Font of the Month Club

Making a stencil font nearly always involves breaking up letterforms into smaller shapes, but what is interesting about them is how that breaking apart is done.

By shifting the bridge of Nickel Stencil’s O to the left, I end up with a lefthand shape that feels more abstracted, like Futura Black, and a righthand shape that feels more like a slice of a conventional letterform, like ATF’s Stencil.

Stencil fonts offer an opportunity to play with the fuzzy line separating what registers in our brain as letterforms and what simply comes across as shapes.

This gave me new appreciation for the humble stencil font, which it turns out is just as practical and relevant in our digital world as it was a hundred years ago.

April 2024

Job Clarendon Text

Try

A text version of Job Clarendon!

Job Clarendon is all about display—at least that’s how Bethany Heck and I conceived of the design five years ago. It was inspired by the big, bracketed slab serifs that job printers would use for their everyday posters and flyers in 19th century Britain and America.
Over the past year, we completed a multiweight, multiwidth designspace with the help of type designer Sophia Tai, who did a lot of work on the boldest, narrowest styles.

Last year, Bethany, Sophia, and I also worked on wider styles of Job Clarendon for a commission, which also included contributions from type designer Jacques Le Bailly (The client hasn’t announced it yet, so I’ll hold off on sharing specifics for now.) The client and I discussed creating a version of Job Clarendon for body text, but in the end it was dropped from the project. I couldn’t shake the idea that a text face derived from this commission would be an interesting next step for the display-oriented series.

While the original Job Clarendon emphasizes narrowness and density, this text version is light and wide. In many ways it moves closer to the prototypical Haas Clarendon in terms of its overall style and proportion, with a fully round O (only the Bold weight retains any straight-sided counterforms) and long tails on R and a.
At the same time, I tried to preserve Job Clarendon’s rigidity in a way that is subtle but hopefully still shines through in text—I’m talking about details like the overly-wide a and the elongated lower bowl of g.
At text sizes, global decisions like weight, rhythm, and proportion matter far more than details like serifs and ball terminals. To make the typeface robust in small sizes, I enlarged the x-height beyond what is typical for the style, and allowed the ascenders to exceed the cap height.

While testing the font, I ended up preferring a slightly lighter weight than I expected to at my target size of 14px / 10.5pt. If the light weight bothers you, I’ve made the last-minute decision to throw in a beefier variant, called “Job Clarendon Text B”; I’m curious to hear if you prefer it!
19th-century Clarendons did not come with italics, so part of what I worked on with my client was figuring out what style of Italic would feel the least anachronistic: all tails, all slabs, or a little bit of both.
Of course, no two type designers would ever agree what that idealized “vanishing point” would look like, but we probably make some assumptions based on what it would need to survive at that tiny size: it’d be wide, spacious, and uncomplicated, with a generous x-height and low contrast.

March 2024

Indoor Kid

Ka-pow!

Demo Notes PDF Try

Indoor Kid is a variable-first comic book superfamily that I made with comics writer/editor/publisher Ellis Bojar. It has all the weights and widths and accoutrements that a typographer might expect from a workhorse sans, but is designed specifically for a wide range of comics dialogue and caption styles.

Demo

Indoor Kid is a variable-first comic book superfamily that I made with comics writer/editor/publisher Ellis Bojar. It has all the weights and widths and accoutrements that a typographer might expect from a workhorse sans, but is designed specifically for a wide range of comics dialogue and caption styles.

First and foremost, it needs a flexible width. On a macro level, a typeface with a wide range of widths gives letterers the power to adjust the rhythm of the storytelling to fit the amount of dialogue in the story. My first inclination was to say no—I had very little experience reading comic books, and I knew that comic book lettering is a whole world unto itself…there is already an incredible array of comic book fonts out there produced by specialized foundries.

And on a micro level, it’s extremely helpful to be able to make subtle tweaks to linebreaks and copyfit when typesetting text inside small speech bubbles (without having to resort to stretching the type).

Since then, it has been nearly three years of slow-burn trial and error. I would send Ellis a new batch of fonts, and he would pop them into an existing comic he liked, analyze how it compared to the original, and send lots of feedback. Without his expertise and intuitive sense of what works and what does not, I would be totally lost.

Ellis also requested a custom Emphasis axis that would make it easier for letterers to enlarge and vertically center words or phrases within a block of text. This is a longstanding comic book practice, especially for Bold Italic text.

We were also sure to include features that professional comic book letterers have come to expect. Indoor Kid includes three variants for each letter to give your text a little extra bounce (not unlike the feature I recently added to Daily Special…make sure you have Contextual Alternates on!). There’s also a capital I that is serifed when it is alone and sans serif when set within a word. In addition to my standard character set, you’ll find some extra goodies in the glyph set such as breath marks, stars, hearts, and musical notes that are sometimes found in manga.

February 2024

More Daily Special

PDF Try

Daily Special now has a Lowercase! While the original all-caps design was directly based on Letterfolk’s house style, the lowercase is an original creation. It was commissioned by Letterfolk so that they could use it to produce a separate set of physical lowercase letters that would complement the pre-existing caps.

