ITC Novarese/Highlander

ITC Novarese

Aldo Novarese originally designed this typeface for Switzerland's Haas foundry. International Typeface Corporation licensed shortly after its first release and issued the design as ITC Novarese in December of 1979. Novarese is a blend of old and new. The old is seen in the classic forms and proportions, while the new is seen in a large x-height, low contrast between thick and thin strokes, and wide range of weights. The italic is unusual with its cursive lowercase and upright capitals, echoing the earliest Italic designs. ITC Novarese is an exceptional display face that also works well in text.

ITC Highlander

David Farey has long been a fan of the early 20th century American typeface and lettering artist, Oswald Cooper’s work. While the American designer never created a sans serif type, he had produced some display lettering exercises of serifless letterforms. Farey found these and tested the available letters as the basis for a prototype font. He was delighted to find that they worked surprisingly well as text letterforms. While not perfect, they became the foundation for what was to become ITC Highlander.

While most would classify ITC Highlander as a sans serif design, Farey, the family’s designer, prefers to categorize it as a “soft terminal monoline”. He also believes that the soft terminals help the design be a little more readable than most sans serif type styles. Another aspect of the design that aids readability is the slightly uneven character stroke weights. Farey choose to maintain this hand-drawn aspect of Cooper’s original design, and the delicate deviation from perfection overcomes the tendency toward visual monotony common to so many sans serif faces.

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• Allan Haley is Director of Words & Letters at Monotype Imaging. Here he is responsible for strategic planning and creative implementation of just about everything related to typeface designs. He is also responsible for editorial content for the company’s type libraries and Web sites.
• Prior to working for Monotype, Mr. Haley was Principal of Resolution, a consulting firm with expertise in fonts, font technology, type and typographic communication. He was also executive vice president of International Typeface Corporation.
• Mr. Haley is ex officio Chairman of the Board of the Society of Typographic Aficionados, and past President of the New York Type Directors Club. He is highly regarded as an educator and is a frequently requested speaker at national computer and design conferences.
• Mr. Haley is also a prolific writer, with five books on type and graphic communication and hundreds of articles for graphic design publications to his credit.