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- Feed Preview Display – Typographica
Tomasa
Anyone who is from or has lived in Spanish-speaking countries will be familiar with the concept of perreo. It’s a word that describes how we dance to rhythms like reggaeton or funk carioca. The...
Plastic
The eighties are everywhere. Love them or hate them, over the past several years it has been almost impossible to escape the resurgence of bright neon colors, flashy animal prints, neoliberal ide...
PF Marlet
PF Marlet is a type system consisting of five families with distinct voices and purposes. Despite the differences in their design, each family conveys an edgy feeling of elegance in its own way. ...
CoFo Peshka
What makes my Cyrillic heart beat faster is the role Cyrillic plays in this design. I’m under the impression that the Latin lettershapes of CoFo Peshka follow rules established by the Cyrillic,...
Optique Display
Optique is a font family for Hangeul and Latin that follows the traditional writing tools of each script. The Hangeul stroke shape is based on the pointed brush, while the Latin stroke is based o...
29LT Zarid Display
29LT Zarid Display presents surprising twists and turns, and brings new dimensions to the way multilingual display typefaces are designed, which will only benefit designers and readers.
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/29lt-zarid-display/
Typefesse
Typefesse gives a whole new meaning to type anatomy. Defying logic or reason, each letter manages to squeeze in a contorted foot, leg, and buttock or two while maintaining a surprising level of r...
Broome Sound
Broome Sound, a custom typeface designed by Tré Seals for the third issue of Umber Magazine, intrigues me for several reasons: its important historical reference; its craft; its simple beauty; a...
Ribaasu
As a reverse-contrast typeface in Latin, Japanese, and Chinese, Ribaasu is a hall of mirrors, with the scripts looking at one another in mind-bending and positively unexpected ways.
Okay
In a marketplace full of puffery, the typeface name “Okay” seems like a declaration of mediocrity, but this may become a new go-to type for when volume and affability need to be high.
Roslindale Variable Italic
We love RVI because of its high educational value. In its own humble way, this typeface actually teaches its users. With all of the little changes that pile up, the differentiation between slanta...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/roslindale-variable-italic/
Nirvana
The visuals for Nirvana are both a throwback and futuristic. An off-the-beaten-path seventies cult, reborn with more technology and burnished lines. They straddle the unfamiliar. The video Anthon...
Hudhud
There is a fluidity of movement that is very appealing in this typeface. The low contrast and openness of forms helped to create the contemporary feel. Both of these design features capture a sen...
Schijn
Type can be a helpful means of escape. The mad toyshop designs of Arthur Reinders Folmer’s Typearture foundry are kind treats to puzzle over in bad times. In appearance, Schijn is a product of ...
Maelstrom Sans
I appreciate and adore Maelstrom and its wacko Italian Futurist approach to reverse-stress letterforms, with the historically noteworthy (and entirely crackpot) E. But I didn’t expect to like t...
Gustella
Thomas’ typefaces are a set of rigorously designed, extensive, and genuinely fresh explorations of a flamboyant genre, seriously playful or playfully serious depending on mood or message. The c...
Laima
Bogidar Mascareñas has done something in type design that I absolutely love: he began with a commonly known premise and took it to a place where no one has been before. Laima: a stencil? It has ...
Montage
To my mind, Benguiat Montage is the quintessential Photo-Lettering, Inc. typeface. Used on the covers of its Alphabet Thesaurus specimen books during the company’s peak in the sixties and seven...
Black Mamba Venom
In an alternate universe, where typefaces are reptiles and designers’ computers are secret laboratories for genetic modification, the Black Mamba is a finely orchestrated accident of interbreed...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/black-mamba-venom/
Pilowlava
Named after the caverns of space found in lava flows, Pilowlava evokes a feeling of carved-away whitespace like a Cyrus Highsmith drawing but with the mechanics of a CNC router. Straight lines an...
Nostra
Most type families set a consistent style and flex other parameters, like weight, optical size, and slant. Nostra ditches the style-centric paradigm and achieves cohesiveness through tension.
Birra Bruin
What is obvious from Birra Bruin is that Elena had fun drawing it. We don’t talk a lot about that in our work, I find. In a lot of cultures you’re supposed to live to work, and in reaction to...
Kafa
Arabic for “enough!”, this noble design proves not only that actions speak louder than words, but also that typefaces can amplify voices of dissent and resilience.
Eckmannpsych & Cheee
James Edmondson took what was good about Eckmann-schrift and Sintex and brought those ideas to the next level, replacing old design decisions with a healthy dose of funk.
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/eckmannpsych-cheee/
Découpe
María Carla Mazzitelli, was inspired by gestural graphic expressions, like paper cut-outs (découpes!) and spontaneous handwriting.
