Making Aldine Expanded replacement characters (and my first Wood Type Video)

I’m trying to get a handle on making replacement characters for people’s wood type collections. Here is a movie I made this weekend with Paul Dodd. Watch the video and then read on.

I had several email exchanges with David Wolske about pricing wood type. One time was just after I first started trying to sell wood type on this site, and how a single font in 4 sizes has 60 prices online. I figured out how to load pricing into the store, but it is not much fun.

The conversation drifted to replacement characters. I said I was nowhere near ready to publish pricing. Too many unknowns.

Somehow that conversation lead to the Waiting for the Big One project. Good project—it had a beginning, middle, and end. But, I needed to try again. Something more normal. Real world. (smaller)

“Well, what about the Aldine Expanded that we talked about?” Said David.

“Yes.” Said Bill.

“I think I will redraw the entire alphabet.” Said David.

I thought, “That sounds smaller.” It’s not.

Here is the reality of the way it works with making any letter using a pantograph. You need to have a good, tough, oversize original. This is one way to do it. Laser cut birch plywood really works.

I will soon have enough information to come up with prices, but I need one actual project that is a handful of letters for a font that is 6 to 10 lines tall. You will need to furnish digital outlines of up to 5 characters and you will get some type for free. First come first served. I am accepting 1 free project (you will have to agree to a blog post).