Alternates to September

The branding agency's client wanted an "ultra modern" typeface that was "futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral," according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project."I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them," says... Read More

According to designer David Farey, "Cachet is a monospaced, monostroke typeface -- that isn't." Why the sleight of hand? Typefaces that are limited to a single character and stroke width suffer in terms of legibility. Farey's goal in drawing Cachet was to create a typeface that gives the illusion of monospacing, while delivering a subliminal dose of reader-friendliness.At first glance, Cachet... Read More

Based on square forms, FF QType successfully walks the difficult line between pure geometry and legibility. Achaz Reuss used his years of type design experience to flesh out a concept that could have been, in the hands of a student or amateur, a much less useful result. Five subfamilies make up the whole (Compressed, Condensed, Semi Extended, Extended and Square) each in five weights (Extra... Read More

On the way back to the airport from the 1994 ATypI conference in San Francisco, Albert-Jan Pool and Erik Spiekermann discussed Pool’s prospects, Spiekermann knowing that his friend’s employer had just gone out of business. He suggested that if Pool wanted to make some money in type design, that he take a closer... Read More

FF Magda is a grunge family designed by Swiss-born designer Cornel Windlin. “I intended it to be a sister font to Erik van Blokland’s very popular FF Trixie, in order to offer a less nostalgic typewriter face to designers with an appetite for Banal Everyday Typography,” wrote Windlin. FF Magda isn’t a lazy effort, however. The family includes no less than nine levels of boldness or ink bleed,... Read More