroscript’s success has to do with the fact that I brought a lettering artist’s eye to a font designer’s craft, and I think this may be appreciated by those who are looking for something a little different. I’ve been told that copy set in Metroscript resembles hand lettering more than any other font.

Alphabet Soup Reviewed in Print Magazine

Above: sample of Metroscript.

Paul Shaw has written a review of my Alphabet Soup Type Founders for the April issue of Print Magazine, where he writes about three of my four font releases. He didn’t write about my latest release—an update of the classic Bank Gothic which has my newly added lowercase—because it hadn’t been relased yet. At any rate you can check out the review either by going to the Print Magazine website.

Bette in Vegas

I recently did a logo for Bette Midler’s Las Vegas show at Caesar’s. The art director is actually and old pal of mine, Rod Dyer, a really colorful character who incidentally has a dual career operating one of LA’s best and longest running restaurants: Pane e Vino. Laura (my wife, illustrator Laura Smith) and I have loved going there for years—it’s undoubtedly one of our favorite LA restaurants. It has a fantastic outdoor garden seating area where you can always see some of Hollywood’s glitterati. One day while having lunch with Rod, Billy Dee Williams joined our table, Rod left, resulting in our having lunch with Lando Calrissian.

Bette’s new show is at The Colosseum, where she takes over the slot occupied for years by Celine Dion. Bette alternates showdates monthly with Elton John and Cher.