CoFo Chimera
Maria Doreuli was able to take the fearless ideas she had as a student to a professional level. I believe the market needs more typefaces like CoFo Chimera — fewer rushed ideas, more confid...
Ohno Blazeface
I picture five-year-old James Edmondson, sitting on the floor of his dad’s graphic design studio back in the early 1990s, poring over vintage Letraset catalogs and copies of U&lc from the 1970s...
FS Kim
FS Kim’s liveliness confidently evokes a calligrapher’s hand. Flair, character, heft, and a touch of self-consciousness — FS Kim is both versatile and really rather lovely.
Ziza
Ziza is the second digital font release to emerge from Mark van Wageningen’s ongoing experiments in constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing type, exploring the connections between vari...
Beatrice Display
A typeface’s identity rarely lies in the design of a single glyph but rather in the texture and rhythm created by the sequence of letters, words, paragraphs. And this is where Beatrice Display ...
Antipol
Antipol is like a whirlwind tour of typographic history in a single typeface (Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar’s Electric Circus, Antique Olive, Eurostile, Barry Deck) and yet still manages to b...
New Airport Dot
Margaret Calvert (of British road sign fame) created Dotmatrix in 1970 for lit airport signs. Henrik Kubel’s New Airport Dot adds capital letters and numerals and expands the original single we...
Salvaje Display
Have you ever tried to domesticate a wild typeface? Christian Vargas has tried, and the result is magnificent.
Phase
Phase has many faces. While not one typeface by traditional standards, its underlying parametric concept is neither entirely new nor fully explored. With Phase, Elias Hanzer contributes an intera...
Spindle
Spindle looks like it was created by the space between the letters. As if the letters were formed by moving through the spaces they inhabit. Impacted by the air that then cleaved out a waist. Or ...
ALS Lamon
I still remember being immediately attracted to ALS Lamon because of its incredibly novel concept and brilliant execution. The design has a very difficult brief: first, both upper- and lowercase ...
Artigo Display
Joana Correia of Porto, Portugal, has been around, typographically speaking. A graduate of Reading University’s type design program, she has contributed to Google Fonts and Indian Type Foundry;...
Bitcount
In an era of ever-higher screen resolutions, Petr van Blokland has released a hymn to pixel-shaped letters on coarse grids — a programmatic system for a playful design approach. A little ov...
BC Brief
The most efficient way to get from one point to another is typically via a straight line. The quickest route is not necessarily the most interesting one, though. Luckily, pragmatism and speed are...
Brutal
Quite simply, I like Brutal because it is different. It is a refreshing change from the plethora of sans serifs and scripts that have dominated type design for over a decade. It is a refreshing c...
Calcula
If typography is writing with preformed and reusable letters (or, to put it more conceptually, with the instructions for making those letters) that can be combined and recombined into arbitrary t...
Digestive
“Something can be good, or it can be original; it can rarely be both.” That’s a saying I’ve heard attributed to Matthew Carter, without being able to pinpoint the source. In any event, Di...
Export
Though typeface designs are traditionally based on written letters, which themselves are comprised of strokes, the practice of typeface development is premised on contours instead. Open a standar...
Fit
Not many type designers will tell you that their typeface isn’t readable, but David Jonathan Ross, in his description of Fit, proclaims that “it is not recommended for setting any copy that y...
Minérale
What originally caught my eye with Minérale was the way exterior outlines transform into interior outlines, particularly in the round characters. This concept is most intriguing in the M and N, ...
Nickel
It is easy to understand how a few shapes created for a banknote can inspire a whole typeface; the bold big characters need to stand out in a complex composition of ornaments, fine-tuned illustra...
Pilot
Being a graphic design undergraduate obsessed with type in 2012 meant waiting with bated breath for the yearly crop of Type and Media student projects made visible through an annual web showcase....
Respira Black
“Respira” means “breathe” in Spanish. And Respira Black is a dashing, modern-looking blackletter released by Sharp Type on Earth Day (April 22), 2017. Whether designer Lucas Sharp named i...
Sachsenwald
As 21st-century America hurtles towards fascism, when the current reality has become so absurd as to render parody obsolete, using a Schaftstiefelgrotesk1 may feel uncomfortably close to the real...
Prismaset
There are more exciting tasks than digitizing someone else’s designs. Staying faithful to the original can be limiting; as a result, many typeface revivals are empty vessels, adding little (if ...
The Pyte Foundry
This is not a typical typeface review. It’s a review of a whole foundry. I don’t know why I took it upon myself to review fifty-two typefaces instead of just one, but I feel it’s necessary ...
