F O
T
O
A Collaborative Typeface Exploration VOLUME II
R E
F OR O
T
E
A Collaborative Typeface Exploration VOLUME II
2
Introduction
4
LL Circular
10
Prospectus
16
Gill Sans Nova
24
Druk
30
Grifo
36
Narziss
42
BureauGrot
48
GT Super Display
Bibliography 54 Contributors 56 Colophon 58
Table of Contents TYPEFACE 5
Typography, An Introduction Charmaine Martinez Associate Professor of Design and Type Enthusiast Department of Art and Design California Polytechnic State University
What is typography? Why does it matter? How does it impact our lives? The Merriam-Webster definition of “typography” is: “the work of producing printed pages from written material” or “the style, arrangement, or appearance of printed letters on a page.” How those letters, words, and sentences are styled and arranged affects how they are perceived. Good typography clarifies content, establishes hierarchy, and presents information in a manner that makes it easier to read, and, therefore, to understand. Good typography is good communication: it can start a dialog or advance an idea or make a difference in the world. Typography is also intertwined with our daily lives—we encounter type in everything from the products we buy, the signage around us, the books we read, the news we consume, and the directions we follow. Typography can be beautiful, functional, persuasive, and inviting. It can also fail, especially when there is a disconnect between how the type looks and what the text says. This book is a celebration of typography and typeface design. It is also a creative collaboration among students in Art 338: Typography II at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, during winter quarter 2020. Each student in the class researched a different typeface and contributed the pages in this book that describe and showcase their assigned typeface. The final design reflects the many talents of the students who brought this project to life.
INTRODUCTION 3
“LL Circular successfully marries purity with warmth and strikes a balance between functionality.” —Lineto
4 FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
a geometric sans serif
LL Circular is “serious, timeless, and neutral” (Shaykin). The geometric sans serif font references simple geometry with beautiful, timeless forms. Including an extensive family, LL Circular has the ability to be used in a variety of formats. The family also includes a handful of additional glyphs that play with the simple geometry of lines and dots, as well as, a set of Roman numerals. Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari extensions are currently in development. LL Circular’s forms are pleasing to the eye, even in the lightest and boldest weight. Designer Benjamin Shaykin remarks, “But oh, the lowercase ‘t’! I adore the lowercase ‘t’. The intersection of stem and crossbar is perfectly rounded, suggesting the slightest hint of Clarendon or Century. And it is this subtle softness that gives the typeface away” (Shaykin).
LL Circular is the second typeface to be released from the Swiss foundry, Lineto. LL Circular is a geometric Sans Serif font with a family of sixteen weights. LL Circular’s forms are drawn from Futura, Neuzeit Grotesk, and other 20th-century fonts. The process of developing the font began in 2008, and since has evolved from its original very geometric forms. The final version of the typeface was unveiled in 2013. The round and simple forms of the typeface are neutral without being boring, “Circular doesn’t draw attention to itself” (Shaykin). LL Circular has made appearances in Brunner’s The Most Beautiful Swiss Books series of 2007–09, the Conditional Design: Workbook, and the pages of the New York Times Magazine.
Laur Bru “Form and function always go hand in hand. I cannot arrive at a solution which is purely functional or purely formal.” —Laurenz Brunner
enz unner
Designer Biography
Laurenz Brunner is the creative behind LL Circular. It is Laurenz Brunner’s second release after his popular typeface, LL Akkurat. Brunner released the font to Lineto in 2013. Brunner got his start in type as an apprentice in Switzerland and later took on an internship in London. Brunner also worked for Tate Modern, an institution that includes a network of four art museums, under the art director James Goggin from 2002–2003. During his studies at Central Saint Martins, Brunner devloped LL Akkurat, which was published in 2004. He moved to Amsterdam in 2005 to finish his BA studies at Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Brunner also developed identities for the Paris book fair Offprint (2010), the Arnhem Mode Biennale (2011, with Julia Born), and for Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York (2011, with Geoff Han). In 2018, Brunner relocated to Zurich, where he launched Source Type.
