Leading us forward in our daily countdown to the end of the world is W, set in Cottonwood, the collaborative effort of Kim Buker Chansler, Barbara Lind, and Joy Redick while employed creating Adobe Originals in the late eighties and early nineties. Taking a look at the work of each, one finds that these designers had a real fling going with Wild West types. Cottonwood’s ornamented strokes put the weight at the top and bottom of the character, leaving spindly stems to hold the parts together. This pattern of reversed stress appears frequently among the wood types of the 19th and early 20th century. Another pattern among type designers you may not have noticed—is to name wood-type-inspired faces after types of wood: Mesquite, Birch, Maple, Poplar, Juniper, Willow, Pepperwood, Rosewood, Ironwood, just to name a few. You probably did notice. Oh well—not the end of the world.