Lubaline
Maximiliano Sproviero is a skilled young type designer specializing in script and display typefaces, some with a distinctly ’70s vibe. He has even done a pitch-perfect ’70s script typeface ca...
Kufam
Kufam Arabic first grabbed my attention through its varied horizontal rhythm. While many contemporary interpretations of so-called Kufic tend to present prevailingly narrow letters, Kufam pleasan...
TwoPlus
Paul McNeil and Hamish Muir told an interviewer not long ago that they think of themselves not as type designers, but as designers who make type. I understand wanting to avoid claiming for themse...
Triade
Triade asks its users to have an open mind. Its most obvious feature is that the single extra-bold weight comes in three styles: Upright, Slanted, and Backslant. The atypical label “Upright” ...
Cut
If you attended Paul McNeil’s excellent talk at TypeCon in Seattle last August, you already know that MuirMcNeil’s experimental type designs are informed by a strong sense of history. Cut is ...
Hobeaux Rococeaux
Dear reader, I’m about to offer up to you something so incomprehensible and dizzy-making that I’m hard-pressed to contemplate it rationally. I’ve had my eye on OH no Type Co. for some time ...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/hobeaux-rococeaux/
Bungee
Bungee is an overachiever. An eye-catching, sturdy, and friendly display face for both horizontal and vertical settings, David Jonathan Ross’ tour de force strikes a balance between familiarity...
Knif mono
Knif mono pleased me at first sight because it doesn’t fool around with spikiness and sharpness: it cuts, stabs, and slays across every space it meets. And in this case the space is constrained...
Stolzl Display
Stolzl Display is angular movements turned into type, the Bauhaus ideal turned into letters. Clear shapes, no ornament, keeping designs as simple as possible: basic Bauhaus rules were adjusted to...
Blesk
So you’re at Crate and Barrel, browsing that wall of little things like spaghetti measurers and strawberry clamps and scissors that slice a banana so very evenly. And you know you don’t need ...
Vinter
I’m a sucker for ethereal super-light and in-your-face super-bold types; the extremes of the typographic spectrum sound a siren call to my inner rebel. Give me a hairline and an ultra black to ...
Irrlicht
Irrlicht comes to haunt us like a mad ghost in the night. First credit goes to the naming: Irrlicht is a beautiful German word at the edge of extinction. It’s not used much these days, sadly; i...
Tripper
One of the things I’ve always admired about Underware is the trio’s ability to move type design out of the digital realm and morph it into a real-world spectacle. Akiem, Bas, and Sami are not...
Modak Devanagari
If you’ve ever tried your hand at designing a Devanagari typeface or studied one closely, you will appreciate that part of the challenge is to fit complex forms in limited space — a chall...
Obsidian
I have chosen to write about Hoefler & Co.’s Obsidian because I gasped when it came out and I still gasp — or at least breathe heavily — whenever I look at it. Typographers will app...
SangBleu
SangBleu Sans embodies a spectrum of tensions that, from a type designer’s perspective, are particularly difficult to give form to. In this case, the tensions occur between the characteristic t...
Eksell Display
Eksell Display is an odd font in more ways than one. Some of its letters are decidedly strange, but so also are its origins and its reason for being. The design is based on an alphabet — no...
NSW01
NSW01 is a compact display face that takes some unexpected turns. At first glance, it seems very modular and constructed (and, to this reviewer’s eye, reminiscent of Neville Brody’s 198...
Nitti Mostro
I am a sucker for bodacious headline typography — the sort that is over the top, tight, bold, in your face, and set solid. Who’s with me? Nitti Mostro makes me wish I had a bunch of 200...
Eric Gill Series
Gill Sans, love it or loathe it, is a foundational typeface of the modern world. We’ve all seen it, we’re all familiar with it, it’s everywhere, it feels like a done deal, part of the bed...
Blend
Blend is a large system of twenty-one display faces for packaging and advertising. It pulls off the considerable feat of being puppy-dog cute and charming while retaining the strength and readabi...
Quimbly
Quimbly by Jessica McCarty of Magpie Paper Works is a multiple-weight font family that not only plays nice with others, but can stand strong by itself. It was created in response to customers req...
Frauen
When I received the invitation to contribute to Typographica’s annual review of new typefaces. My first reaction was: “Cool, let’s have a look at the year’s releases.” I was shocked: mo...
Dala Prisma
Just when we thought Dala Floda – Paul Barnes’ crisply contemporary humanist stencil of 2010 – was an original and pretty crazy idea, here is a dazzling display variant that replace...
Woodkit
Woodkit is a toy disguised as a typeface. And like any toy, it takes me back to my formative years. Woodkit’s Letterpress style, a mishmash of eccentric forms, takes me back to my college days ...