Alternate glyphs simulate the imperfections of

The new DISPLAY and BANNER sizes correspond to the 1-inch (94pt) and 2-inch (188pt) sizes, respectively. I also threw in some color variable fonts with an optical size axis, because why not? Just keep in mind that these color variable fonts don’t work in all environments, including Adobe apps.

January 2024

Daily Special

Order up!

Notes PDF

View update

Now available as part of More Daily Special

Daily Special is a dimensional color font that simulates the small plastic letters used on felt letterboards. It recalls the prefabricated letterforms you might see used on daily specials board in a diner, or the coffee menu at a café, or the directory of an office building. It was developed for Letterfolk, a producer of elegant letterboards for home decor, and based on their house style. Its interior edges are crisper and more “graphic” than what you would typically see from a 3D bevel effect, taking what is otherwise a fairly workaday style and making it pop.

DAILY SPECIAL IS A DIMENSIONAL COLOR FONT THAT SIMULATES THE SMALL PLASTIC LETTERS USED ON FELT LETTERBOARDS. IT RECALLS THE PREFABRICATED LETTERFORMS YOU MIGHT SEE USED ON DAILY SPECIALS BOARD IN A DINER, OR THE COFFEE MENU AT A CAFÉ, OR THE DIRECTORY OF AN OFFICE BUILDING.

DEVELOPED FOR LETTERFOLK, A PRODUCER OF ELEGANT LETTERBOARDS FOR HOME DECOR AND CUTE FAMILY PHOTO-OPS, AND BASED ON THEIR HOUSE STYLE.

INTERIOR EDGES ARE CRISPER AND MORE “GRAPHIC” THAN WHAT YOU WOULD TYPICALLY SEE FROM A 3D BEVEL EFFECT, TAKING WHAT IS OTHERWISE A FAIRLY WORKADAY STYLE AND MAKING IT POP.

December 2023

Map Roman Compressed Lowercase

Notes PDF Try

This month, I’ve added a lowercase to Map Roman, a typeface based on the lettering of MacDonald Gill, whose work included a variety of beautifully handlettered maps of London, England, and the world. After stumbling upon his work in a map museum, I tried my hand at a typographical interpretation that attempts to capture the liveliness and authority of his letterforms.

Map Roman receives a new lowercase this month that attempts to capture the calligraphic charm of Gill’s original lettering.
Wonderground Map was a 1914 London Underground map designed by MacDonald Gill and commissioned for the underground by Frank Pick, Commercial Manager of the then-Underground Electric Railways Company of London.
MacDonald Gill was a renowned illustrator at the time of his commission. His Wonderland map has been described as a "mixture of cartoon, fantasy, and topological accuracy" and became an instant hit with the travelling public.

November 2023

Pomfret Sizes

Notes Try

Pomfret is a set of titling capitals with Arts & Crafts flair. After years of encouragement from Roger Black, I began the design as an homage to the work of Bertram Goodhue, famous as the architect of the Nebraska State Capitol as well as the typeface Cheltenham. The skeletons of the letters were initially inspired by the tightly-spaced capitals (especially the restrained R and K) found on his cover for The Knight Errant. Pomfret moves beyond its source material, adopting a more contemporary finish with discretionary ligatures, razor-thin hairlines, and restrained, bracketed serifs. Pomfret’s new Micro size is sturdy, wide, and slabby—a big departure from the delicate, slender serifs of the original Banner style.

An x-heighting addition to the Bild family

Demo Notes PDF Try

Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burke’s famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Demo

Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burke’s famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Frustration can certainly grind things to a halt, but it can also serve as a fuel that propels projects through periods of doubt and uncertainty. Many of my fonts sit around in a kind of mostly-complete-but can-I-really-call-it-finished? purgatory (for years, sometimes!). It can take an angry moment—“Why the heck is this still sitting around like this?”—to give them that final push out the door.

July 2023

Bild v4

The Rest of Bild

Notes PDF Try

Now available as Bild v5!

Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burke’s famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burke’s famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Bild imagines an alternate universe where an entire family is built around these straight-sided outliers. I tried to retain the clunkiness of these styles but without any grittiness; I wasn’t going for a warts-and-all revival of early 20th century headline types like Alternate or Railroad Gothic.

Frustration can certainly grind things to a halt, but it can also serve as a fuel that propels projects through periods of doubt and uncertainty. Many of my fonts sit around in a kind of mostly-complete-but can-I-really-call-it-finished? purgatory (for years, sometimes!). It can take an angry moment—“Why the heck is this still sitting around like this?”—to give them that final push out the door.

June 2023

Rhody Wide

Too many slabs

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Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhody’s quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t.

Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the
Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhody’s quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t.
So in the new Wide version, I took that elongated stadium shape and flopped it on its side: the sides are curved and the top and bottom are flat.

