New Additions: August 2024
31st August 2024
From the hundreds of fonts we add to the Identifont database every month we chose a selection of the most interesting recent additions, and interviewed the designers about their approach to each design:
Justin Penner – Ritualist (Delve Fonts)
What inspired you to design Ritualist? Was it for a particular project?
Ritualist began as one of the fonts in my 36 Days of Fonts project, which I began during lockdown in late 2020. Each day I started a new project in Glyphs and drew letters inspired by the first thing that came to mind, either a particular style of lettering or another visual concept. My original name for Ritualist was Hilt, as it was inspired by knives and other blades with sharp points and accelerating curves.
Ritualist has a hint of a Victorian flavour to it, with decorative features similar to fonts like ITC Tiffany. Were you influenced by that or any other particular typefaces?
ITC Tiffany is a great comparison. I see the commonalities, though it's much more elegant while Ritualist feels darker and more dangerous. Ritualist doesn't have any specific references in terms of typefaces, but a lot of Victorian themes, from magic and witchcraft to spirituality and the occult, were floating around in my head when I designed it.
The family includes a wide range of weights: nine in total, plus italics. Did you design the heaviest weights first, since these have the highest contrast?
Yes, in fact I originally self-published Ritualist as a single-style heavy display font. Then, last year I connected with Delve Withrington at Delve Fonts, who was interested in republishing Ritualist as a full family. I had already been working on an expansion of Ritualist over the past few years, so the stars aligned and soon a new Ritualist was born under the Delve Fonts label.
Did you have any applications in mind when you designed Ritualist?
Not specifically. Ritualist began as an expressive display font, so I was thinking more about expressing the ideas in my head rather than designing it functionally for any particular applications. But I often think of type design as a balance between expression and function – typefaces can be artistic, but they are also tools and have a job to do. As Ritualist developed into a full family with additional weights, italics, and more refined letterforms, I stretched it as far as I could to be more functional without losing its identity.
Speaking of making typefaces more functional, a frequent theme in my work is increasing support for languages that don't get enough love in the type world. Here in Vancouver, Canada, we have a number of indigenous languages spoken by the Salish peoples, most of whom use Latin orthography, but with phonetic characters and diacritics that are supported by only an extremely small number of fonts. For a typeface that leans toward display usage, Ritualist includes an unusually large character set including support for many Salish and other indigenous languages.
François Rappo – Tiny Gothic (Optimo)
Tiny Gothic is a gothic typeface with ink traps, like the ones that punchcutters used to add when creating metal typefaces for use at small sizes. What originally inspired you to design it?
Browsing letterpress type specimens or books, I’m always curious to observe the small size cuts, let’s say under 6 points. Here punchcutters solved things differently, in a more pragmatic way, with large counters, traps, simplification, and expressive features.
Without direct reference to any precise sources, I tried to capture some elements of that style in order to make the digital outlines of a grotesque more expressive, dynamic, and playful. The alternate glyphs set allows the user either to moderate or to expand the expressive details of the font, to choose between expression and a more sober pragmatism. Some alternate glyphs include solutions with a historical touch, like ‘R’, ‘Q’, ‘a’, ‘g’, ‘f’, and so on.
Were there any particular fonts you studied to get inspiration?
No particular font, just anything under 6 points, and some typewriter fonts too. One that comes to mind is the funny name of a Berthold Type Foundry grotesque called Liliput-Grotesk, among others.
The ink traps were originally designed to prevent the printing ink from spreading and spoiling the sharp edges between strokes, and presumably they work equally well when digital fonts are used for litho printing. Do they offer any benefits for digital printing?
I still think that, on paper or on screen, with traps the font looks more crisp, giving a touch of dynamism to a linear design.
Ink traps are interesting when the characters are used at large sizes, such as in headings or for display, because they give the characters an industrial or techno look. Did you have this sort of application in mind for Tiny Gothic?
Yes, these quite arbitrary traps add a specific touch when the font is used at a large size, when they become more visible.
Rodrigo López Fuentes – Uffizi (Latinotype)
What was the inspiration for Uffizi? Was it designed for a particular project?
I started designing Uffizi as a simple exercise after a conversation about craftsmanship with a friend. Initially, the project had no real pretensions or major inspiration; it was just meant to keep my hands and mind busy without any specific goal other than designing a text typeface, much like a musician playing the same scales repeatedly.