Lineto Type Foundry Lineto was founded in 1993 by Cornel Windlin and Stephan Müller as a way for the two designers to combine their individual type creations. Lineto.com was developed and released in 1998 as a way to distribute their typefaces to the public and allow other designers to publish their fonts. The name Lineto is a term borrowed from the PostScript™ page description language. “Today, Lineto connects an illustrious group of designers from the US to Ukraine, with the youngest being 20 and the oldest 83 years old. Lineto is dedicated to the research, design, development and production of original typefaces, unique in concept, exquisite in design, and flawless in production” (Lineto).
LL CIRCULAR 7
A closer look at LL Circular The strokes on some of the letterforms, such as b, d, h, m, n, p and q, have thin to thick strokes that connect the shoulder to the stem. The letterform h as seen above, shows how these strokes vary in different weights.
8  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
LL Circular has short descenders, that keep the short, geometric shapes in tact. Overall, the letterforms have a slightly small x-height.
X-height
Descender
LL Circular is a beautiful, rounded, sans serif. Its properties are based on round, geometric, forms. Even its name, Circular, describes the unique rounded forms that mimic circles. The counters of the letter forms are perfectly circular, as are the tittles on letterform i. The only letterform that strays from these round counters is the letterform, a, which has a beautiful teardrop double story bowl.
LL CIRCULAR  9 
MEET BAILEY Dave Bailey is a typeface designer that is based in Oakland, California. Bailey designs fonts exclusively for Lost Type Co-op, Delve Fonts, and occasionally for local/small businesses that hire him. In his free time, Bailey practices sign painting for local clients and enjoys being hands on, which also inspires the digital typefaces that he creates. In 2016, Bailey enrolled in the year long certificate program in San Francisco, Type@Cooper West where he started collecting research, and planning out what would be the future type family of Prospectus. Bailey has currently designed and created seven complete typefaces but none of the typefaces are nearly as in-depth or expanded as Prospectus and are typically display types that don’t work for setting type.
10  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
PROSPECTUS 11
The terminals of the upper and lowercase C create strong triangular shapes.
INTRODUCING PROSPECTUS Created by Dave Bailey in 2011, Prospectus is a contemporary serif typeface with a large type family that includes optical sizes, which are type styles customized for viewing at different sizes. In total Prospectus has 48 different styles in its type family which allows the type to be used for everything from setting body text, posters, and sky banners. This versatile typeface is exclusively found and available on Lost Type Co-op.
italics
Even the italic characters maintain a fairly rigged shape that compliments the vertical stress of standard characters.
The tail of the uppercase Q is angled straight out but does not exceed the length of the descenders.
THE STORY BEHIND PROSPECTUS Prospectus was heavily influenced by Imperial Roman letter forms that originated during the rise of the Roman Empire; these letter forms were capitals carved in stone (Cheney). Prospectus loosely translates to “look forward,” and does exactly that by drawing its triangular shaped serifs from Tarajan Column rubbing by Ed Catich, and beautifully balances its italic type with inspiration from the 20th century Czech calligrapher, Oldřich Menhart. Prospectus takes historical influences and brings them into the digital world of type with a wide range of fully functional styles that don’t deviate from its historical aesthetic. The practice of metal type setting paid close attention to minute details in a type’s design to accommodate different optical sizes. However, “as type designs were digitized, optical size compensation has sadly become uncommon. Prospectus would adhere to an attention to detail more common in the past, and more suitable for today’s typesetting,” (Cheney). With regards to being widely versatile for all type setting needs, Prospectus can support over 200 Latinbased languages so, “when the time comes, Prospectus will be there to enhance the balance and sophistication of your layouts,” (Cheney).
PROSPECTUS 13
The lowercase Y has an arm that crosses over the stem to create an exaggerated triangle.
The stress of the O is vertical because of its strong Roman letterform influence.