May 2023

Lab DJR

A simplistically complex bitmap font

Demo Notes PDF Try

Lab DJR is a variable color pixel font with variable axes that lets you morph its default square element into a circle, a diamond, and a sparkle. On top of that, you can adjust their size in a variety of ways and even “split the atom” to divide each shape into four similar shapes. But the real fun comes when you mix the axes together and the outlines start to glitch out. When you use two at a time, the transformations are usually somewhat predictable, but after three or more, chaos reigns.

Demo

Lab DJR offers variable axes that lets you morph its default square pixel into a circle, a diamond, and a sparkle. On top of that, you can adjust their size in a variety of ways and even “split the atom” to divide each shape into four similar shapes.

The real fun comes when you mix the axes together and the outlines start to glitch out. When you use two at a time, the transformations are usually somewhat predictable, but after three or more, chaos reigns.

April 2023

Warbler Banner Italic

Notes

Purchase

Now available as part of the Warbler family

Since I released Warbler Text in February, I’ve received more requests for Warbler Text Bold than for anything else. It’s not a glitzy request, but I get it. Roman + Italic + Small Caps might be enough to typeset a traditional start-to-finish book, but a more complex document calls for more complex typography to guide the reader through it. And in turn, more complex typography calls for more complex type families. A Bold certainly comes in handy!

Since I released Warbler Text in February, I’ve received more requests for Warbler Text Bold than for anything else. It’s not a glitzy request, but I get it. Roman, Italic, and Small Caps might be enough to typeset a traditional start-to-finish book,
but a more complex document calls for more complex typography to guide the reader through it. And in turn, more complex typography calls for more complex type families. A Bold certainly comes in handy!
But here’s the problem: As I discussed in previous mailings, what I appreciate most about Warbler—and the types William Martin cut for William Bulmer before it—is its quiet, delicate touch, and the quiet, delicate
typography that it presupposes. Bolds, on the other hand, tend to be brash. They turn up the volume on a typeface and amplify its features—a caricature of the Roman whose entire purpose is to stick out.
Warbler’s attempts to channel the last gasps of pre-Industrial typographic style in Britain, before advertising and mass-market ephemera transformed the design landscape.
Its source material dates back to 1790, a time when fonts didn’t come with their own Bold variants. And like with Fern, I’ve been reticent to make the family more than it needs to be.

October 2022

Nickel Gothic v3

Strength, style, and now a lowercase!

Notes PDF

View update

Now available as part of Nickel Gothic v3

Nickel Gothic is a stocky grotesque based on lettering found on the same 1918 Chinese banknote its serifed counterpart Nickel. It retains the squarish forms and closed apertures of the serifed design, but its significantly bolder weight and wider proportions endow it with an intense energy of its own. Despite the fact that it is based on lettering from over a century ago, it has overtones of the midcentury sans serifs like Microgramma/Eurostile as well as squared gothics form the ’70s like Neographik and Serpentine.

This month’s offering adds a lowercase to the original Wide style, as well as SemiWide and Normal widths.

Nickel Gothic gets its extra strength and heft from the corners of the letter, thanks to the tension between the flat tops and bottoms of the exterior shapes and the rounded tops and bottoms of the counterforms.

The first thing I did was add a lowercase, figuring it would make the typeface that much more versatile. Fortunately for me, Nickel Gothic’s capital “bearded” G, which creates a little divot on the bottom right of the glyph.

An antagonist whose mere presence is so forceful and looming that it casts a shadow over the events of the film—a shadow that propels the story as the hero fights to get out from under it.

March 2022

Warbler Banner

(and Deck and Display too)

Notes PDF

Purchase

Now available as part of the Warbler family

This month, I break my own rules and dive back into Warbler, offering three optical sizes for larger settings. There’s a 96pt Banner cut for massive titles, a 48pt Display cut for headlines, a 24pt Deck cut for subheads, and a variable font that encapsulates all the space between Banner and Text—those point sizes are just suggestions.

WARBLER LINE QUALITY LED ME TO SLOW DOWN THE TYPEFACE SO IT FEELS MORE BRITTLE AND ELEGANT THAN IT DOES FORCEFUL OR DYNAMIC.

Curves and bends don’t go directly where they need to go, but meander a bit instead. Ball terminals and vertical serifs are a little smaller than I’d usually make them. The proportions are a little irregular.

February 2022

Warbler Text

A simple text typeface inspired by Bulmer

Notes PDF

Purchase

Now available as part of the Warbler family

Warbler Text is a typeface for extended reading, with an emphasis on the screen. Stylistically, it follows in the footsteps of the types cut by William Martin in 1790 for the English printer William Bulmer, who famously used them in his editions for the Shakspeare Printing Office (sic). This interpretation attempts to showcase the softer side of the Modern serif that Martin cultivated in his designs, a more genteel approach that contrasts with the vigorous, authoritative tone of the Scotch Romans that would follow it.

Readers do not know is unknown exactly when the play was written or first performed, but on the basis of topical references and an allusion. It is usually dated 1595 or early 1596.

The writing period can be placed between 1594 and 1596, which means that Shakespeare had probably already completed Romeo and Juliet, According to Dorothea Kehler.

