Click here to view the press release. Click on the thumbnails below to view and download high resolution press images. Contact press@houseind.com or call +302-234-2356 for more information.
Overprints
Font Spread
Numbers
Packaging
Font Cards
Think
Stencil
Short FilmFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Rich Roat, (302) 234-2356, press@houseind.com
House Industries Releases Eames Century Modern Font Collection
House Industries honors the aesthetic of Charles and Ray Eames with the release of its new Eames Century Modern collection of 26 fonts.
House worked closely with the Eames family for over ten years to gain access to some of the more obscure archive materials, to seek approval for the designs and to get a feel for what Charles and Ray would have wanted in a font family that bears their name.
“Design is a willingness to surrender to a journey,” said Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles and Ray Eames and standard bearer of the estate. “You often hear about ‘design driven’ companies, but most of them that want to license the Eames name are thinking of it as an acquisition for their collection of brands. Every once in a while you encounter a company like House Industries who is willing to go on that journey and grow our brand as well as theirs.”
House tapped type designer Erik van Blokland to conceptualize and produce the Eames Century Modern family. His unique drawing style combined with his unparalleled technical knowledge of typography made him a perfect fit for such an ambitious and reverential project. House Industries type designers Ken Barber and Ben Kiel assisted with the final drawing and production while House artist Bondé Prang composed illustrative components and House principal Andy Cruz provided constant feedback and direction.
“Charles and Ray Eames treated design as a universal method to solve any problem,” said van Blokland. “Eames Century Modern comes equipped for complex typographic challenges from all design disciplines.”
The Eames Century Roman family has eight different weights, from a distinctively delicate thin to a bombastic extra black. Corresponding italics are on double duty with their subtle nod to Ray Eames’ handwriting style while also providing an accompaniment to the Roman styles. All sixteen fonts in this family include carefully-weighted small caps, nine different figure styles, ligatures, contextual alternate forms and thousands of lines of advanced OpenType code.
Keeping with the Eames philosophy of balancing form and function, House also developed a special stencil version of the heaviest weight of the text family. Rather than recreate an existing stencil design, House designers penned gently bent plywood-inspired curves to develop an adroit interaction between shapes.
Eames Century Modern also includes the following elements:
Cover Numerals: Ray Eames designed ten covers for Arts & Architecture, the magazine that helped to establish and define American modernism. The cover numerals are based on the dates she penned as part of her uniquely organic layouts for the January and December 1943 issues.
Poster Numerals: The roots of these audaciously bold figures are peppered throught reference photos of the Eames work environment. Most notably are the “3,” which appeared on the wall of the Eames Studio graphics room and the “2,” which hung in Charles Eames’ office.
Frames and Arrows: A font collection that celebrates the Eames legacy would not be complete without a set of frames and arrows to bring closure and clarity to complex layouts.
About House Industries
House Industries is a unique oasis of typography and design that stands out in a cultural continuum of endless electronic effluvia. From their sketchpads, pencils, pens, brushes and bezier curves flow their passion for authenticity and integrity. House Industries fonts scream from billboards, wish happy whatever from tens of thousands of greeting cards, serve as the basis for consumer product logos and add elements of style to a wide range of mainstream media. House artists have mastered a large cross-section of design disciplines, transcending graphic conventions and reaching out to a broad audience. What ultimately shines in the House Industries oeuvre is what always conquers mediocrity: a genuine love for their subject matter. More information is available here: http://www.houseind.com/about.
About Charles and Ray Eames
Please see the Eames Office and Eames Foundation sites for more information.