Two robots, two frogs, and a couple made out of beer cans, all from different locations along the way

#LocalTrainTrip

More interesting signage in Takayama

#LocalTrainTrip

I got a new goshūin calligraphy written in my book at the amazing Hie shrine in Takayama. It had this amazing 1,000 year old tree. And the Japanese Maple trees were just starting to show their red fall colors

#LocalTrainTrip

The next big town over is Takayama, 1hr via 2-car #LocalTrainTrip . Original plan was to stop over in between at a smaller town. But as it turns out, the train only runs every 2.5 hrs or so and we missed the earlier train. We tried to research and pick one of the towns, but all of the shops seemed to be closed on weekdays and would be hard to justify 2.5hrs there when Takayama had sooo many thing we wanted to see, so no stopover, all 5hrs spent at Takayama.

One stop was the retro museum:

The main part of Gero town runs along a stream that feeds into a wide, rocky river at the bottom.

The buildings have some nice old signage. And one shop along the stream had a nice looking self-serve vegetable stand where you just put your money in a box and take a bag tomatoes, about $2 a bag

#LocalTrainTrip

Exploring the town of Gero on my #LocalTrainTrip

The Gasshomura folk village at the top of the hill has amazing old-style grass roofs like something out of a Studio Ghibli movie. At traditional shop was cooking locally caught river fish on skewers over charcoal. And there was a nice local shrine with stone tori (gate). Super quiet a peaceful, just off the main tourist street. There was also an art festival happening with interesting organic lettering on their banners that caught my eye

The hotel (Bōsenkan) also had its old brochures all the way back to 1936 (aka Shōwa 11, the blue and green one) with the type running horizontally from right to left.

The 1950s an 1960s ones are great too

Correction, the trains on the Takayama line are only *2 cars* long (previous line was 4 cars).

Our hotel in Gero had photos of the train passing by the hotel over the years from the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s

This is the view riding along the single train track near Gero from the train driver’s perspective

#LocalTrainTrip

Gifu > Gero

This is where the scenery got really nice. There was a river running along the tracks most of the way. Tiny stations, mostly with no staff so you have to show your ticket to the driver. The train was operated by one person, same one checking tickers, and only had 4 cars. Many sections had only one track so trains need to wait at a station (with 2 tracks) until another train passes in the opposite direction. Very slow travel, but it’s a great way to enjoy the scenery #LocalTrainTrip

Hamamatsu > Toyohashi > Nagoya, heading towards Gifu

From the industrial factory area of Hamamatsu, to the golden rice fields around Toyohashi we are suddenly back in the land of sky scrapers as we pass through Nagoya

#LocalTrainTrip

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Nice Shōwa era signage in Atami

#LocalTrainTrip

Atami town, 1.5 hour stop over

#localTrainTrip

Day 1 of a 3-Day unlimited train pass, local trains only. Heading towards a hot spring region and excited to explore the small towns along the way.

I always enjoy following along on #train posts from friends. Maybe I’ll make some posts about the trip

This is near Odawara

CJ Type: The First Ten Years exhibition in Tokyo opened on Wednesday.

I just had an amazing conversation with an older lady who worked as a phototypesetter here in Japan decades ago, who just happened to walk by the gallery. These conversations are by far the most rewarding part of the exhibition. She knew about the foundry Shaken, used Ryobi and Morisawa machines, and described the arduous process of setting type one character at a time. And she bought my new type specimen for Louvette Pixel😊

📅 Mark your calendars. The next Fontstand conference will take place in The Hague 🇳🇱 on 23–24 April 2027. Hope to see you there!

Detail of the colophon (I swear in person it is super crisp despite the tiny size 😅)

I’m unreasonably happy about these 72 Microseasons calendars I made as a type specimen for Louvette Pixel, which is my first typeface to include Japanese Hiragana, Katakana + (limited) Kanji

I convinced the printer to use 26 different colorful paper stocks from the incredible Japanese paper company Takeo, including a pearlescent cover

The colophon is set at 3.5pt😳 printed sharp, including the retro emoji 🙇‍♂️

It’s A7 size & fits standard A7 2-ring binders

Available at my exhibition next week📚

Check out this gem I found at the used book shop today

It's a booklet from 1972 from the Ishii typeface design contest from legendary foundry Shaken. The winning design is Sūbo by Tsutomu Suzuki
https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/236084/subo

Suzuki was a staff designer for Shaken at the time, and later went on to start Jiyukobo foundry and design Hiragino which is a mac system font

There are some other nice super phototype era designs, like this low angle shadow by Masakazu Sakakibara