The Showcase pages display current and recent emfoundry type designs and typographic projects, published or exhibited type specimens as well as the ongoing practice-based research and POSTs of Jon Melton.
LATEST POST | ETRVSCA Sans
The large Broadsheet Specimens of ETRVSCA Sans were exhibited within the 'Then&Now' Exhibition by academics and staff of CSA in the Ruskin Gallery in Cambridge from the 10th to the 27th October 2023.
ETRVSCA Specimens in 'Then&Now' Exhibition
RECENT POST | OGILBY FONT
Jon Melton is currently completing a new typeface informed by the 17th century cartographer John Ogilby and the engravers that worked on the 1675 Britannia atlas map plates such as Wenceslas Hollar. The 'Ogilby's Britannia' typeface featured within an article originally intended for Ultrabold - is now set to be published online soon. The notion for this font was originally discussed at the Printing Historical Society's conference way back in November 2015 within a lecture about the 'colourful life' of Ogilby, the Cosmographer Royal.
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POST: 02| 12| 20
A webinar book launch of 'Pen, print and communication in the eighteenth century' took place in November 2020, with the short talks published on YouTube. But you can view Jon's seven minute presentation here:
POST: 07 | 08 | 20
Melton's long awaited chapter on 'The Serif-less Letters of John Soane' is available to download in full here. Published at the end of August 2020 in 'Pen, print and communication in the eighteenth century'. pp.215-228. Published by Liverpool University Press and is available to purchase in hardback it is now much cheaper in paperback and soon it will be available on Amazon:
John Soane's Serif-less letters Chapter
POST: 10 | 03 | 20
ETRVSCA - Bishop Sans the research font that revives the serif-less postal date stamps of the eighteenth century was published in 'Ways of Thinking' pp.31-34 by Ruskin Arts Publications, with the books launch on the 5th March 2020 in Cambridge.
For more information visit:
https://ruskin-arts.co.uk/2020/02/25/ways-of-thinking-book-launch-on-5-march/
Bishop Sans in 'Ways of Thinking'
POST: 11 | 09 | 19
Jon presented his latest research on the prolific nature of serif-less date stamps on posted letters in Britain from 1673 - at TypeThursday-London (Cambridge Symposium) on the 9th September 2019. It appears that the sans serif was very much a public-facing letterform throughout the long eighteenth-century.
Bishop marks on eighteenth-century post
POST: 03 | 03 | 19
Jon's revealing paper on the 'True source of the Sans' was published in January 2019 on YouTube and is available to view here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz5X9my_X5Q
POST: 15 | 09 | 18
He presented a new research paper on Piranesi's serif-less letterforms of 1756 at ATypI18 in Antwerp on the 12th September 2018, on the 'The true source of the Sans' typeface, and has a chapter in the forthcoming publication 'Pen and Print: communication in the eighteenth century' on 'The serif-less letters of John Soane' to be published by Liverpool University Press in Spring 2020.
Piranesi's Serif-less Initials engraving of 1756
POST: 01 | 10 | 16
Jon Melton delivered a presentation titled 'Revolting Sans' about the Cuban 'afiche use of sans serif type on silk-screen posters in the 1960-70s, at the 'Song of the Sans' conference at Birmingham City University in September 2016.
POST: 01 | 05 | 15
He delivered a presentation titled 'A man of Letters - Soane's typographic vocabulary' at the 'The Beauty of Letters' conference at Birmingham University in March 2015.
Where Jon revealed Soane's only known surviving Sans serif inscription on the Lodge at Langley Park in Norfolk, c.1790.
Soane's sans inscription at Langley in Norfolk
POST: 01 | 02 | 15
emfoundry launched the basic font 'Ogilby Britannia' as part of a paper on the life of John Ogilby titled 'The Typographic Traveller' at the Printing Historical Society's conference 'Landmarks of Printing' back in November 2014, and is looking forward to presenting his font 'Classic Soane' at the 'Beauty of Letters conference' in March!
John Ogilby engraved portrait
POST: 01 | 02 | 14
emfoundry's Jon Melton...
