Advocat Family

Christian Schwartz spent most of 2020 on an extended parental leave that made it hard to find time or energy to concentrate on type design. Scattered hours while the kids were in bed went to this typewriter face, a sufficiently low-stakes project, based on a low-res scan of an old IBM Selectric ‘golf ball’ alphabet called Advocate, designed by Howard “Bud” Kettler (best known as the designer of Courier). Rough source material led to a very loose interpretation. Richard Turley has used it for a few small publications with Civilization. Updated 23 Sep 2021: Apologies to Matthew Butterick, who already published a typeface called Advocate.

Analog X Condensed Family

Miguel Reyes drew this extra condensed sans with 90s vibes for his restaurant in Cholula.

Anker Medium Style

Originally drawn for the New York magazine Fall Fashion issue in 2015, inspired by storybook lettering from the early 20th century.

Austin Hairline Condensed Family

Condensed width of Austin Hairline Roman, drawn by Maria Doreuli for Kuchar Swara for the Daily Telegraph's magazines.

Azzurri Regular Style

Designed by Paul Barnes, along with Gabriello, for Puma. Azzurri is a low-contrast italic with faceted edges and no curves, designed to look both legible and stylish on the backs of football shirts. The swashes were a later addition.

Candy Darling Regular Style

Candy Darling is a script typeface drawn by Miguel Reyes, commissioned by Richard Turley for Interview magazine in 2021. Named for one of Interview founder Andy Warhol’s superstars, this typeface sits at the intersection of chaos and careful engineering, good and bad taste, peep show neon and the formal script lettering of Doyald Young, with some bizarre forms and a wild set of swash capitals. Kurt Woerpel and Jack Vhay made it look incredible during its year in the magazine.

Canela Blackletter Family

Miguel Reyes drew this blackletter companion to Canela inspired by the long tradition of blacketter in Mexico, particularly on signage for small, casual restaurants called fondas. The first sketches became the logotype for his own family’s restaurant, Raíz, and the character set has since been filled out, including two kinds of capitals: a simplified set, and a more complex set that are evocative of newspaper nameplates.

Caponi Condensed Family

Christian Schwartz and Paul Barnes drew this around when finishing Caponi for Entertainment Weekly. Our memory is hazy but this seems to have been sketched for their covers. They ended up sticking with a condensed sans instead, maybe because the Marlboro Man vibe was too strong.

Caslon Dot Regular Style

Very light dotted caps, loosely related to Caslon Doric.

Druk Text Light Light Style

Light weight drawn for a theater company.druk

Druk Wide Light Family

3 lighter weights of Druk Wide, originally drawn for Robert Vargas at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Duplex Collection

Danish newspaper design specialists Ribergård + Munk commissioned a pair of headline typefaces from us as part of a sweeping overhaul of well over a dozen daily newspapers published throughout Sweden by MittMedia. Berton Hasebe designed Duplex Serif and Sans to solve a very specific problem for this newspaper group. A new format was being developed for all of their titles, to decrease ineffeciencies in production and to allow the different titles to more easily share a portion of their stories. However, as publishers of both upmarket and downmarket papers, the owners wanted to keep the general character of each paper intact: louder volume and more of a feeling of immediacy in the downmarket tabloids, and a quieter, more respectable tone of voice in the upmarket tabloids. The solution to this problem was a set of serif and sans serif typefaces with precisely the same spacing, so they could be swapped out to change the character of a page without affecting the copyfit. Duplex Sans is adapted from Guardian Sans Headline, and the Serif is influenced by the variations on Caslon that were popular for news headlines in the early 20th century.

Eugenia Family

Commissioned for the La Repubblica weekly women’s magazine D, Eugenia by Miguel Reyes draws on all sorts of bizarre italic and script letterforms that Giambattista Bodoni cut in the 18th century. It was drawn to accompany Eugenio Serif, which Miguel drew for La Repubblica in 2018. Eugenio and Eugenia were both commissioned by Francesco Franchi.