The Queen might have been its intended recipient, to celebrate the feast day of St. John, but no evidence exists to support this theory. Some have theorised that the play might have been written for an aristocratic wedding. In any case, it would have been performed at The Theatre and, later, The Globe.

The Moon during the night allowing Lysander to escape in the moonlight and for the actors to rehearse, then for the wood episode to occur without moonlight. Theseus’s statement can also be interpreted to mean “four days until the next month”.

Though it is not a translation or adaptation of an earlier work, various sources such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale served as inspiration. Aristophanes’ classical Greek comedy The Birds (also set in the countryside near Athens) has been proposed as a source.

Both Procne and Titania are awakened by male characters who have animal heads and who sing two-stanza songs about birds. Another possibility is that, since each month there are roughly four consecutive nights that the Moon is not seen due to its closeness to the Sun in the sky.

The king of the fairies, Oberon, and the queen of the fairies, Titania, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his “knight” or “henchman”, since the child’s mother was one of Titania’s worshippers.
Night after night, he calls upon Robin “Puck” Goodfellow, his “shrewd and knavish sprite”, to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called “love-in-idleness”, which turns from white to purple when struck by Cupid’s arrow. When the concoction is applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, that person, upon waking, falls in love with the first living thing they perceive.

January 2022

Klooster Thin v2

An anachronistic uncial lowercase

Notes PDF Try

Klooster Thin is a new take on the uncial script, and now it has a lowercase! It’s a mix of traditional Roman capitals with round, hybrid forms that would event what the alphabet was like before the lowercase had fully evolved. This typeface is related to the Black weight I drew in 2017, but also has its own unique features: a distinct diagonal stress connecting it to its calligraphic roots, and super-long vertical serifs that add snap and elasticity to the curves and give the letterforms an untamed energy.

Klooster is based on the uncial hand, a script that was popularized many centuries before the existence of the lowercase we use today.
So the entire concept of a “lowercase uncial” is anachronistic at best, and this expansion is in some ways a work of historical fiction.
Extremely long serifs and snappy, elastic curves are preserved from the original caps, and it introduces new proportions, prominent ascenders and descenders, and even more rounded forms.

December 2021

Bradley Initials DJR

No numbers? No kerning? No problem!

COLRv1 Demo Notes PDF Try

This month, I’m sending you my revival of Bradley Initials, a set of ornate drop caps designed as a companion to Bradley, the “fairytale blackletter” that I revived for the club in September 2018. It was based on lettering by renowned illustrator and designer Will H. Bradley, and published by American Type Founders in 1895. This is my first font to come in COLRv1 format!

Note: This font has an extremely limited character set. There is a known bug with the display of accented characters in the color font, so please use the layer fonts instead.

COLRv1 Demo

ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ

November 2021

Rustique

Capitalis Rustica, and so much more

Notes PDF Try

Rustique is an abstracted take on Capitalis Rustica calligraphic hand that was used in Rome during the first several centuries of the common era. Scribes wrote these Rustic capitals with a steep pen angle, producing narrow letterforms with tapering stems, heavy draping diagonals, and a distinctive horizontal stress. Rustique transforms this historical style into an abstract typographic system, amplifying stroke contrast and the swing of curves to produce a design that feels at home in the future as it does in the past.

Rustique is an abstracted take on Capitalis Rustica calligraphic hand that was used in Rome during the first several centuries of the common era.
Scribes wrote these Rustic capitals with a steep pen angle, producing narrow letterforms with tapering stems, heavy draping diagonals, and a distinctive horizontal stress. Rustique transforms this historical style into an abstract typographic system, amplifying stroke contrast and the swing of curves to produce a design that feels at home in the future as it does in the past.

October 2021

Output Sans 2 (Beta)

Minimalist design, maximalist variable font

Demo Notes Try

When I want to just set some type without any fuss, I start with Output. With a voice that is fresh and a little techy, it is designed to excel in situations where information comes before style, when type must be understated without becoming generic. This month, I’ve converted Output Sans from a conventional font family into a tractable, tweakable variable font. But for now it’s just a proof of concept, and gets a little lumpy as you navigate away from the default Regular style. But I hope sending this out gives me a kick in the butt to keep working on it, as opposed to letting it sit for another five years.

Notes PDF Try

Fern is a Venetian oldstyle typeface with exaggerated diagonal stress. Its weight clumps in round strokes and chunky triangular serifs, giving it a rich texture that sparkles even at the smallest size. Its ribbonlike forms are modeled after the Renaissance faces of Nicolas Jenson as well as related twentieth century revivals such as Centaur and Dante. This month, I’ve added a larger “Text” optical size to the family, as well as Bold weights and ornaments.

Typeface

In spring, I am always taken by surprise here in Western Massachusetts. Since I wrote you last, flowers have started blooming, deer and wild turkey are visiting, and birds are chirping (there’s even a nest directly above my front door!).
And the forest floor in the woods around my house—just dirt and dead leaves a few weeks ago—is now covered in a thick blanket of ferns. These ferns are lovely, sure, but I couldn’t help but feel that they were taunting me...a constant reminder that I still haven’t figured out what to do with my typeface Fern, a series that has been described on my website as “coming soon” since 2016!