ARCHIVED POSTS:
EMF | TYPE TART CARDS
Jon Melton produced a boxed set of card designs using emfoundry fonts, for the ongoing Type Tarts Project organised by The Typographic Hub (at the CPHC). These specimens are ultimately going to form part of the St Bride Library collection. They were exhibited in London at KKOutlet (AKA: KesselsKramer) from the 22th - 29th June 2009 to coincide with the launch of the special 'Sex' July issue of Wallpaper* magazine. This ongoing project was featured again in the November issue of Wallpaper* magazine 2015. Jon's collection of cards were also displayed up until recently online on the magazines website as well as the blog of Eye magazine. The Tart Card exhibition came to the Ruskin Gallery at the CSA in April 2010. When Jon exhibited a new card in context to celebrate the face Classic Soane. Two of the cards were published in the spring-summer edition of Anglia Ruskin Arts magazine in 2010. The cards 'on tour' - were exhibited at the Birmingham School of Art in December 2011, and then at the Plymouth College of Art in the January and in Manchester Media City in February 2012. A book of the project containing (amongst many others) the emfoundry Type Tart Card series, is hopefully still planned for publication sometime in the future.
The Classic Soane Type Tart Card
RUSSIAN REVOLT | BBC
Emfoundry's Russian Revolt was utilised for headings to create an authentic 'Constructivist' feel in the article on the Russian Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the 2010 June issue of BBC Music magazine (now retitled Classical Music). But it's a pity they didn't use it for the main title! The poster specimens of both Russian and Cuban Revolt were published back in 2007 in Issue 2 of the industry journal Ultrabold, with the latest specimens for Classic Soane being released within a historical article about the typeface and work of the architect Sir John Soane in Ultrabold Issue 9, 2011.
BBC Music magazine June 2010 issue
CLASSIC SOANE SPECIMEN | INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION
Emfoundry was asked to exhibit a specimen of Classic Soane for the exhibition 'Types for the New Century' at The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, London, in May 2012, alongside leading type designers such as Gerard Unger, Martin Majoor, Jon Barnbrook to name but a few. This exhibition travelled to Bristol University in October 2012, Northumbria University in November 2012, then Birmingham, Brighton and around Europe including the Bauhaus Wiemar and the Museum for Druck-Kunst in Leipzig in 2013 - and then Dublin in 2014. Jon is currently designing a partner font to Classic Soane called Soane Sans and, it is hoped that this will be completed in 2016.
Types for the New Century Specimen of Classic Soane
EMPIRE INITIALS | PUBLICATION
Both English Open and Empire Initials were launched within an exhibition at the Plus Moving Type Conference at the Custard Factory in Birmingham back in 2007. Simon Loxley designer, author and the editor of Ultrabold, used Empire Initials in a recent book design proposal, but sadly an alternative design was selected. But a specimen of Empire Initials was used as an example of Ornamental Revival on p.95 of Will Hill's revised edition of The Complete Typographer published by Thames & Hudson in 2010. And more recently for a cover design by Simon Loxley on 'How Britain won the war of 1812' written by Brian Arthur, published by Boydell Press in 2011. A free poster specimen of the ornamental Empire Initials is available for a limited period to download at the foot of this web page.
p.95 of The Complete Typographer
EKHO FONT | WOLP
Jon Melton utilised his experience and knowledge of type design to oversee and direct a new typeface for the World Oral Literature Project for Yale and Cambridge University last year. This face was produced by two of his students along with web based and print designs for branding. The intention was to achieve the visually audible font (later named 'ekho') that would represent the research project's breadth of activities - recording and archiving endangered language and dialects from around the globe. Sadly, funding has not as yet allowed this excellent work to be adopted.
'ekho' Specimen by (undergrads) Will Hemming & Jack Sadler
DESIGN | CONSULTANCY
www.jonmelton.ac.uk has also been engaged in designing period style gothic hood-moulded and mullioned windows that utilise the latest technology of ultra slim double-glazing units. This argon filled and coated glazing technology allowed his design to achieve fine glazing bars in slow-grown softwood frames - appropriate to the Regency 'Cottage orné' period of the building.
EMPIRE INITIALS POSTER SPECIMEN
These vernacular letterforms were exhibited along with 'English Open', at the Custard Factory in Birmingham for the 'Plus Type - Moving Type' conference back in 2007. Where Jon Melton presented a paper on 'Bifurcated Bodoni', and anticipated the launch of this research website: emfoundry.com
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Empire Initials Banner Specimen