Hawkland type specimen
Hawkland is a beautiful, elegant new typeface from Jeremy Tankard Typography. It’s based on a typestyle that appeared in the second half of the 18th century, which later became known as Transitional. It’s a typeface of two families – one designed for use at text sizes, the other, with a slightly higher contrast of stroke widths, for use at display sizes. Overall there are 28 weights, making Hawkland a truly versatile typeface. Jeremy asked me to design a specimen for the typeface, and he had something truly special in mind. I visited him at his Cambridge studio, where he showed me a staggering collection of books and journals from his typographic library. Some of these featured tip-ins (a separate item that’s glued in to a larger publication) to show the use of a typeface, illustration or print process. They give a unique hand-crafted feel to the final product. We decided to theme the specimen around the concept of ‘land’, and to include full size examples of the typeface in use in hypothetical publications: a newspaper supplement, a book, a magazine, and a leaflet. Having those full size meant creating a specimen of considerable proportions, with spreads that open to over half a metre wide! The cover features a photograph I shot of Lake Windermere. The image is a tritone, printed with three spot colours, with the typeface name and the foundry name foil-blocked, in white and orange. The whole booklet is thread-sewn, adding to the feeling of a truly hand-crafted piece. The specimen was only been produced in a limited edition of 125 copies, making it truly covetable. We printed it three-colour litho for the main booklet, and digitally for the tip-ins. We hunted around for a printer who could really get the best from the type, and selected Westerham, whose meticulous attention to detail meant that the type looks beautifully crisp even at the smallest sizes. It’s printed on a range of stocks from GF Smith, with each different stock for the tip-ins chosen to be as close to the real thing as possible.