So, what I’m sending you this month is a “re-tuning” of Fern for those larger text sizes (I’m thinking 11–14pt, but your mileage may vary). It makes the same kinds of changes that I attempted in scrapped Display cut (smaller x-height, higher contrast) but in smaller, subtler moves. I think it does the job!
Fern isn’t trying to be the prettiest, most exquisite interpretation of a Jensonian Roman, and it’s not trying to be a postmodern deconstruction of it either. Fern is just a simple text face.

Several of you have asked for a Bold weight for Fern (a reasonable request!), so you’ll find that in the package as well as an update of Fern Micro. The variable versions unite Text and Micro along an Optical Size axis, which now works automatically in the latest InDesign.

rfrfyurfgtrfguyuyfgtrfgtyugtgtrfrfyurfgtrfguyuyfgtrfgtyugtgt
frfruyfrtgfrtyuyurtgfrtguytgtgfrfruyfrtgfrtyuyurtgfrtguytgtg

May 2021

Extendomatic

A monolinear connected script with the power to extend

Demo Notes PDF Try

Extendomatic is a monolinear connecting script based on the streamline lettering of the mid-20th century. The typeface juxtaposes flowing, cursive forms with a rigid rectangular skeleton, all connected by an ever-present baseline. In addition to its adjustable weight and slant, Extendomatic’s variable font features a tracking axis that extends the baseline as it spaces out the letters.

Demo

Extendomatic is a monolinear connecting script based on the streamline lettering of the mid-20th century. The typeface juxtaposes flowing, cursive forms with a rigid rectangular skeleton, all connected by an ever-present baseline.

Beyond its adjustable weight and slant, the variable font features a tracking axis that extends the baseline as it spaces out the letters. Pretty nifty!

Standing on a sidewalk in Manhattan Beach, I found myself admiring the exaggerated baseline of the “Sounds of the Sea” sign, pictured below, and that’s what got me drawing.

April 2021

Club Lithographer v2

Notes PDF Try

This month, Club Lithographer gets an uppercase! This typeface is a wide-set italic with elongated serifs, blobby outstrokes, and an unusually steep slant (roughly 24°). It’s a response to the typeface Lithographic Italic, credited to Andrew Little and published by A. D. Farmer & Son in the mid-19th century. My rendition plays up the expansion contrast present in this style of lettering, letting the weight quickly swell up in the downstrokes in a way that’s reminiscent of the expanding nib of a pointed pen. It goes even further than pointed-pen lettering by punctuating the beginnings and endings of strokes with expressive blobs.

MAJUSCULE Describes Any Script in Which the Letters Have Very Few or Very Short Ascenders and Descenders, or None at All.
by Virtue of Their Visual Impact, This Made the Term Majuscule an Apt Descriptor for What Much Later Came to Be More Commonly Referred to as Uppercase Letters.
in Orthography, the Uppercase Is Primarily Reserved for Special Purposes, Such as the First Letter of a Sentence or of a Proper Noun (Called Capitalization, or Capitalized Words), Which Makes the Lowercase the More Common Variant in Regular Text.

March 2021

Job Clarendon

Taking the Clarendon style to new extremes

Notes PDF Try

Job Clarendon is an homage to the Condensed Clarendon, the versatile bracketed slab serif style that was a mainstay of 19th century British and American job printing. A collaboration with Bethany Heck, this interpretation builds on the Hairline weight published in 2020 and extends the weight range to the opposite extreme. This design changes across weight more than any other typeface I’ve designed: stems get up to 45 times thicker from Hairline to Black, and the average letterform more than doubles in width.

Job Clarendon is an homage to the Condensed Clarendon, the versatile bracketed slab serif style that was a mainstay of 19th century British and American job printing.

Bethany Heck guided this interpretation, which builds on the Hairline weight published in 2020 and extends the weight range to the opposite extreme.

This design changes across weight more than any other typeface I’ve designed: stems get up to 45 times thicker from Hairline to Black, and the average letterform more than doubles in width.

February 2021

Megavolt

🤘🤘🤘

Notes PDF Try

Megavolt is a broad sans serif with no curves. Instead, it relies on an intricate network of trapezoids and 54° angles to communicate forcefulness, intensity, and motion. After beginning the typeface as a formal geometric exercise, I quickly learned that I needed to lean in to its sci-fi and metal connotations. The result is letterforms so severe and uncompromising that they challenge legibility, not to mention good taste!

Megavolt is a broad sans serif with no curves. Instead, it relies on an intricate network of trapezoids and 54° angles to communicate forcefulness, intensity, and motion.
After beginning the typeface as a formal geometric exercise, I quickly learned that I needed to lean in to its sci-fi and metal connotations.
The result is letterforms so severe and uncompromising that they challenge legibility, not to mention good taste!

