Making Faces: Metal Type in the 21st Century (A documentary)
Help Richard Kegler finish this project. Visit his KickStarter page and make a donation.
Making Faces: Metal Type in the 21st Century (A documentary)
About the Project
This project has a dual goal of documenting the almost-lost skill of creating metal fonts and of capturing the personality and work process specifically of practitioner the late Canadian graphic artist Jim Rimmer (1931-2010). P22 type foundry commissioned Mr. Rimmer to create a new type design (Stern) that became the first-ever simultaneous release of a digital font and, hand-set metal font in 2008. The skills needed to create a metal font are known by very few people and Mr. Rimmer was generous to a fault when it came to sharing his knowledge. Considering that Jim Rimmer was possibly the only individual who designed and cast typefaces in metal as well as in digital format, this opportunity to document the processes of the historic with the contemporary would not present itself again.
Watch the video
About the Filmmaker
Richard Kegler is the founder and lead designer at P22 type foundry. Before his involvement in type design, Mr. Kegler was a bookbinder, designer, postgraduate, artist seeking a respectable self-sustaining life as a
hand-craftsman. The years of historical typographic research at P22 has influenced a profound interest in using hand techniques alongside digital capabilities. Mr. Kegler has recently started a non-profit Book Arts Center in Buffalo NY and has returned to an active involvement in hand setting and printing metal and wood type as a concurrent career with digital font research at P22.