Eugenio Sans Collection

To compliment Eugenio Serif in Francesco Franchi’s redesign of La Repubblica, designer Greg Gazdowicz created a sans can be both stylish and pragmatic as needed. He and Franchi settled on a geometric sans serif, partially inspired by the classic combination of Bodoni and Futura which was popularized in the 20th century by famed Modernist Massimo Vignelli. Eugenio Sans serves the newspaper at many sizes: from big drop caps to small captions, sidebars, and info graphics. It is also the primary headline typeface for the Sport and other feature sections, reserving Eugenio Serif for news. Though the geometric sans genre is remarkably crowded, Gazdowicz found that by focusing on the technical constraints of newsprint and complementing Eugenio Serif, he wound up with a fresh design in the process. The terminals end at flat verticals, making for open apertures and clean spaces between letters, giving a straightforward and newsy tone.

Eugenio Serif Collection

Eugenio Serif was drawn by Miguel Reyes, assisted by Hrvoje Živčić, for Francesco Franchi’s redesign of La Repubblica, and remains the main headline face after a reworking of the newspaper. It’s a fairly faithful rendition of Bodoni, but the softness of the serifs and subtly rounded corners give it warmth, making it feel more like phototype than crisp, perfect digital letterforms. The primary historical source that Miguel referenced was 16pt and 24pt specimens in a facsimile of Giambattista Bodoni’s definitive 1818 Manuale Typographico.

Feature Flat Collection

Feature Flat was originally created for Semafor, as a calmer and more newsy variant on Feature, with flat rather than angled head serifs.

Gabriello Family

Football numbers are an exercise in balancing style with functionality. Inspired by brush lettering, Puma commissioned the Bold weight of Gabriello for the shirts of their sponsored teams in the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, and also used it for their African teams in that year’s World Cup: Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Far more organic than the typical straight-sided octic athletic letters, Gabriello is slanted on two axes, both horizontally and vertically, giving the energy of a script without causing production problems for the shirts.

Gingrich Family

Gingrich is a condensed display serif faily in 4 optical sizes, originally drawn for David Curcurito for the 1000th issue of Esquire in 2015. Italics were added later for Barron’s by Kara Gordon.

Graphik Decorated Family

Graphik Round and Graphik Dot were drawn for two one-off issues of Bon Appétit for creative director Alex Grossman. Graphik Round Black proved surprisingly useful for Commercial Studio. The other two dot styles were developed for Meirion Pritchard at Wallpaper*.

Guardian Agate Sans Grades Family

Compensating for the worst possible printing conditions, Guardian Agate Sans is designed for maximum legibility at 6 point and below on newsprint.

What are Grades?

The family features four subtly different weights, or “grades”, allowing users to find the perfect weight for a particular situation, from 1, the lightest, to 4, the heaviest. The Medium weight can be used for reversing out of a dark background, subheads, and other cases where an additional level of typographic hierarchy is needed.

What is Duplexing?

Guardian Agate Sans features two kinds of bolds. The standard Bolds are wider than the Regulars, as requested by The Guardian to make sport scores a bit more readable at 4.5pt. The Duplex Bolds set at exactly the same widths as the Regulars, useful for things like classified ads and stock listings where line length is at a premium. All numerals are tabular across all styles, so they can be freely mixed in tables of figures no matter which version is used.

Guardian Compact Family

Guardian Compact has shorter, simpler serifs and narrower, stiffer proportions than Guardian Egyptian Headine. People always seemed to like this compact, flat-sided variant of Guardian Egyptian, but we never got around to drawing italics and finishing it.

Houston Collection

A Venetian Oldstyle for news, drawn for Roger Black’s redesign of the Houston Chronicle in 2003. The basic structures are based on British Monotype's Italian Old Style, which was based on William Morris's Golden Type. The italic (particularly the alternate italic used in feature sections) also borrows from Nebiolo Jenson Oldstyle, and there is a influence from ATF Jenson Oldstyle in places as well. The Bold has much shorter serifs than the Roman, so it can be spaced tightly

Kommissar Collection

Kommissar was originally designed for Florian Bachleda’s redesign of Fast Company in 2011. The magazine needed a condensed typeface that suggested the future while referencing the past. The family is inspired by 1920s and ‘30s-era German display faces such as Plak Condensed and Vertikal. The lively texture of round and sharp corners along with a lack of notches in the arches keeps all of the “action” on the tops and bottoms of the characters. With this simplified lowercase, Kommissar gives headlines and short blocks of text an unusual, but unique visual rhythm.

