Soho

Soho

About the Font


Some Notes on Soho from the Designer Sebastian Lester:


“Soho™ represents nearly 3 years of work. 40 fonts. 3,000 hours. 32,668 characters.
I love slab serifs. For the uninititated, a slab serif is a subset of the modern serif, characterised primarily by thick and blocky serifs. There is something fundamentally robust, solid and reliable about this genre, which makes slab serif designs very useful for everything from publishing to corporate branding. How many companies don’t want to look robust, solid and reliable? They have the potential to look truly cutting-edge or solidly conservative. They can hold up well used on screen as well as print. They can provide an interesting and viable alternative to the many large sans families available today. They can look super-chic in lighter weights and super-strong in heavier sizes. It amazes me that they’re relatively unexplored as a genre at this point in time. Perhaps 60,000 fonts in circulation and only a small handful of multi-weight, multi-width slab serif designs exist at the moment, despite their popularity.

In designing Soho I set myself the rather lofty aspiration of designing the ‘ultimate’ slab serif. I wanted it to look fundamentally 21st century. I wanted it to be supremely versatile; a weight, width and ‘tone of voice’ to meet the requirements of even the most discerning of designers. I wanted something conservative enough to have that versatility and endurance, but novel enough to capture people’s imagination. It had to be distinctively different to the traditional 19th Century models of slab serif design. In concise terms I have tried to achieve this with a contemporary serif structure, low contrast squarish shapes, a generous x-height and clipped serifs and terminals. I took advantage of OpenType technology to offer extensive language coverage, stylistic alternatives, ligatures and small caps.

It’s been a long, challenging and at times incredibly arduous task completing this family. I wanted to design something that people find useful in the broadest of contexts and continue to find useful as technologies and tastes shift and evolve. Even with fast computers and clever software this wasn’t going to happen over night. Only time will tell, but I hope I have struck the right balance. I hope that designers find Soho an appealing and useful tool.”

The following design examples show the unlimited possibilities that arise when Soho’s various weights and widths are combined.

Soho Light
Light
Soho Compressed Ultra
Compressed Ultra
Soho Regular
Regular – Stylistic Set 4
Condensed Thin
Condensed Thin
Ultra
Ultra – Stylistic Sets 1 & 4
Extra Light
Extra Light
Regular Italic, Compressed Regular, Ultra-Extended Ultra
Regular Italic, Compressed Regular, Ultra-Extended Ultra
Heavy
Heavy
Medium
Medium
Compressed Ultra, Compressed Medium, Compressed Light, Compressed Thin
Compressed Ultra, Compressed Medium, Compressed Light, Compressed Thin
Ultra-Extended Ultra
Ultra-Extended Ultra
Compressed Medium
Compressed Medium – Stylistic Set 1
Condensed Extra Bold
Condensed Extra Bold
Compressed Regular
Compressed Regular
Condensed Heavy
Condensed Heavy – Stylistic Set 1
Condensed Thin, Extra Light, Light, Regular, Medium
Condensed Thin, Extra Light, Light, Regular, Medium
Compressed Extra Light
Compressed Extra Light – Stylistic Set 2 & 3
Extra Bold
Extra Bold
Condensed Regular
Condensed Regular
Condensed Medium
Condensed Medium
Condensed Bold
Condensed Bold
Extended Ultra
Extended Ultra
Thin
Thin
Condensed Ultra
Condensed Ultra
Condensed Extra Light
Condensed Extra Light
Compressed Heavy
Compressed Heavy
Compressed Bold, Condensed Extra Bold
Compressed Bold, Condensed Extra Bold – Stylistic Set 1 & 4
Compressed Extra Bold
Compressed Extra Bold
Ultra-Extended Ultra Italic
Ultra-Extended Ultra Italic
Light Italic
Light Italic
Heavy Italic
Heavy Italic
Ultra Italic
Ultra Italic
Thin Italic
Thin Italic

Experience the wealth of possibilities offered in the Soho typeface family by downloading these detailed PDFs, created by the typeface’s designer, Sebastian Lester, himself! Two PDFs are available, a larger version (20 pages, 1,7 mb) and a streamlined version (10 pages, 273 kb) for users with slower internet connections.

Related products

Soho® Family Pack

 (40 Typefaces)
US$ 399.99
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