Dave Nalle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dave Nalle (b. March 19, 1959 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a political writer, game author and font designer who was active in the early history of the development of the internet. He sits on the board of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group which promotes libertarianism within the Republican Party, is Senior Politics Editor at Blogcritics online magazine and is the CEO of Scriptorium Fonts.
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[edit] Biography
Dave Nalle grew up overseas and in Washington DC with parents who were in the foreign service. He was educated at British and American schools, eventually completing high school at St. Albans School. As a child and teen he lived in Syria, Iran, Jordan, England and the Soviet Union and travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.
He attended Franklin and Marshall College where he earned degrees in English and History, headed the student chapter of Students for a Libertarian Society and worked as a regional organizer for the Ed Clark presidential campaign in 1980. During and after college he had a variety of political jobs in Washington, including working for Al Gore at the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future as a newsletter editor, at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and as publications director for Students for a Libertarian Society, where he edited and wrote for Liberty magazine.
After moving to Texas in 1982 Nalle earned two graduate degrees at the University of Texas and taught college history in Austin for more than a decade. During this period he also ran a small game publishing company called Ragnarok Press. Graphic design experiences and his graduate research on historical calligraphy led to an interest in digital type design. In 1989 Nalle founded Scriptorium Fonts to market his original font designs and digital recreations of antique type and hand lettering, initially for the Commodore 64 and eventually primarily for Macintosh and Windows users.
Dave Nalle ran for Texas State Representative in 2002 and currently serves as Advisory Board Director for the Republican Liberty Caucus. He is also president of his local Lions Club. He and his wife Patricia Fitch Nalle have two daughters and the family lives just outside of Austin, Texas.
[edit] Writing and Game Design
Dave Nalle is the author of hundreds of magazine articles published in Dragon Magazine and other gaming magazines, as well as hundreds of game, media and book reviews, short fiction and poetry. He was had featured columns in Renaissance Magazine and Thrust, SF in Review.
His published game designs include the Ysgarth and To Challenge Tomorrow roleplaying games, game books and resources like Pantheon and Character Role Playing and the Arthurian collectible card game Quest for the Grail.
In 2003 Nalle was brought in as a guest designer for a radical redesign of Whole Earth magazine under the guest editorship of Viridian guru Bruce Sterling.[1]
[edit] Internet and Blogging
In 1979 Nalle began his involvement with the internet as an intern working for Al Gore at the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future which sponsored the Congressional chautauqua series which brought together legislators, academics and communications industry professionals and is credited as the starting point for the development of the public internet.[2]
From 1986 to 1989, Nalle operated the Commodore 64 BBS Necropolis of Dreams in Austin, Texas using the CNET hosting package for which he authored a number of muliplayer online games, including the popular space trading game Merchant. It was succeeded by the Infinite Incarnations BBS which ran on the Hermes BBS package and operated until 1994.[3]
In the 1990s he was also active as a contentious Usenet and Fidonet poster in the gaming and politics groups, and as an editor in the gaming section of AOL in the early 90s, as well as developing a substantial very early web presence for his font company.
He began writing a blog in 2002 during his campaign for State Representative in Texas. After the campaign he continued to write under a series of different blog names, eventually developing into The Republic of Dave weblog. He now blogs primarily on politics and social issues. His articles have been widely cited in print and on the web.
In 2004 Nalle became part of the BlogCritics online community as a writer specializing in Politics and subsequently as editor of their Politics section, where he has worked to create a non-partisan environment for poltiical discussion.
[edit] Font Designs
Nalle started designing fonts as shareware for the Commodore 64 in the late 1980s. In 1992 he founded Scriptorium Fonts, which has become one of the most recognized specialty font foundries. Some of his most notable original font designs include Abaddon, Hesperides, Folkard, Valdemar and Ligeia. They specialize in thematic packages of historic fonts based on specific artistic periods or design movements packaged together with licensed borders and art in the same style.
Nalle's font designs have been particularly successful in marketing and merchandising, with Abaddon appearing as the logo font for the band Godsmack,[4] Buccaneer and Beynkales featured in the movie and packaging for The Corpse Bride and Valdemar picked as the official merchandising font for the Harry Potter movies.[5]
[edit] Books and Games
- Ysgarth (1979)
- To Challenge Tomorrow (1984)
- Triad (1985)
- Middle Passage (1985)
- London by Night (1986)
- Challengers (1986)
- Siege and Fortress (1986)
- Ysgarth Adventure Anthology (1987)
- By the Gods (1987)
- EsperAgents (1988)
- Complete Gamer's Pantheon (1988)
- Ysgarth Bestiary (1989)
- Character RolePlaying (1989)
- Quest for the Grail (1995)
- Oroborus (1998)
[edit] References
- ^ [1]Whole Earth Magazine article
- ^ [2]Report on Chautauqua proceedings
- ^ [3]Historic 512 Area Code BBS List
- ^ [4]Abaddon Font featured at MyFonts
- ^ [5]Article on Valdemar and Harry Potter films