Prospectus is divided into four optical sizes: Prospectus Small, Prospectus Medium, Prospectus Large and Prospectus X-Large. Each group within the Prospectus type family has a full range in weights, as well as small caps, special ligatures, old style numerals, and italics. The Prospectus typeface has noticeable calligraphic influence, and smooth brackets that vary between the four optical sizes. All characters feature a very distinct triangular shape that plays within each character; “versatile and full of potential, this triangular form would become a core piece of this new family,” (Cheney).
14 FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
The arm of the lowercase K is a perfect triangle the extends from the leg not the stem.
WHEN TO USE PROSPECTUS Prospectus Small: functions best between 6 – 14pts, perfect for body copy and stays within the aesthetic of the Prospectus family with minimal contrast to create an easy flow while reading but with a fresh take on classic serif typefaces. Prospectus Medium: functions best between 14 – 60pts, perfect for headers or small amounts of text that need to be emphasized to create beautiful and interesting typographic color within large areas of body copy. Prospectus Medium has slightly more contrast than Prospectus Small. Prospectus Large: functions best between 60 – 100pts, perfect for full spread titles, posters, etc. Lots of contrast within its characters with fluctuating stroke weights seen in all crossbars, and several legs of characters. Prospectus X-Large: built for any type above 100pts, perfect for posters, environmental design and skywritings. In this style, every interesting graphic detail is pushed to the extreme with high contrast in stroke weight and texture while maintaining its sharp crisp angles made by the repeating triangular shape.
PROSPECTUS 15
Gill Sans Nova.
The Story History Gill Sans Nova is an evolved version of Gill Sans. Eric Gill was inspired by his mentor Edward Johnston’s signage for the London Underground and Stanley Morison saw the possibilities for a new sans serif typeface. He commissioned Gill to design a new typeface. George Ryan created Gill Sans Nova for Monotype in 2014. The redesign was done to make a version of Gill Sans that is suitable for print and digital applications. The original was only suited for print because it was made in 1928 and the internet and UI/UX was not invented yet. Similar to Gill Sans, Gill Sans Nova is based on classic roman letterforms making it extremely legible. The typeface has more stroke contrast than its competition to make it more legible. These characteristics make it better for designers to use Gill Sans Nova for digital applications. Ryan grew the family from 18 to 43 different weights and styles, 33 of which are available on Adobe Fonts. Along with many different weights and styles, new characters and glyphs have been added that support most European languages. Opentype features provide alternatives to a variety of letters, smallcaps, ligatures, and new characters from the redesign. Essentially, Ryan evolved Gill Sans into something more useful for graphic designers today. It can be used in such a wide variety of applications because of how extensive the family is. With 43 different weights, it is easy to set anything in Gill Sans Nova.
George Ryan designed Gill Sans Nova. He was born in Rockville Centre, New York in 1950. Ryan got his start in his late twenties when he way an ad for “letter drawers” at Linotype. This was a start to a long and fruitful career in typography. He has done work for Linotype, Bitstream,
GILL SANS NOVA 17
Description Gill Sans Nova is a redesign of the infamous Gill Sans. This typeface is a humanist sans serif, meaning it has no serifs and the letters do not have perfect form, making them more “human�. This typeface has a large family making it applicable to nearly all applications of design. Because of its versatility, Gill Sans Nova is used by designers all over the world in an unfathomable amount of ways. The redesign of Gill Sans has created a typeface that brought the original into the modern world. Gill Sans Nova is an amazing typeface that we will use for the close and distant future.
d
b Monotype
The Monotype type foundry was founded in 1887 and has produced some of the world’s most popular fonts including Times New Roman, Gill Sans, and Helvetica. Today, Monotype has over 10,00 different typefaces to its name and is partnered with Google. They release new, innovative, and beautiful typefaces each year and will continue to do so into the future.
George Ryan George Ryan was born in Rockville Centre, New York in 1950. Ryan got his start in his late twenties when he saw an ad for “letter drawers” at Linotype. This was a start to a long and fruitful career in typography. He has done work for Linotype, Bitstream, Galapagos, and currently works for Monotype.
