Roger Excoffon (1910-1983) was the most talented French type designer of the 20th century and probably the most prolific in the whole of French typographic history. Being an admirer of Excoffon’s work myself I was happy to see that 2011 has brought a sudden re-appreciation of his work in the form of no less than [...]

William Morris’ Golden Type, inspired by the founts of Nicolas Jenson, sparked a mania for Venetian types in the 1890s that continued for nearly 30 years. But since World War I the lighter types of “Garamond” and Francesco Griffo have pushed those of Jenson aside. Dieter Hofrichter’s Cala is notable not only as a contemporary [...]

I remember the first time I saw Julien. It was in 2010, on a poster from Tipoplakat. At the time I didn’t know that the strong graphics on the poster were from an upcoming typeface by Peter Biľak. I just enjoyed the poster. In general, geometric typefaces can be really boring and many of them are [...]

Somewhere between the lands of slab, sans serif, and typewriter there lives Outsiders. In the roman it appears an elegant, sartorial slab, somehow holding itself above all others of its kind, with a bit of typewriterly officiousness, like a crisp, upper-level spy in MI6. But under the cloak of propriety in all of its seven [...]

Dane is a contemporary sans that distinguishes itself from others with its relatively wide proportions and some unusual lettershapes that give meaning to its name. The 6-weight typeface is inspired by Danish industrial sign lettering from the 1940s. Its distinctive ‘g’ makes an immediate impact in all sizes and the lettershape itself is typically Danish, [...]

“Siri” made quite a splash in 2011. Two splashes, to be more precise: one in the shape of Apple’s software assistant, and another as Göran Söderström’s new sans serif typeface. Not the same size of splash, of course, but Siri the typeface, came first. Göran Söderström, who already deserved kudos for typefaces like Satura, FF [...]

I have a soft spot for classic text faces carefully crafted in the digital format. They link historical tradition with modern technology in a perfect way. Antwerp is a prime example. Henrik Kubel was inspired by 16th century samples found in the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp and his design evolved over ten months as he [...]

Among recent Grotesque-inspired releases and Hannes von Döhren’s rapidly growing oeuvre, Supria Sans stands out to me as an especially interesting and useful addition. The design has just the right amount of character to be memorable and unique but also restrained enough to remain thoroughly useful. Bypassing the polished rationality of Neo-Grotesques, it builds upon [...]

Type designers, educators, historians, engineers, and users pick the year’s best new fonts.

With the Alda project, Berton Hasebe took on the challenge of designing a type family whose members not only shift in weight, but also in their quality of expression. Analyzing how typefaces change their tone of voice across their weights, and how certain properties (robust, elegant, sturdy) are automatically assigned to certain stroke widths, he [...]

Maximiliano Sproviero’s Reina starts with Bodoni and Didot and adds aspects of Spencerian script and the work of Herb Lubalin. The results are stunning – magnificent and graceful. Sproviero has demonstrated his love of calligraphy in earlier work, such as Breathe (2010) and Parfait Script (2009–2010), but Reina is his most ambitious project yet, boasting 12 [...]

Most fonts are licensed when needed, selected specifically for the job at hand. But when my (less font-addicted) friends are seeking versatile, workhorse typefaces for future use, I send them this list. Commercial Type FontFont Font Bureau Hoefler & Frere-Jones Typotheque House Industries Village OurType Enschedé Lineto MyFonts — As a retailer with a very liberal [...]

Aria I truly fell in love at first sight with the lowercase ‘a’ of Aria, capricious and full of happiness, and later with every letter of the roman weight. An inscription in a painting of the nineteenth century was the main source of inspiration for this display modern face, according to its designer Rui Abreu; it [...]

Just in time for Halloween, from the depths of the Android 4.0 laboratory, emerges a frightening cross-breed creature called Roboto. It was built from scratch and made specifically for high density displays. Google describes it has having a “dual nature. It has a mechanical skeleton and the forms are largely geometric. At the same time the [...]

A writer from The Atlantic Wire contacted me to get my opinion on the Average Font that’s making the internet rounds. I don’t think there’s anything worth writing about. It’s the sort of student project that most designers have seen many times. It would be more interesting if there was a theory or direction behind Moritz [...]