TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Thu Sep 10 20:41:45 EDT 2015

FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE

LUC DEVROYE

ABOUT

Michael Harvey

Stonecutter and renowned carver (b. 1931, d. 2013), cyclist, maker of Ellington (1990, poster by Kelly Stevens) and Strayhorn (1995, also at Monotype), Braff (2003, Agfa), the multiple master Mezz at Adobe, Conga Brava MM at Adobe (a fluid stencil font), Studz, Andreas and Moonglow (all three at Adobe), DTL Unico (an extensive all-purpose family at the Dutch Type Library), and Zephyr (at Ludlow). The outline font Andreas (1996) and the all-caps Moonglow show stone-cutting influences.

In 2001, he and Andy Benedek founded Fine Fonts, an independent digital type foundry in Cheltenham, UK. Fine Fonts has since released a number of typeface designs, including Aesop Script, Balthasar (2002), Braff, Fine Gothic (blackletter), Friezea (Andy Benedek and Michael Harvey, Fine Fonts: The original font dates from ca. 1990. They explain: The origin of this font was a frieze in the RAF Chapel in Westminster Abbey which Michael Harvey was commissioned to design and create. It was comprised of the names of the top brass in Bomber Command, namely Dowding, Harris, Newall, Tedder, Portal and Douglas. The Brief was to cut the letters in bronze and guild them. Instead, they were cut in perspex and guilded. Some twenty years later, the missing upper-case letters were drawn together with the lower-case letters and Frieze, the font, was born), Marceta Uncial, Mentor, Quirky, Ruskin (2008, Andy Benedek and Michael Harvey, Fine Fonts: This display serif typeface was originally created as a commission for Michael Harvey to design a signage font for the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh), Songlines, Tisdall Script, and Victoriana (2002, a Victorian font by Andy Benedek and Michael Harvey, named after cyclist Victoria Pendleton).

Michael was a visiting lecturer in the Department of Typography&Graphic Communication at the University of Reading, and is the author of several books on the lettering arts. CV and picture. He works from his studio in Bridport (Dorset). At ATypI 2007 in Brighton, he analyzes the work of Frederic Goudy, Hermann Zapf, Eric Gill, Georg Trump, and Jan van Krimpen, and takes the listener from analog to digital.

Obituary by Yves Peters, who quotes Sumner Stone: e will miss the presence of his marvelous big smile and the twinkle in his eye that went with it. That twinkle always seemed to be there above his ruddy cheeks and one quickly learned that it was a true transmission of his inner state. He was a tall leprechaun, full of laughter. He had a subtle and perennial sense of humor and just being in his presence lifted you up. He could float on the jazz piano clouds of Ellington and Strayhorn, and named typefaces after each of them. He was also a serious thinker, a scholar, and always ready to engage in a discussion of the finer points. His achievements in the lettering arts are numerous and numinous. By any measure he was prolific. He carved letters in stone and wood, drew them for hundreds of book jackets, wrote books about them, taught them to graduate students, and made them into typefaces that ranged from goofy to sublime. He was a true master in every respect.

Klingspor link. FontShop link.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Michael Harvey
 [Designer info]
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Stencil fonts ⦿ Type design in the United Kingdom ⦿ Blackletter fonts ⦿ Victorian typefaces ⦿ Lapidary typefaces ⦿