Welcome to issue 104!

Noemi here, writing from cloudy Switzerland to send you some fresh new fonts. In today’s special, you’ll find a selection of condensed typefaces that belong to different font categories (serif or sans-serif) but are guaranteed to make a visual impact. Also, you’ll find two typefaces with a particular focus on inclusivity, thanks to their excessively broad language support. Let’s get to it!

Enjoy! ✌︎ — Noemi

Typeface of the Month

Don’t just look at it, play with it! Upgrade to our paid membership and get a license of our typeface of the month 🥳

Ernst from CAST Foundry

Ernst is a joyful, stylish, and charming slab serif. It was designed by Léon Hugues, a young Anglo-French type designer currently based in Paris. ‘Ernst’ means ‘serious’ in German, but the typeface is anything but serious — look at its whimsical italics, recalling the lettering of early 20th-century Parisian street theatres and silent movies. Ernst comes in seven weights, from Thin to ExtraBold. It includes four different kinds of figures: proportional lining, tabular lining, proportional old style, and tabular old style. There are also small caps, and alternate characters that could come in handy. The pronounced and frisky details of both its roman and italic styles make it ideal for display purposes, while its big x-height, the rigour of its design and the consistency of its proportions also make it suitable for long texts.

🤓 Nerd alert: If you want to dig deeper into the design and inspiration of this typeface, you can read the very nice interview with designer Léon Hugues published on the blog of CAST Foundry.

For a limited time, upgrade to our paid membership and get a lifetime, never-expiring license that allows for the following usage:

• The complete Ernst family (14 font styles + variable font)

• Use in personal and commercial projects (license is not transferable)

• Desktop use (for up to 5 users)

• Web use (for up to 100k monthly pageviews)

By upgrading to our paid membership, you’ll receive a new typeface every month, unless you cancel your subscription, which you can do at any time. You will be granted a perpetual font license, so you can keep using this typeface in your projects even after you cancel your paid membership. More info on our paid membership and FAQ on the typefaces of the month offered as its main perk.

Foundry Spotlight

Newglyph 🇨🇭

Lots of stuff going on for my local type foundry Newglyph! First, they designed the new corporate font of Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) which is one of Switzerland’s national television channels. RTS Neue is a variable font that was designed to fit the RTS’ entire audiovisual identity on television, video, and the web. What’s more, the type foundry just launched a brand new website, developed by Lausanne’s HØRDE Agency. At the same time, they are releasing SunKing, a contemporary sans-serif typeface. Last but not least, italics were added to three of their typefaces (Amazonia, Alpaga, and Armada) and Agatha is now available in condensed and extended widths. I’m really glad to see the team’s hard work is paying off so well!

Fresh Releases

Chauffeur by Domicile Foundry

Designed by Joona Louhi, the very same mind behind Louche, April’s “Typeface of the Month”, Chauffeur is a collection of compressed fonts. With tight spacing, sharp joins, and closed apertures that curl inward, Chauffeur makes for a compelling texture that is great for use at large sizes. The typeface was inspired by the condensed British grotesques from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and builds upon these sources to take a leap into the precise, architectural style expressed by DIN fonts from the mid-20th century. Chauffeur comes in five, rather heavy weights, ranging from Regular to Black, with matching italics.

Cambon by General Type Studio

General Type Studio added two narrower widths to Cambon. The typeface is a contemporary flared serif grabbing cues from a variety of influences. And now, you can enjoy it in even tighter proportions, Narrow and Condensed, for use where space is limited. Just like the original family, both new widths come in eight weights, ranging from Thin to Black, with matching italics. And to top it all off, they come with beautiful ligatures, and some very satisfying alternates like the alternate ‘v’ and ‘w’ — although these two are only available on the italics.

Seabirds from 205TF

Designed by Rosalie Wagner, Seabirds combines different sub-genres of the sans-serif category within a single typeface. While its default character set is primarily geometrical, many stylistic sets are available that can give the design a more humanistic style. But, as the foundry puts it, “the undeniable value of this project lies in extensive Latin glyph set.” And I’ll have to agree with them. In addition to all the common Latin-based languages, Seabirds supports more than 100 little-spoken languages and dialects, including Indigenous languages from almost every continent. But the designer didn’t stop there and she also developed phonetic signs (to help with the pronunciation of such languages) and latin transliteration signs (to transliterate from other world scripts to Latin). Very impressive!

Zed from Typotheque

Another typeface that deserves praise for inclusivity and accessibility is Zed from Typotheque. The typeface is a sans-serif with radically different Text and Display versions, both available in nine widths. In addition, there is also a Round version. And each optical size is available as a variable font, with four axes of variation: weight, width, rounding, and slant. But here comes the fun part. After testing the typefaces with visually impaired readers, Typotheque developed Zed Text — Zed Text Wide in particular — to be an exceptionally readable typeface for both healthy readers and those with visual impairments. For readers who might need it, there is also a Braille system included in the glyph set. Now in terms of inclusivity, Typotheque worked with marginalised linguistic communities and native designers around the world to make Zed come with support for 435 Latin-based languages, including many Indigenous languages that use the Roman alphabet. But of course, additional scripts support is under development, for Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and many more. Put simply, Zed is redefining what accessibility means for a typeface.

Creative Spotlight

Ben Johnston

Ben Johnston is a multi-disciplinary artist from Cape Town currently living in Toronto. He specializes in creating bold typography for murals, advertising campaigns, and installations. While his murals already have a multidimensional element to them, how cool is it to see type brought to life in 3D? I’m trying to think of a project I could hire him for 😅

Goods