Local Gothic Regular Style

Local Gothic is inspired by the moveable lettering of outdoor signs in America. Its individual characters look ordinary, but in combination they appear random and irregular, giving a distressed and unusual appearance. Designed by Christian Schwartz while he was studying graphic design in the late 1990s, Local Gothic gives a surprising and uneven texture that can breathe life into both print and web projects. The characters are loosely based on the four most ubiquitous sans serifs in America: Helvetica, Futura, Franklin Gothic, and Alternate Gothic No. 2. Tal Leming developed innovative OpenType code, using theories based on quantum mechanics, to mix the mismatched letters in a way that feels truly random.

Lovesong Regular Style

An homage to Brush Script by Miguel Reyes, started as a custom project that was cancelled amid a corporate reshuffle, and later finished for Richard Turley’s guest editorship of Its Nice That in August 2022. Miguel’s update draws on his experience with signpainting, toning down the bouncy baseline and facilitating use in all caps. Brush Script was designed by Robert E. Smith in 1942; a different Robert Smith provided the name.

Lyon Hebrew Collection

Daniel Grumer and Yanek Iontef drew Lyon Hebrew based loosely on broad nib models from the 15th and 16th centuries. As in the Latin, details have been simplified, streamlined, and stripped away, leaving crisp and decisive forms with unabashedly digital detailing. The italics are particularly interesting, as they manage to keep the same balance of free cailligraphic gestures and structured repetition of forms seen in Kai Bernau’s original.

Lyon Hed Family

Compact headline version of Lyon with a large x-height and very short extenders, originally commissioned by Mark Porter, designed by Kai Bernau with Robin Mientjes.

McClatchy Collection

The McClatchy Company publishes 29 daily newspapers across the US. Working with Garcia Media, they spent a year developing a unified design language to bring together the print papers, mobile apps, and web editions with a more consistent overall look. Greg Gazdowicz, Miguel Reyes, and Christian Schwartz designed a set of typefaces that helped to bridge the gap between design consistency and individual character.

Neue Haas Grotesk Agate Family

The 2013 year end issue of Bloomberg Businessweek featured a long section of very dense spreads of hard data from various industries, showing a snapshot of the current state of many companies. Creative director Richard Turley commissioned an Agate version of Neue Haas Grotesk in a number of duplexed weights, to cram tons of information into this section. Compared to the existing Text version, which is drawn for use around 8pt to 12pt, the Agate, drawn for use at 4pt to 6pt, has a larger x-height, smaller cap height, looser spacing overall, and ink traps to counteract the effects of ink on paper, which has a dramatic effect on text set at such small sizes.

Neue Haas Grotesk Stencil 55 Roman Style

This is a stencil version of the Regular weight of Neue Haas Grotesk, drawn for a sports issue of Bloomberg Businessweek in 2011, loosely inspired by the work of Lawrence Weiner (who despised Helvetica, as we found out the week after the issue came out).

Neue Haas Grotesk Text Mono Family

This was originally created for Bloomberg Businessweek, for a special issue on the 2012 US presidential election, and was later extended for general use in info graphics. The idea was to make text set in the Mono look and feel like unfiltered data.

Oboi Stencil Style

Based loosely on stencil lettering on house number plates in St Petersburg, Russia, with lots of alternate forms. Drawn for Meirion Pritchard for a special issue of Wallpaper*.

Orlando Family

Designed in 2021 by Paul Barnes for the In’Ei art gallery in Florence, Orlando adapts the lightest weight of Orleans and its italic with flared strokes, for a more overtly calligraphic appearance.

Pennsylvania Collection

Living in Pittsburgh in the 1990s, Christian Schwartz registered the industrial grit in the forms of capitals and numbers on license plates in Pennsylvania—the rhythms of vertical and horizontal alignment without implications of typewriter or lineprinter. His monospaced interpretation appeared in 2000. Using Schwartz’s early 2000s sketches for a planned expansion as a jumping off point, Inga Plönnigs revisited the family in 2024, devising both a soft-edged sans and slab from the eccentric approach to serifs found in the stamped-metal inspiration.