January 2021

Klooster Thin

Taking the uncial in new directions

Notes PDF

View update

Updated as Klooster Thin v2

Klooster Thin is a new take on the uncial script, a mix of traditional Roman capitals with round, hybrid forms that would event what the alphabet was like before the lowercase had fully evolved. This typeface is related to the Black weight I drew in 2017, but also has its own unique features: a distinct diagonal stress connecting it to its calligraphic roots, and super-long vertical serifs that add snap and elasticity to the curves and give the letterforms an untamed energy.

Klooster Thin is a new take on the uncial script, a mix of traditional Roman capitals with round, hybrid forms that would event what the alphabet was like before the lowercase had fully evolved.
This typeface is related to the Black weight I drew in 2017, but also has its own unique features: a distinct diagonal stress connecting it to its calligraphic roots.
Striking vertical serifs add snap and elasticity to the curves, endowing the letterforms with an untamed energy.

December 2020

Gimlet Sans Expansion

Superelliptical rigidity meets off-kilter playfulness

Notes PDF

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Notes PDF Try

This month, I’ve finally added wider and lighter Display styles to Roslindale, my cheeky serif typeface. Roslindale takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldn’t shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase.

Roslindale Family

I’ve added wider and lighter Display styles to Roslindale, my cheeky serif typeface. Roslindale takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry.
De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldn’t shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like.
Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase.

August 2020

Heckondon Hairline

Roslindale Deck

For sizes between text and display

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Roslindale is a text and display serif that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldn’t shake its Victorian sensibilities. This Deck series is meant for uses that are between text and display, and includes four weights (Regular–Bold), accompanying Italics, and a variable font.

Roslindale family

My work on Roslindale Deck began several months ago, when Stephen Coles used Roslindale Text for the body text of Typographica’s Favorite Typefaces of 2018 (a worthwhile read, by the way!).
We thought that the text font looked nice and sturdy at smaller text sizes (say, 10–12pt or 14–16px), but started to look really clunky in the introductory paragraph that is set slightly larger (15pt or 20px). But this size is far too small for Roslindale Display, which is really optimized for headlines more than twice that size.
The solution? Something in between. Deck (or Dek) fonts have long been used by editorial designers for subheads and short summaries that sometimes appear directly below the headline of an article.
They are optimized to cover the nebulous middle ground between text (extended reading at small sizes) and display (short bursts of reading at large sizes).

Roslindale Deck is narrower and tighter than Roslindale Text, with a higher contrast between thicks and thins. Most of my time was spent making small tweaks to the pre-existing Text and Display families until I was happy with the interpolations between them.
Deck optical sizes are still relatively rare outside of editorial design—something that I hope will change as variable fonts with an Optical Size axis become more widespread.
Even though they may have started with a relatively specialized use in print newspapers and magazines, it seems to me that there are numerous use cases for medium-size-optimized fonts in contemporary typography, from the large text sizes used in many single-column blogs to blurbs, embedded tweets, and advertising copy.

March 2020

Dattilo DJR Expansion

Heavier weights for Forma’s slab serif cousin

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An impactful Gothic in four widths (and a variable font)

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Now available as Bild v4

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Now available as part of Nickel Gothic v2.

Nickel Gothic Wide is a stocky grotesque based on lettering found on the same 1918 Chinese banknote its serifed counterpart Nickel. It retains the squarish forms and closed apertures of the serifed design, but its significantly bolder weight and wider proportions endow it with an intense energy of its own. Despite the fact that it is based on lettering from over a century ago, it has overtones of the midcentury sans serifs like Microgramma/Eurostile as well as squared gothics form the ’70s like Neographik and Serpentine.

Nickel Gothic Wide is a stocky grotesque based on lettering found on the same 1918 Chinese banknote its serifed counterpart Nickel.
It retains the squarish forms and closed apertures of the serifed design, but its significantly bolder weight and wider proportions endow it with an intense energy of its own.
Despite the fact that it is based on lettering from over a century ago, it has overtones of the midcentury sans serifs like Microgramma/Eurostile as well as squared gothics form the ’70s like Neographik and Serpentine.

January 2019

Roslindale Variable Italic

Exploring the space between slant and italic-ness

Typographica review Notes Try

A sloped Roman was not enough for Roslindale. Like De Vinne before it, Roslindale combines a rational structure typical of the Victorian era with echoes of historicized “oldstyle” shapes. And because Roz has a foot in both the “modern” and “oldstyle” worlds, I felt that its Italic should as well.

Typographica review PDF Try

Fern Micro is a Venetian oldstyle that is native to the screen. With exaggerated diagonal stress, Fern’s weight clumps in round strokes and chunky triangular serifs, giving it a rich texture that sparkles even at the smallest size. Its ribbonlike forms are modeled after the Renaissance faces of Nicolas Jenson as well as related twentieth century revivals such as Centaur and Dante.

