TSD

FF Marselis mixes geometric and humanistic models, creating a freshly dynamic sans serif family. All of the apertures in the typeface are wide open; this aids readers’ eyes quickly flow across lines of text, without experiencing hang-ups. Certain superfluous strokes have been eliminated – b and q are spurless, for instance. The letterforms’ diagonals all bow outwards slightly, adding flavor to... Read More

FF Good is a straight-sided sans serif in the American Gothic tradition, designed by Warsaw-based Łukasz Dziedzic. Despite having something of an “old-fashioned” heritage, FF Good feels new. Many customers agree: the sturdy, legible forms of FF Good have been put to good use in the Polish-language magazine ‘Komputer Swiat,’ the German and Russian edition of the celebrity tabloid OK!, and the... Read More

Mike Abbink’s initial concept with FF Milo was to create a compact sans with very short ascenders and decenders. This resulted in a versatile typeface that’s well suited to magazine and newspaper typography. The typeface was named after a resilient grain, hinting at its ability to serve as a design staple. In later releases the design was expanded upon with FF... Read More

FF Kievit explores the synthesis of the sans serif form to the structure and proportions of a traditional Renaissance Roman such as Garamond or Granjon. Work began on the typeface in 1995 when Mike Abbink was a student at Art Center in California. The family spans nine weights and includes small caps, true italics, and multiple figure sets – everything necessary for creating sophisticated... Read More

The typeface FF Transit is a highly legible design that works well for readers who need quick orientation while en route. Made to blend aesthetic quality with legibility, it was originally developed by MetaDesign in Berlin for official use by the Berlin Public Transportation Services (BVG) and Düsseldorf Airport. Based on the proportions of Frutiger (licensed from Linotype), it was freshly... Read More

FF Dax is without doubt Hans Reichel’s magnum opus. The design is a contemporary streamlined sans in three widths: normal, wide, and condensed. Suprisingly, FF Dax Condensed was the first to be released, in 1995. The concept behind the typeface was to combine the clarity of a condensed Futura with a more humanist touch. The result is a space saving and legible typeface of timeless quality. The... 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

The family that became FF Meta was first called PT55, an economical typeface made for easy reading at small sizes created for the West German Post Office in 1985. Erik Spiekermann later improved and expanded his design to include more weights and styles, and prepared its release as FF Meta, one of the first and truly foundational members of the early FontFont library. As desktop publishing... Read More

The first cuts of Trade Gothic were designed by Jackson Burke in 1948. He continued to work on further weights and styles until 1960 while he was director of type development for Mergenthaler-Linotype in the USA. Trade Gothic does not display as much unifying family structure as other popular sans serif font families, but this dissonance adds a bit of earthy naturalism to its appeal. Trade... Read More

The successful Gill Sans® was designed by the English artist and type designer Eric Gill and issued by Monotype in 1928 to 1930. The roots of Gill Sans can be traced to the typeface that Gill's teacher, Edward Johnston, designed for the signage of the London Underground Railway in 1918. Gill´s alphabet is more classical in proportion and contains what have become known as his signature flared... Read More