GILL SANS NOVA 19
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Anatomy
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Characteristics Gill Sans Nova is a humanist sans serif typeface with an extremely large family. There are 43 different weights, from condensed ultralight to ultra-bold. The italic versions of Gill Sans Nova are significantly different from their upright counter-parts. As a designer, this is very useful when trying to create contrast. A great example of this would be the lowercase ‘a’. The normal version of the lowercase ‘ ’ is a double story letterform in contrast to the italic version which is a single story ‘ ’. Gill Sans Nova has a tall x-height, short ascenders and descenders, and the cap line is the same as the ascender line. This typeface has little variation of stroke contrast until you get to the bolder weights, but still has enough in the lighter weights for legibility. The terminals of this typeface are sharp. Also, the lowercase t’s crossbar and top are connected to create an interesting angle in weights from medium up.
a
a
The ultra-bold weight is when this typeface starts to become truly unique. The insanely thick strokes of this weight causes the counters to be very small and strangle looking. The tittles of the lowercase ‘j’ and ‘i’ become small and aligned to the right side. It feels like the dots are going to fall into the curved top of the letter-form and roll back and forth. This is why I love this typeface. It challenges what we can do with the dots of our letters. Type is flat and still on the page, but these letters feel like they are alive. They have personality, attitude, and movement. This is not just another anonymous sans serif, this is Gill Sans Nova.
t
GILL SANS NOVA 21
j
Charmaine Martinez “It’s like a meatball.”
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
Weights.
g GILL SANS NOVA 23
Druk
A STUDY IN
EXTREMES
Pushing Boundaries Druk can be described as a study of extremes due to its incredibly different variations in proportion. The sans serif display typeface was purposely designed without a normal width, intended to be used as heavy and condensed or heavy and wide. Published by the Commercial Type foundry, it currently has the narrowest, widest, and heaviest typefaces in the Commercial Type library. The lightest weight of Druk is medium and it progresses up to the weight of super. The typeface contains 38 styles and 5 families which were developed to give designers more creative freedom with their typography. This typeface is commonly used with the wide and condensed weights next to each other, creating a dramatic contrast of letterforms. Druk strives to push the boundaries of type, posing the question, “how extreme can you go?”.
‘‘
Druk was inspired by the condensed sans serif letterforms offered by various European type foundries in the 20th century. These letters had flat sides that were typically used for tightly-set headlines. This style of type was most renowned in Germany and Switzerland and became predominant as headline typography in magazines during the 1960s. The most notable example was Twen, a German magazine known for its cutting-edge design and typography. Berton Hasebe was inspired by these old letterforms and based Druk on the rough attitude of these typefaces. In 2014, Hasebe designed Druk for Bloomberg Businessweek, an American weekly business magazine. The magazine had been using Neue Haas Grotesk and Publico for the previous two years and was looking to implement
—Ilya Ruderma
‘‘
Druk’s Inspiration
WHEN YOU LOOK AT DRUK YOU SEE STRONG DECISIONS; BOLDNESS
a new and unique typeface. Druk proceeded to become the iconic headline for many of Bloomberg Businessweek’s covers. The typeface has had continued success after its release and has even been used in the opening credits for Saturday Night Live. When designing Druk Wide, Hasebe was inspired by the immensely wide and heavy grotesque letterforms of the 20th century in Europe. Hasebe was particularly influenced by the bold, wide typeface known as Annonce Grotesk which was used in catalogs for
DRUK 25
the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam during the 1950s and 1960s. Shortly after Druk Wide was created, Bloomberg Businessweek was able to put it to use to add versatility and strong typographic hierarchy to their magazines.
Druk Condensed is the type family most based on the headline type from Twen magazine. When designing the condensed weight, Hasebe made sure the terminals and crossbars didn’t line up too often on the horizontal axis. This was to accentuate the verticality of the letters and to reduce monotony for words and headlines. In 2015, Hasebe added the families Druk Text and Druk Text Wide to the collection. These were designed with tabular figures, making the letterforms optimal for smaller text sizes. Unlike the other Druk families, Druk Text and Druk Text Wide remain legible as low as 6pt.