TwoPoint, ThreePoint, FourPoint, and TenPoint
Since the release of FF ThreeSix in 2011, Hamish Muir and Paul McNeil have been busy digging more deeply into the world of parametric type design. The studio published an updated and greatly expa...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/twopoint-threepoint-fourpoint-and-tenpoint/
Lichtspiele
In German, Lichtspiele is literally translated as “light plays”. Historically, the term was used for films. However, this collection requires a degree of play in order to be used well, and I�...
Sutro Deluxe
Not unlike the iconic tower that dominates the San Francisco skyline, the aptly named
St Croce
If you were to Venn diagram goth teenagers and type designers, at the nucleus you’d find a certain preoccupation with cemeteries. For type designers, cemeteries offer a treasure trove of indivi...
Fakt Slab Stencil
A quality stencil font is nothing new from Thomas Thiemich. As I pointed out last year, his Remo is the first typeface I know to have a stencil released before its regular versions, and it’s a ...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/fakt-slab-stencil/
Quarto
One of Hoefler & Co.’s longtime strengths has been an ability to fashion an original take in what often felt like a crowded genre. Most notably, their reinterpretation of the rationalist Didone...
Paroli
Designed by Elena Schneider, Paroli is the “ludic counterpart of Eskorte,” a serif she developed at Reading University. Paroli became a relative playground, allowing Schneider to maintain her...
LiebeDoris
LiebeDoris began with brush and ink on large paper, and much of what makes it one of my favorites this year springs from that beginning. Ulrike Rausch, inspired by a workshop with the American si...
Blenny
I remember when this typeface tweeted its presence to the world, a product of these Fat-Face-friendly times with something of that whole scripty-mix thing in there, too. Not extraordinary, but so...
Maelstrom
Maelstrom is one of the most sickeningly exciting typefaces I’ve seen in a long time. It makes me want to punch someone in the face — which sounds bad, but it’s actually good, like “O...
Noe Display
Noe Display creates a lovely tension between providing what we expect from its genre and bringing a sting of surprise and joy along with it. A quick glance reassures us that this is definitely so...
Nocturno
You don’t see him much on Twitter. You won’t find him on the popular design conference circuit (though you may spot him at ATypI). In fact, unless you’re a bit of a type nerd, you may not h...
Pufff
Do you fancy extremely fat mathematical operators? Maybe you need a fat, inverted interrobang, to set bold sentences of disbelief, even in Spanish? How about some ultra-fat small caps and a ful...
Odesta
I hate this typeface. I hate it because I wish I had drawn it myself. But I didn’t. And even if I had, who is to say whose would be better? It doesn’t matter, because this is excellent, and t...
Magasin
To say that Magasin is not your average script font is stating the obvious. It is quirky and totally irreverent. It sits stock-straight upright and follows very few rules when it comes to connect...
Portrait
Commercial Type knows how to look at old type with fresh eyes. They may do it better than anyone. Three of the foundry’s recent releases clearly demonstrate this rare ability: Paul Barnes str...
HWT Tuscan Extended
Mark-marking with the help of letters carved into wooden blocks predates the Gutenberg printing revolution. Large-point-size typefaces manufactured from wood instead of lead alloy have been with ...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/hwt-tuscan-extended/
Carlyle Quaint
PLINC (Photo-Lettering Inc.), the online headline-setting service that House Industries started in 2009, has steadily expanded its library. Carlyle Quaint, digitized by Dan Reynolds, was added (a...
Dala Moa
Dala Moa has a very particular voice that mixes the practicality of stencil faces with the refinement of a high-contrast sans serif. It is the cousin of Dala Floda, a stencil serif originally con...
Domaine
Kris Sowersby’s Domaine family has its origins in a logotype for the Australian wine company, Hardys. I am an unabashed fan of Sowersby’s work. He is an exceptional type designer, one who has...
Line
Until recently, hairline fonts (typefaces with an ultra-thin, near-monolinear stroke width) were rare beasts. It is easy to see why: making a well-balanced hairline face requires superior drawing...
Apeloig Type Library
Perhaps it’s his preferred medium of the poster that has afforded such freedoms, but Philippe Apeloig’s typeface designs represent a spirit of exploration that is rarely manageable in com...
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/apeloig-type-library/
Audree
The specimen unpretentiously describes Audree as “a variable type system with several hundred styles”. That is factually correct, but it is probably not enough to describe the breadth of this...
HWT Gothic Round
Call me crazy, call me irresponsible (you wouldn’t be the first). Okay, call me tearfully sentimental, but I just can’t help falling in love with HWT Gothic Round. Miguel Sousa’s revival of...