In the build-up to TYPO Berlin 2010 – Passion a couple of tweets by Martin Majoor caught my eye today. One tweet announced that on Friday, May 21, he and Sébastien Morlighem will present the book they wrote about José Mendoza y Almeida. Mendoza, now 83 years old, designed typefaces like Pascal, Photina, and ITC Mendoza. He began working with Roger Excoffon at the Fonderie Olive in 1954, and is still active today. Many consider him to be the "godfather" of French type design. The first book dedicated to his work was published last March as part of the Bibliothèque typographique series. It features an introduction by Jan Middendorp and essays by Martin Majoor and Sébastien Morlighem. The book also contains many previously unpublished documents.

Liefde voor Letters, lecture by Martin Majoor at the O.P.A. Showroom, Arnhem, February 2010

Not only will visitors of TYPO Berlin be able to attend this presentation by Martin Majoor live, in another tweet he revealed that he had collected some of his old lectures (in English, German and Dutch) and put them up on his personal website for viewing. Learn all about how he started in type design, his influences, his successful type families FF Scala, FF Seria, FF Nexus, his custom Telefont families for the Dutch phone directories, the Questa project currently in development in collaboration with Jos Buivenga, and much more.

Martin Majoor and Jos Buivenga at work on the Questa project.

Header image:Typeradio-interview with Martin Majoor @ 33pt, FH Dortmund, April 2009