Tallhand Font Family (BETA Version): By Sam Meyerson & Bret Syfert (Music by Blaak Tha 9th Man)
CURVE: "The Philly Style", What is it? I understood early on that there are many graffiti styles that originate from Philly – possibly half as many styles as there are writers. However, there is no doubt that those tall slender letters with an aggressive edge, which have become increasingly familiar worldwide, are particularly unique to Philadelphia. Out of all of the countless styles, the most popular and widely used in Philadelphia, such as the Tallhand, are expertly crafted and shared among the community. This happens, quite literally, through the passing of books at gatherings in the park, and through the eyes of any child who grows up seeing these writing styles. Traveling through the city, styles slightly vary by neighborhood, and they've grown and changed over time, like fashion trends. Sometimes a letter style is attributed to one particular writer, and other times its origin is a mystery.
But most of the time, the letter styles exist because they work and they look right. In Philly, it's as if the first writers wielding quill pens signed into law those which are the best and most effective ways to write on walls. The strong dedication to tradition from every succeeding generation of writers in Philly, makes its writers more similar to tradesmen than vandals. It's no surprise that even graffiti of the city follows the path of the artisan. Philadelphia was originally the nation's trailblazer in craftsmanship and manufacturing. Once called "the workshop of the world", it led America into the Industrial Age: boasting the making of nearly every product, building material and method of construction. Relevant to the topic at hand, the first American type foundry was in the very heart of Philadelphia.
BRET: This font project is aimed at designers and graffiti writers with access to design software and at least some typographical knowledge*. Starting with the font Curve Tallhand, type a name. Most characters have multiple glyphs to choose from, so use your application of choice's glyphs palette. There are also two-letter ligatures such as "CU", "RV" and "E>" as in the above example. Adjust individual letter spacing (kerning) to your preference. (*we appreciate all the feedback from designers and Philadelphia writers as it helped us greatly in developing Tallhand version 2.0)
CURVE: And yet it isn't only the Tallhand that signifies Philly Graffiti. Those punchlines that accompany the names, and further add to the legend and infamy of the writer, are Philly's other distinctive element. Many Philadelphians will recall a writer solely based on what they wrote beside their name in clean legible print. Therefore we also created the accompanying Punchline font to honor this phenomenon. Punchlines are not merely decorative novelties. Their purpose is to make a statement or catchphrase, or to establish an affiliation, date or place of origin. The punchline writing style is not meant to detract attention from the Tallhand, but to match it, with the same casual yet confident strokes.
To create these typefaces, I teamed up with a talented designer named Hyde's Lovelies. We connected through a shared love for Philadelphia; its music, its culture, the places we used to frequent and the ever present writing on the wall. We split the difference between what works on paper and what's actually possible in digital typography. Why attempt to make a typeface based on this time-honored writing style? Why Not? It's been long overdue, and with the barrage of so-called "graffiti" fonts, we felt it necessary to try and create one ourselves with the care, attention-to-detail, knowledge-of -tradition and respect it deserves.
BRET: Explore the glyphs palette for lowercase characters and "extra bits" such as stars, arrows, faces, crowns and of course "double quotations" which emphasize the name. For a better fit, these extras can be raised or lowered, and there are asymmetrical glyphs of the double quotations which tuck in close to certain letter shapes. Part of the art of handstyles, is fitting as much "ISM" as possible into a given space (for example, the narrow, curved wall divisions that are visible to riders of the SEPTA Broad Street Line.
CURVE: These modes of handwriting are not simple to comprehend nor are they easy to execute. So to translate them into type took us much time, trial, and error. Streamlining 50+ years of tradition and writing evolution felt like a near impossible task. Whether we fully achieved that remains yet to be seen. We realized that the best way to capture this particular flow and aesthetic was to provide a handful of handfuls; i.e. options and alternate characters for the user to experiment with. After all, graffiti is, in the truest sense, the complete individualized utilization of letters, where every word, name or combination of letters calls for a different move, strategy or connection. In fact, it is the antithesis of the uniformity of fonts.
We hope that users will study Philadelphia Wall Writing and apply any knowledge gained (or possessed from real world practice) when personalizing and customizing this font. We know that all this analysis and synthesis of Philly Style can never capture its magic, essence or that alphabetical alchemy that's only possible when somebody is inspired to write their name within the Philadelphia environment. Our intention is not to define Philly Style, nor recreate or replace Graffiti handwriting. We only aim to pay homage to it.
BRET: To add your punchline, switch fonts to Curve Punchline. If you set the overall kerning to "Metrics", it should automatically kern well, no matter what you type. Philly punchlines are usually to the right of the name, but its all about economy of space, so sometimes they need to be located elsewhere.