Berton Hasebe
Commercial Type
Berton Hasebe obtained his bachelor’s degree in graphic design from Otis College of Art and Design in 2005, and went on to study type design through the Type and Media Masters course at The Royal Academy of Art in the Hague (KABK). He worked at Commercial Type from 2008-2013, creating typefaces for retail along with custom typefaces for clients such as Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times, Nike, and Wallpaper. In addition to Druk, Hasebe created the typefaces Styrene, Portrait, Platform, and Alda. He has received awards for his work by ATypI, BRNO Biennale, TDC, and Tokyo TDC.
Commercial Type is a foundry based in New York and London, founded by Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz in 2007. The foundry produces fonts designed by Barnes and Schwartz, their staff, and other collaborators. Along with Druk, Commercial Type has produced typefaces such as Atlas, Guardian Egyptian, Darby Sans, and Neue Haas Grotesk. In 2019, Commercial Type launched Commercial Classics in order to revive historical typefaces. Their first releases of this project concentrated on typefaces created during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the British Isles.
26 FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
R
DESIGNED WITHOUT A SET WIDTH
Visual Characteristics Druk is known for having profoundly extreme proportions, especially evident in the wide and condensed weights. The typeface family has a low thick-to-thin stroke contrast and a vertical stress. As the weights become heavier, the thick-to-thin stroke contrast increases. While the various weights appear drastically different, the proportions of the x-height, ascenders and descenders remain unified. The letterforms are at an upright posture and feature sharp, blunt terminals. The sides of the letterforms have particularly flat qualities, allowing them to work seamlessly with tight spacing. Even in the wide weight, the lowercase letterforms all have relatively small crossbars. The shapes of the lowercase letters are very compact, such as the ‘a’ and ‘e’. The letterforms display inspiration from grotesque-style typefaces; however, the curved letterforms such as the ‘c’ and ‘e’ end horizontally rather than at an angle. The Druk family provides several glyphs including the ligature for ‘ff’.
Daring Druk Wide has a tall x-height with shorter ascenders and descenders. The letterforms have an accentuated broad appearance, making the typeface ideal for headlines. Along with the wide weight, Druk Narrow has a tall x-height with shorter ascenders and descenders. The letterforms emphasize the vertical qualities to the typeface and have unique apertures that are incredibly narrow. The Druk Text family is wider than Druk and sets looser as well. The proportions of the apertures are more open to ensure legibility at smaller sizes. Druk Text Wide is narrower and lighter in weight compared to Druk Wide as well as having shorter terminals and more open apertures.
DRUK 29
Grifo Introduction The typeface Grifo was designed by Rui Abreu in 2016. The distinct look and feel of Grifo relates to the Portuguese translation of “grifo” which means the word “griffin”. A griffin is a mythological creature that is half-eagle (the head, the talons, and the wings) and half-lion (the body). These characteristics directly correlate with the look and feel of this typeface. These talon-like shapes are especially visible in the characters c, e, and t when looking at the bottom terminal of the characters. This typeface was a redesign of a typeface named Catacumba designed by Rui in 2008. Catacumba was a Victorian style typeface that was inspired by inscriptions in church catacombs located in Porto, Portugal. During Rui’s process of the redesign he states, “Eventually, letters transitioned from being hand-drawn, to being cut with a scalpel” (Abreu, ilovetypography.com). This use of scalpellike cuts promoted a more geometric, sleek font-family in comparison to the more hand-drawn and loose feeling that Catacumba possessed.
30 FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
Who is Rui Abreu? Rui Abreu is an accredited type designer and owner of R-Typography Type Foundry. In Rui’s student years he studied Communications and Graphic Design in Porto, Portugal at Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto. Although Communication and Graphic Design were his main focuses within school, he also found a love for type design. Now, Rui is living in Lisbon, Portugal creating custom fonts for professional clientele. These custom fonts can be found on his type foundry website, r-typography.com.