Typeface

Typographica review

Fern is my attempt to bring the elegant ribbonlike letters of the Venetian oldstyle to a typeface that is native to the screen. I’ve been kicking it around for the past five or six years, but I never got around to releasing it.
In recent months I’ve been revising the design, adding characters, features, and kerning pairs in the hope that I can give it the proper release that I think it deserves. I am sending you Fern Micro’s Regular and Italic weights, designed for extended reading at small sizes.
I originally intended for Fern to be part of Font Bureau’s Reading Edge series, and it largely follows the approach of Turnip RE and the other RE faces: large x-height, low contrast, generous spacing, and oversized details that could stand up to the limitations of text rendering at the time.

Not only did I look at Nicolas Jenson’s prototypical Roman, but I spent a lot of time examining the letter shapes and textures of twentieth century interpretations such as Bruce Rogers’s Centaur and Giovanni Mardersteig’s Dante.
Fern’s Italic follows Dante’s model especially closely, combining a variety of angles into a unified design. What sets Fern apart is the complete exaggeration of the diagonal stress and the interesting texture that I was hoping would come in even the smallest of sizes and the harshest of onscreen conditions.

With weight clumped in the southwest and northeast, not to mention the strong triangular serifs, I tried to balance a sturdy and dense typographic color with the ribbonlike forms that the Venetian oldstyle is known for.
Fern Micro is different than most of my other Fonts of the Month in that it has been used a handful of times over the years, and I have had the benefit of learning by seeing how it was used. This includes a couple books, a poster series, the website for the excellent Song Exploder podcast, and most recently the super-valuable Vietnamese Typography resource by Donny Troung, who also consulted on Fern’s Vietnamese accents.

Even though type on screen has progressed far beyond where it was in 2012, I think that Fern can still be relevant to text typography today. My hope is that sending this to you will be a kick in the butt for me to return to the design and expand it into a useful family.
Text on the screen is a different story. It’s easy for these designs to get light and splotchy. Web designers frequently pass over these classics, opting for sturdier alternatives based on Baroque and Enlightenment Romans instead (or, let’s be honest, sans serifs).

September 2018

Bradley DJR

A fairytale blackletter

Typographica review Notes PDF Try

Bradley DJR is a revival of Bradley, a typeface released by American Type Founders in 1895. It is based on Will H. Bradley’s cover for the Christmas edition of The Inland Printer magazine, and most records show that it was Hermann Ihlenburg who completed the design. Its simplified forms make it more accessible to readers who aren’t accustomed to blackletter, and this revival seeks to preserve its softness, descending caps, and distinctive storybook character.

Typographica review

Bradley DJR is a revival of Bradley, a typeface released by American Type Founders in 1895. It is based on Will H. Bradley’s cover for the Christmas edition of The Inland Printer magazine.
Most records show that it was Hermann Ihlenburg who completed the design. Its simplified forms make it more accessible to readers who aren’t accustomed to blackletter.
This revival seeks to preserve its softness, descending caps, and distinctive storybook character.

August 2018

Map Roman

Pristine titling caps from the illustrative maps of Max Gill

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Map Roman is an elegant set of capitals based on the lettering of MacDonald Gill, whose work included a variety of beautifully handlettered maps of London, England, and the world. After stumbling upon his work in a map museum, I tried my hand at a typographical interpretation that attempts to capture the liveliness and authority of his letterforms.

Note: An updated version of this font is included in Map Roman Compressed.

Map Roman is an elegant set of capitals based on the lettering of MacDonald Gill.
Beautifully handlettered maps of London, England, and the world were included in his work.
After stumbling upon his work in a map museum, I tried my hand at a typographical interpretation that attempts to capture the liveliness and authority of his letterforms.

July 2018

Rhody Expansion

Pushing this mechanical slab to light and heavy extremes

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Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhody’s quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t. The July 2018 edition adds Light, Medium, and Black weights to the Rhody family, as well as a bonus variable font for licensees of the February 2018 edition.

Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden.
With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhody’s quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t. The July 2018 edition adds Light, Medium, and Black weights to the Rhody family, as well as a bonus variable font for licensees of the February 2018 edition.

June 2018

Merit Badge

My first variable color font

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Merit Badge is a variable color font based on blocky modular letters found in a 1970’s boy scout guide. In contrast to the stark simplicity of its design, the font is technically complex, allowing for variation in weight and serif length, as well as for color to be applied to its three layers. These features make it perfect for animation and experimentation with emerging font technologies.

Demo Page

Merit Badge is a variable color font based on blocky modular letters found in a 1970’s boy scout guide. In contrast to the stark simplicity of its design, the font is technically complex, allowing for variation in weight and serif length, as well as for color to be applied to its three layers. These features make it perfect for animation and experimentation with emerging font technologies.

May 2018

Roslindale Light and Regular

As the stems get narrower, the serifs get sharper

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Now available as part of Roslindale Display Widths.

Thick on the top and thick on the bottom

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Pappardelle is a French Antique slab serif inspired by the rationalized, modernist uses of horizontal stress in the twentieth century, particularly Herbert Matter’s branding for the furniture designer Knoll. Its vertical stems range from dense to delicate across the duplexing family, but its thick horizontal strokes always stay the same. Ample letterspacing will counterbalance Pappardelle’s condensed forms in a fresh and surprising way; think about adding some tracking to accentuate its stacatto rhythms.