Pialat Family

Drawn by Berton Hasebe in 2012, this was the display face for a couple of years in T, the New York Times Style Magazine, commissioned by Chris Martinez, then later used by Triboro for Prince’s posthumous memoir The Beautiful Ones.

Popular Family

Christian Schwartz drew Popular in 2004 for Robb Rice’s redesign of Popular Mechanics. Rice wanted a slab that would combine the clunky, mechanical charm of DIN with the power of Rockwell and Stymie. The family appeared in a few publications over the years before being finished for release in 2024 with help from TienMin Liao.

Poseidon Sans Family

Loosely inspired by 20th century typewriter typefaces. Proportional but awkward. Designed for Darhil Crooks when he was at The Atlantic.

Produkt Condensed Family

Narrower width of Produkt, drawn by Kara Gordon.

Produkt Typewriter Family

Drawn for Project Projects, for the 2018–2019 Carnegie International, and later finished for the interface of this site.

Produkt XX Condensed Family

Narrower widths of Produkt, to accompany Graphik. Heavier weights of XX Condensed were initially drawn by Greg Gazdowicz for the Village Voice, but the publication closed their print edition before the redesign by Luke Hayman's team at Pentagram could be implemented. Promphan Suksumek drew light weights and Kara Gordon completed and refined the family.

Proxy Family

Condensed reverse contrast typeface initially inspired by Swiss roadway lettering, but ended up wandering off into its own territory. Drawn for Richard Turley and used for Barneys, Good Buys, Interview…

Punch Family

Punch is a revisiting of Miller & Richard’s News Bill series, a display face made in the 1880s. Paul Barnes added a roman to the italic for Fraser Muggeridge studio’s exhibition and publication design for ‘Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the Balloons’ at Factory International, Manchester.

Royal Ascot Family

Drawn by Miguel Reyes for a package of stories on parties in a 2014 issue of Bon Appétit. Based on lettered titles from a Royal Ascot horse racing event broadcast in the 1970s.

Royal Gothic Family

Royal Gothic is a charming version of a boxy sans serif that first appeared in the 1870s in Britain, now expanded from a single style into a seven-weight family with matching italics. Drawn by Paul Barnes with Luke Charsley and Tim Ripper, this updated version both perfectly encapsulates its era and makes itself available for today’s more complex typographic requirements. In the lower case most letters are square in form, but the s remains distinctly grotesque; aside from the S, the capitals are compact. Royal Gothic’s origins are somewhat obscure: though first found in London, it had a distinctly American name. It quickly appeared across both Europe and the United States and remained in circulation far into the twentieth century.

Sanomat Banner Family

High contrast version of Sanomat, drawn by Greg Gazdowicz for Sami Valtere at Helsingin Sanomat.

Sanomat Slab Family

Slab version of Sanomat, drawn for Sami Valtere at Helsingin Sanomat.

Schnyder Titling Family

Mixing different widths in a single headline was a signature of how Patrick Li and his team used Schnyder in T, the New York Times Style magazine between 2013 and 2019. Schnyder Titling was built to make it easier to implement this effect, with three widths of capitals combined into a single font and all kerned together. Uppercase is the widest proportion, lowercase the middle, and small caps the narrowest.

Seance Family

Seance comprises two blackletter styles based on the outlandish designs of French lettering artist Jean Midolle (1794–?). Midolle’s Fracture Midolline and Gothique Brisée, published in his 1835 Spécimen des écritures modernes, are thoroughly gothic in multiple senses of the word. In Seance, Tim Ripper has reworked these standalone alphabets as typefaces while attempting to preserve as much as possible of their creepy—and campy—peculiarities.

Sept Stencil Family

Originally drawn for Evan Campisi at ELLE, debuting in the September 2016 issue and used periodically for features. Greg Gazdowicz was inspired by Futura Black, Josef Albers, Paul Rand…

Telesans Collection

Compact humanist sans designed for the Daily Telegraph. The Agate is particularly useful. This family makes a very good companion to Austin News.

Viktor Regular Style

Incised, barely-seriffed display face drawn by Christian Schwartz. Used on a Wired cover, and in a couple of issues of Document Journal.