Typeface Description
Grifo is a beautiful typeface that was released in 2016 primarily for editorial design. Grifo is very distinct due to its high stroke contrast along with its sharp, geometric terminals and bracketed serifs. This typeface comes in three optical sizes: S, M, and L 1. Grifo L is used for display 2. Grifo M is used for titles and subheads 3. Grifo S is used for body text
32 FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
Each size has 5 different weights, including italics in each weight as well. These weight are classified as light, regular, medium, bold, and black. This typeface is not only a bold choice when designing, but an economic choice as well. Rui Abreu, typeface designer of Grifo, specifically designed this typeface to make a beautiful display, but also save an optimal amount of space. This was made possible bythe design choice of using hairline strokes, which then enabled a very open feel for the counters of the letters.
1.
2. 3. GRIFO 33
The Breakdown
34  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
Some of the standout letters within this type family are the lowercase, double-story g and the lowercase y. The lowercase g has a distinct ear that embodies the triangular terminal shapes, along with a sharp slice at the connecting point of lower bowl. The lowercase y has a blunt slice at the crotch, and then connects to a swinging tail that also has a blunt terminal.
The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art Designed by Pentagram
When analyzing Grifo as a typeface, there are many subtle distinctions between the individual letter characters that demonstrate its economic properties. For example, the cap line and the ascender line are at the same height, and the descender line is a little shorter than the ascender line, thus, saving room above and below the typeface. When it comes to the space between letters, Rui altered some of the commonly used letters to save space. The bracketed serifs of the lowercase l, d, and u are shaved off to create a straight line and a blunt terminal, so that other letters are able to sit closer without crowding the letter form. The last aspect of this typeface that adds to its economic qualities is the optical axis used throughout the type family. This optical axis is adjusted per letter to use the optimal amount of space when typeset. Other distinctions within this typeface are its hairline strokes, which contribute to the overall high stroke contrast of the typeface. This contrast is also emphasized within the horizontal cuts that are executed on the mean line and the base line.
Cap Height & Ascender Line Mean Line
Base Line Descender Line
NARZISS: NARZISS: An award display font font An awardwinning winning display
36  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
Narziss is a Neoclassic typeface that was created in 2009 by Hubert Jocham. It features Regular, Drop, and Swirl styles, and is available in 5 weights that range from Regular to Ultrabold. Narziss is elegantly designed with a large stroke contrast, featuring hairline strokes and rounded terminals. Narziss contains tabular and old style numbers, as well as traditional and stylistic ligatures. It is designed to be viewed at a large scale, which makes it an appropriate display text for logo designs, headers, brochures, cards, posters, and package designs. Narziss was designed after Jocham created the Mommie typeface, which features ball terminals and a high contrasting stroke weight, but is designed as a script font. Narziss is a serif alternative. This font also allowed Jocham to experiment more with decorative swashes,
swirls, and ornaments. This typeface is the only one of Jocham’s to have additional Cyrillic encoding, which allows it to be used in various Eurasian languages. Though Jocham designed the font family to be used as display type, it has gained such popularity that he is currently working on designing a version that is suitable for body copy. According to Jocham, “the Narziss-Drops has got some unique characters with drops that are not usually there. The spencerian swashes of Narziss-Swirls grow out of the existing strokes and overlap with the next characters,” which is what allows the typeface to transition seamlessly from Regular to Swirl. In 2010, Narziss was awarded the Certificate of Excellence in Type Design by the Type Directors Club.
