Fonts in Focus, August 2007

Jim Parkinson’s Diablo™ typeface is a single weight display design. The look comes from samples found in early 20th century books on hand-lettering books, as well as general poster lettering styles from that same of the period. Diablo has a touch of the ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement in its appearance, and it also looks rather heavy. It is a unicase design, in that there is no real ‘lowercase.’ Some glyphs on the uppercase keys are alternates to the capital-style forms found on the lowercase keyboard, like A, E, F, H, J, K, M, N, Q, R, V, W, and Z. In fact, the uppercase itself is a bit more decorated and round than the lowercase. Nevertheless, the upper and lowercase letters may be freely interchanged with each other to create the best possible image for the text.

Linotype Face Value™ from American designer Danton Shombing is a symbol font that includes 62 stylized square “faces.” Four of these are “black and white,” i. e., their design is split down the middle. Other symbols are really pairs of each other: two glyphs share the same design, in both positive and negative copies. Many of the designs also mirror each other! Linotype Face value is the perfect choice for light-hearted “smilies” to be dropped into a design, whether for print or for the web. The bigger you set these symbols, the better.

Based on Art Nouveau models, Greeting Monotype™ was created by Morris Fuller Benton in 1927. The Greeting Monotone font works well for titling, packaging and greeting cards.

ITC Braganza™ is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw, an elegant typeface steeped in historical inspiration. Reminiscent of the handwritten manuscript styles of the 16th century, the name Braganza refers to Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, who was a prominent figure in Portugal at the time. The vertical script style displays the elegance and refinement which distinguished the Royal Courts of the 16th century.

ITC Kulukundis™ is the work of designer Daniel Pelavin, a square, connecting script which looks as though it could have been cast in shiny chrome for the side of a 1950s American roadster. Pelavin based his design very loosely on a vertical French script but the overall look is all his own. Unlike calligraphic scripts, the lower case letters all connect in exactly the same way and the straight diagonal junctures give the typeface its broad, spacious character and keep it locked into a continuous line. ITC Kulukundis could also be used to create a decorative border for special occasions.

Olivera Stojadinovic made her first sketches of the ITC Resavska™ family with the goal of creating a typeface that would be readable at small sizes. Stojadinovic added geometric serifs to the original design to create four weights in serif and sans serif sub-families. Each weight (except the black) has an italic counterpart.

Jimbo™ is an enthusiastic and friendly serif display typeface created by Jim Parkinson, an Oakland, California, lettering artist and designer. Based on an early logotype for Parkinson’s studio, Jimbo embodies the charisma of mid-20th-century advertising and sign painters’ lettering. “It’s like a happy Bodoni”, says Parkinson. This two-axis multiple master typeface allows on-demand generation of weight and width variations from Regular Condensed to Black Extended. Designed primarily for use at large display sizes, Jimbo is also clear and readable in short text settings as small as 12 points. Ideal for signs, advertising, and packaging.

Mateo™ font is part of the Take Type Library, which features the winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest from 1994 to 1997. Hans-Jürgen Ellenberger included three styles in his font, roman, bold and outline. The characters of Mateo consist exclusively of lines, giving the font an extremely angular look. However, Mateo font retains a certain handwritten style somewhat reminiscent of the graffiti left on wooden grade school desks by previous classes. The bold and outline styles have emphasized stroke contrasts but keep the angular, consciously irregular look. The roman style is best for smaller texts and the bold and outlines styles for headlines.

Loosely based on Bembo® and Plantin®, the Perrywood™ font family retains some old style characteristics which give the face a familiar feel, however much attention has been paid to optimizing the design to give good quality output at small point sizes and from low resolution output devices. The consistency of character shapes allows close letter spacing to give compact word shapes, excellent word recognition and an overall economy in text. Perrywood offers good legibility and, coupled with an even text color will be very useful for text setting, in correspondence, for faxes and reports.

The figures of Quartz font are based on those on digital clocks and LCD displays. All strokes are set at right angles to one another to create abstract characters. Fonts created for electronic displays gained in popularity at the same time as the computer became an everyday object. The standard is still around today and is the model for numerous interpretations. Fonts like Quartz have already won a firm position in trend typography. They embody the spirit of the late 20th century. Quartz font is a good choice whenever a marked contrast to everyday alphabets is the goal.

Clean. Calm. Highly legible. This is the design brief Sebastian Lester set for himself when he began to create the Scene® typeface family.
Knowing that, you’d never guess that Lester’s first commercial fonts were “alternative” display designs influenced by electronic gaming and house music. Lester began his career after graduating with honorsfrom Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. He spent several years designing for the music and games industries and dabbling in 3D animation. Then, in 2000, he joined Monotype Imaging, where he creates fonts for both on-screen and print uses. “I’ve always had a deep interest in type and typography,” says Lester, “but when I began creating text typefaces for Monotype Imaging, I gained new insight into the subtleties of letterform design.”
Work on Scene began after Lester had developed several corporate identity fonts for Monotype Imaging. He wanted to provide graphic designers and creative directors with a suite of fonts that would serve as a strong foundation for identity projects. He also wanted to incorporate what he’d learned about achieving best on-screen and print legibility. Much of the Scene family’s clarity lies in an x-height that sits comfortably between that of Helvetica and Verdana. Full-bodied counters, long ascenders and descenders, and exceptionally well-drawn letters also play their parts. Lester took special care with letter spacing and kerning to ensure optimal typographic color at any size.
Scene is the result of two years of after-hours and weekend work. “It started off as a part-time project,” says Lester, “but ended up as virtually a second full-time job.” The completed family is six weights with complementary italic designs. Also included is a set of “semi-sans” characters that introduce more expressive word rhythms into headlines and blocks of copy. In addition, aligning and old style numerals were drawn for all six weights.
“I’m very pleased with this font family,”beams Lester. “I believe I’ve created a strong yet subtle communication tool that has much to offer designers working in corporate identity and other areas of design.” We wholeheartedly agree.

Zaragoza™ is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw, a bold and beautifully rendered script which incorporated an internal zigzag decoration. Generous capitals harmonize with a lowercase that should be set close to reproduce the look of true handwriting.