Archer Type face magazine

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ARCHER

Tobias Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler - 2001

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A

rcher, the colorful slab serif.

Slab serifs have been evolving for two hundred years, yet the category continues to be dominated by two basic styles: Antiques and Geometrics. Antiques arise out of the same nineteenth-century tradition that produced the Modern and Scotch styles: at heart, they’re text faces, and they feature all of the qualities needed to thrive at small sizes. (Antiques customarily have the traditional ‘two-storey’ forms of a and g, and a capital R that ends in a flourish.) Our Ziggurat typeface is an example of the Antique style in full flower, capturing the best of what the style has to offer: it’s warm, comforting, and persuasive. But this coziness comes at the expense of modernity, and in the wrong context even the best Antique can feel old-fashioned, musty, and irrelevant.

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ARCHER Slab Serif The Geometric is a twentieth-century riposte to the Antique. Informed by the same kind of rationalist thinking that inspired the great sans serifs of the Bauhaus, Geometrics abandon traditional forms in favor of mathematical strategies. A Geometricâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s O is circular rather than elliptical, and its forms shed theirresidual contrast between thicks and thins. Geometrics usually apply this same rationalism to the woollier parts of the alphabet,replacing the alphabetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beaks and tails and ball terminals with a program of matching serifs.

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TYPE FAMILY

a b c d e f gh i ABCDEFGHI

Hairline

Thin

Extra Light

a b c d e f gh i ABCDEFGHI Light

Hairline Italic

Thin Italic

Extra Light Italic

a b c d e f gh i ABCDEFGHI Light Italic

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a b c d e f gh i ABCDEFGHI

Book

Medium

Semibold

Bold

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Book Italic

Medium Italic

Semibold Italic

Bold Italic

ANATOMY

ABCDEFGH IJKLOPQR STUVWXYZ

crossbar

abcdefgh ijklopqr stuvwxyz counter

bowl

t shorter than other ascenders

Cap Hight X-Hight Baseline

ascender

decender

serif

terminal

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12 78 3490 56 NUMBERS

!@#$%^&* ()_+-<>?

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You may write me Just like moon With your bitte With the cert You may tread m Just like hopes But still, like Still i

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Does my sassin Did you want to Why are you bes Bowed head an 'Cause i walk like Shoulders falling d Pumping in my Weakened by m

e down in history s and like suns, er, twisted lies, ainty of tides, e in the very dirt springing high, dust, i'll rise. ll rise.

ess upset you? see me broken? set with gloom? d lowered eyes? i've got oil wells own like teardrops. y living room. my soulful cries.

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IBRAHIM ALFARAIDY TYPOGRAPHY 1 Type Specimen Book Spring 2016

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Archer Type face magazine

Published on Apr 13, 2019

Ibrahim Alfaraidy

Slab serifs have been evolving for two hundred years, yet the category continues to be dominated by two basic styles: Antiques and Geometrics. Antiques arise out of the same nineteenth-century a tradition that produced the Modern and Scotch styles: at heart, they’re text faces, and they feature all of the qualities needed to thrive at small sizes. (Antiques customarily have the traditional ‘two-story’ forms of a and g, and a capital R that ends in a flourish.) Our Ziggurat typeface is an example of the Antique style in full flower, capturing the best of what the style has to o er: it’s warm, comforting, and persuasive. But this coziness comes at the expense of modernity, and in the wrong context even the best Antique can feel old-fashioned, musty, and irrelevant.