TYPEFACE 37
The Designer: HUBERT JOCHAM Hubert Jocham The Typeface Designer
Hubert Jocham is a German typeface designer. As a youth, he studied graphic design in both Germany and England, and learned technical skills from working in a print shop that used lead type. He focused his studies on the use of italic fonts in the Renaissance Era, which proved to be useful for him in understanding stroke relationships between different styles and weights. In 1998 he began working in England for Henrion, Ludlow and Schmidt in corporate branding. During his time there, he developed logotypes, brandmarks, and standards manuals for international companies. Today he is a freelance designer and started his own type
foundry in 2007, called Hubert Jocham Type. Hubert Jocham has designed over 150 fonts, many of which are available to purchase on his website. The fonts can be bought as individual styles or weights, or the entire family can be purchased for a discounted price. Jocham has won four awards from the Type Directors Club. He takes pride in having a strong rapport with his clientele and works directly with them to create their perfect typeface. He has done work for Enterprise, Interbrand, GQ, Tiffany, Adidas and Vogue. He has the majority of his clients in Germany, London, and the United States.
NARZISS  39 
Dissecting Narziss One of the first visual takeaways from this font is the high thick to thin stroke contrast. It goes from hairline strokes to having thick strokes in the same letterform, with a contrast more dramatic than Didot. This becomes apparent as the weight of the font changes, as the hairline serifs stay the same while the larger stroke thickens. It is a serif font, with beak terminals in the Regular style and rounded terminals in the Drop and Swirl styles.
It has a relatively high X height, with short ascenders, descenders, and cap heights. The height of the ascenders and descenders increases when the font is used in the Swirl style. It has wide letterforms with small character spacing. This font contains ligatures.
The decorative elements used in the Swirl style come from existing strokes on each character and are designed to overlap with the characters next to it.
40  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
This font contains both old style (non-lining) numbers as well as tabular (lining) numbers.
There is a flat apex on the capital A. In both the capital and lowercase K, the leg juts out from the arm, instead of the stem. The capital O is oval shaped with a vertical stress. The capital R has a swash leg. Lowercase letterforms a, c, e, p, and d have large counters and apertures.
This font contains a double story lowercase g. The capital Q has a vertical stress with a swash-like tail.
There are slight distinctions in the design of the lowercase p, q, d, and b, which makes it more user friendly for people with dyslexia. However, there is little distinction between the lowercase l, capital I, and number 1, which could lead to some confusion with reading.
NARZISS  41 
by The Font Bureau
BUREAU GROT is a tough, editorial-based grotesque sans serif typeface created by David Berlow based off British grotesque typefaces from the nineteenth century. It has an extensive family with 27 styles ranging from Extra Compressed to Ultra Black, ideal for headlines and display text. It was released under Font Bureau, a Massachusetts foundry founded by Roger Black and David Berlow, who specialize in type for magazine and newspaper publishers.
42  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
All 27 styles of Bureau Grot
typeface story BUREAU GROT was created based off a specimen of type titled Grotesque from British type foundry, Stephenson Blake. Stephenson Blake’s grotesque faces came in a variety of weights which were first created in the late 19th century. Blake Stephenson’s intention was to create a clean, straightforward, and non-decorative series of sans serif typefaces. They became popular in British commercial printing in the metal type era, which birthed a resurgence of “industrial” sans-serifs around the 1950s.
Flash forward to the late twentieth century and David Berlow found himself bringing the character and grit of Grotesque to a new digital format, in the form of Bureau Grotesque. The current family was created in 1989 and further weights were designed by Berlow for the launches of Entertainment Weekly and the Madrid daily El Sol, bringing the total to twelve styles by 1993.
TOP Grotesque no. 8 On a metal type specimen sheet from the late 19th century RIGHT Entertainment Weekly cover from April 1992 typset in Bureau Grot.
In 2006, Jill Pichotta, Christian Schwartz, and Richard Lipton rounded it out into a series of 27 styles. With its narrow and wide styles, Bureau Grot is an ideal headline face for compact columns and large display typography. The lighter weights of the normal and wide styles were designed to be scaled all the way to 14px.
designer bio
DAVID BERLOW studied in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin where he discovered his passion for typography. Berlow began as a type designer in the 1970’s at a time where analog type was becoming obsolete, putting Berlow at the forefront of the first ever digital type designers. He applied his passion for typography at several acclaimed foundries such as Linotype and Haas in the late 70’s, but it was in the 80’s where Berlow began making fonts in an entirely new fashion with Linotype. Shortly after this, Berlow was introduced to the Macintosh 2 from Apple where he made he made his first custom digital typeface for Roger Black.
