On a cold winter's night, George Ryan, of Galápagos Design Group, began musing on the possibilities for a “truly original” sans serif typeface. What came out of his musing, and his always-present sketchpad, was ITC Adderville, a typeface whose visual impact is immediate and strong. Ryan explains how he did it: “The rounded ends of its strokes and their skewed baseline contact create an illusion of dancing feet. The tops of lowercase stems emit serif buds, suggesting transition into or out of the serifed form. The spear-like lowercase stroke terminators, along with other distinctive elements such as the stylized reticulation of the lowercase 'g' segments, the salute of that same character's spur, and the bold, non-self-conscious 'i' and 'j' dots, all contribute to the playful and unique nature of this design.” The result is a friendly, lively type family whose graduated weights -- book, medium, and heavy -- lend themselves especially well to use at small display sizes and in short blocks of text.