Pappardelle is a French Antique slab serif inspired by the rationalized, modernist uses of horizontal stress in the twentieth century, particularly Herbert Matter’s branding for the furniture designer Knoll. Its vertical stems range from dense to delicate across the duplexing family, but its thick horizontal strokes always stay the same.
Ample letterspacing will counterbalance Pappardelle’s condensed forms in a fresh and surprising way; think about adding some tracking to accentuate its stacatto rhythms.

September 2017

Bild

Notes PDF

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Updated as Bild Widths and Weights.

Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burke’s famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Benton’s Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.

Note: An updated version of this font is available in Bild Widths.

Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burke’s famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Benton’s Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic.
Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bild’s dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for “image” and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.
I also tried to keep some balance of the rigid and organic forms in the typeface, contrasting straight-sided forms like c and p with the curves of s and a. My hope is that this will allow the typeface to walk the line between a “poster font” like Impact and a versatile sans serif.

August 2017

Crayonette DJR

Just a whole lot of Victorian weirdness

Notes PDF Try

Crayonette DJR is a revival of Crayonette, a typeface designed by Henry Brehmer and first issued by Philadelphia’s Keystone Type Foundry. Until now, this typeface has survived without a digital interpretation that does it justice. This delightfully quirky italic features horizontal stress, luxurious curves, and oversize swash capitals. Crayonette DJR retains the key features and proportions of the original, but improves its spacing and tames a few of the wilder letterforms. Use this typeface with care, and it won’t take too much to add a healthy dose of that weird and wonderful Victorian charm to your page or screen.

This is a revival of Crayonette, a typeface designed by Henry Brehmer and first issued by Philadelphia’s Keystone Type Foundry.
Until now, this typeface has survived without a digital interpretation that does it justice. This delightfully quirky italic features horizontal stress, luxurious curves, and oversize swash capitals.
Crayonette retains the key features and proportions of the original, but improves its spacing and tames a few of the wilder letterforms. Use this typeface with care, and it won’t take too much to add a healthy dose of that weird and wonderful Victorian charm to your page or screen.

July 2017

Zenith DJR

Art deco capitals inspired by lettering on a Charlotte fire station

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Zenith DJR is a set of Art Deco capitals based on the inscription on a fire station in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this design, each letter gets a single heavy stem, eschewing traditional weight distribution and enriching words with a distinctive rhythm. Zenith also avoids the glitz and glam of Broadway, the famous contrasted sans, instead finding its voice in the stoic optimism of Art Deco geometry. Zenith’s chunky strokes and open spacing make it sturdy enough for smaller headers and extended inscriptional text, and its layerable inline can ensure that its unusual texture will truly shine.

Zenith DJR is a set of Art Deco capitals based on the inscription on a fire station in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this design, each letter gets a single heavy stem, eschewing traditional weight distribution and enriching words with a distinctive rhythm.

The glitz and glam of Broadway, the famous contrasted sans, instead finding its voice in the stoic optimism of Art Deco geometry.

Chunky strokes and open spacing make it sturdy enough for smaller headers and extended inscriptional text, and its layerable inline can ensure that its unusual texture will truly shine.

June 2017

Roslindale Display Condensed Bold

A sharp display serif following in the footsteps of De Vinne

Notes PDF

View update

Updated as Roslindale Display Widths.

Roslindale is a text and display serif that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldn’t shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase. Sure it can be a bit cheesy at times, but aims for a creamy brie instead of a stinky bleu.

Note: An updated version of this font is included in Roslindale Display Widths.

Roslindale is a text and display serif that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry.
De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldn’t shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase. Sure it can be a bit cheesy at times, but aims for a creamy brie instead of a stinky bleu.

May 2017

Nickel

A stocky engraver’s alphabet

Typographica review Notes PDF

View update

Now available as Nickel v2

Nickel is a stocky engraver’s alphabet based on the inscription of a 1918 Chinese banknote. The font is the first offering in the Font of the Month Club!

In this face the traditionally round letters (like O and S) are straight-sided, as if chiseled from a block.

Meanwhile the traditionally straight letters (like H and N) are dominated by the sweeping curves of large, bracketed serifs. Nickel shares the monumentality of the lettering on today’s American currency, but its squarish forms add a peculiar strengh and energy with overtones of the 1970s classic typeface, Serpentine.

Typographica review

Nickel is a stocky engraver’s alphabet based on the inscription of a 1918 Chinese banknote.
In this face, the traditionally round letters (like O and S) are straight-sided, as if chiseled from a block.
Meanwhile, the traditionally straight letters (like H and N) are dominated by the sweeping curves of large, bracketed serifs. Nickel shares the monumentality of the lettering on today’s American currency, but its squarish forms add a peculiar strengh and energy with overtones of the 1970s classic typeface, Serpentine.

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