In this carefree mood and deep into iterations, I realized that my passion for the Italian Renaissance gradually took over the project. The personality of Uffizi began to emerge, reflecting subtle traces of humanist influences, the aesthetic refinement of the 15th century, and a modern spirit. Everything started to make sense. In a way, the inspiration came from within, finding its course through the craft itself, like a plant that is carefully nurtured and only reveals its flowers when it reaches a certain age.
Uffizi has a calligraphic flavour to it, reminiscent of fonts like Palatino. Were you influenced by that or any other particular fonts?
I was influenced by all of them. I’m obsessed with type; everywhere I go and in everything I do, I can’t stop paying attention to the letters – their details, the void between them, their balance, and the gravity of their forms. Everything about them fascinates me and captures my attention. Some of these characteristics stick in my mind, and I store them in my head so that when I need a reference, I know where to look. I just need to recall my memories, and everything that resonates with me from a specific typeface or style is just there.
While designing, I don’t look at other typefaces; I consider that cheating. Instead, I continually draw from what’s in my memory. The details I remember have stood the test of time and are still with me, which must mean something.
When designing Uffizi did you draft the characters on paper first, to get the calligraphic character, or do you work entirely on the computer screen?
The process of drawing Uffizi was an exercise in digital crafting, entirely created using Bezier curves. However, the deep understanding of the humanist style that made this possible came from calligraphy studies and hand-drawing letters. Without that knowledge and experience, it would have been a futile effort. You need to understand how one stroke intersects with another, where to flow and where to cut, and you must control the speed and tension of the curves, among many other variables. Only by being aware of these structural details can you effectively translate the forms and counterforms of a particular style to any medium.
Once you grasp the true nature of a style, whether on paper or screen makes no major difference; it’s like playing the same notes on different instruments.
You have said that you aimed to get a uniform gray text with Uffizi. Why do you think this is important, and how did you go about achieving it?
Not only is it important, but it is essential, especially in a text typeface where the rhythm must be as steady as possible. This is crucial not only for reading comfort but also for the mental wellbeing of book designers.
When designing a display typeface, you want the equivalent of Keith Moon or Ginger Baker on the drums – exuberant and creative enough to steal the show. However, for a text typeface, you need a Ringo Starr or Charlie Watts: a reliable, sober, and steady rhythm to build upon. In text, you can choose a lighter or darker gray, but it must be a uniform tone. No letter or sign should stand out more than another; the hierarchy is the responsibility of the book designer alone.
Achieving this is an iterative process. After each iteration, you need to print and test, make corrections, print and test again, and make further corrections, and so on. This cycle is the only way I know to ensure a uniform gray on a typeface; no shortcuts there.
Dušan Jelesijević – Nowina (Tour De Force)
Like many of your fonts, Nowina defies classification; what gave you the idea for its design?
I was experimenting with my earlier Displayer font family with the idea of creating some kind of display sans family where the base design was a sans serif, but it would achieve its distinctive character from the addition of some wacky display features. So, I could say that the inspiration for Nowina was Displayer.
One of the distinctive features of Nowina is the loopy tail on the ‘Q’, ‘j’, ‘g’, ‘and ‘y’, which is echoed on the ascender of the ‘d’ and ‘l’. What inspired this feature?
At one stage I was looking for some kind of novel design feature, and these loopy tails somehow ended up as a good solution. It gives the whole design another level of complexity, without reducing the legibility. My only concern was whether it would work in the black weight, but it looks pretty nice in my opinion.
Another distinctive feature of Nowina is the curved vertices on letters such as the ‘A’, ‘M’, ‘V’, ‘W’, and ‘Z’. Was this inspired by any other particular fonts?
Yes, those curved vertices seemed like the logical extention of the loopy tail idea in the way that they are also rounded, soft, curvy features, and so they work well together. We have a couple of other families in our catalogue that have curved vertices, Ancress and Oblik, but Nowina is probably the most extreme example. Apart from these features Nowina is a pretty simple sans serif design.
Nowina looks as if it would be at home as the corporate typeface for a modern retail brand. Is that the sort of application you had in mind?
You're right. It's for modern brands, specifically for designers and companies that are open minded about being different. I think that many good fonts end up being overlooked because they are too unusual. It's human nature, especially in business, that most clients don't want to take a risk and so they go with safe solutions in every point. Be bold and try other things; that's how you'll become a real brand!