When Berlow started Font Bureau, he created a comprehensive guide for his team of designers to ensure the attention to detail that brought Berlow to his mastery of typography. Font Bureau continues to be one of leading foundries for typeface design. The Font Bureau, Inc. is a digital type foundry started in 1989 by Roger Black and David Berlow, based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a digital type studio specializing in designing custom typefaces for large publication companies such as The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Esquire Magazine, Rolling Stone and the Wall Street Journal .
“I opened up a drawer full of metal type and it sang to me.” David Berlow TYPEFACE DESIGNER
BUREAU GROT 45
visual analysis BUREAU GROT is characterized as a traditional grotesque sans-serif typeface. It consists of folded up letterforms with a strong structure, leaning towards headlines and titles more so than body copy. Bureau Grot is characterized with a moderate to high stroke contrast and a tall x-height accompanied by short ascenders and descenders. The intense contrast and variety in weights makes Bureau Grot one of the most versatile display/headline typefaces on the market. EAR MIMICS A PRIME MARK
ULTRA WIDE
STANDARD WEIGHT
CONDENSED
ULTRA COMPRESSED 46  FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
HIGH STROKE CONTRAST VERTICAL STRESS
ELONGATED DROOP INWARD FACING TERMINAL
TAPERED TERMINAL
BERLOW injected the same character from the 19th century British grotesques with aspects such as an elongated droop on the lowercase ‘r’ as well as inward facing terminals that appear on a large portion of characters. Other distinctive characteristics of Bureau Grot include a tapered terminal that reaches a narrow point on characters such as the lowercase ‘q’ and lowercase ‘b’, and the uppercase ‘G’.
The ear on the lowercase ‘g’ is also unique, with a shape similar to a prime mark or apostrophe. These are just a few of the unique characteristics that provide Bureau Grot with the personality it carries throughout digital and print fomats. t
GT Super Display Designed By NoĂŤl Leu
S
S
The newspaper clipping that started it all!
The Story Overview GT Super is a high contrast serif type family. There is a text subfamily with slightly lower contrast and ink-traps to make it more legible at smaller sizes, as well as a display subfamily with high contrast and sharper serifs. Each subfamily has 5 weights, each with their own set of italics, creating a total of 20 styles within the type family. The display subfamily weights are light, regular, medium, bold, and super. The light and super weights of the display subfamily offer a broader range of extremes for being set at larger sizes. The goal in designing this typeface was to create a type family, inspired by the expressive display typefaces of the 1970s and ’80s, but with a broader range of weights and usages (body text and display text). (GT Super.)
GT Super Display was developed after an extensive study of display serif typefaces from the 1970s and ’80s. It all started with the lower case a from a newspaper clipping that Swiss designer Urs Lehni showed to Noël Leu (see above). “With pointed terminals instead of the usual serif at the top, Noël began drawing the typeface. This idea of opulent curves and a constant flow was carried throughout the entire design.” (GT Super.) The designers found out that the typeface used in this advertisement was some version of Perpetua Super, which is where the name GT Super originated. Trooper Roman, designed by Dave Trooper in the late ’60s, was also another influence in the design of GT Super. This can be seen very clearly in the alternate versions of the lowercase g, y, and a. (GT Super.) Times Modern, with it’s tall x-height and shorter descenders, specifically inspired the proportions for the display subfamily of GT Super. These characteristics allow for extremely tight leading in titling. (GT Super.)
GT SUPER DISPLAY 49
Noël Leu
Lucerne, Switzerland
50 FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE
Gri Typ
Noël Leu GT Super was designed by Noël Leu in 2018 with help from Mirco Schiavone & Reto Moser. Along with working at Grilli Type, Noël Leu travels across East Asia, North America, and Europe doing design workshops and lectures.
“I still don’t like so much the notion of graphic design being just a manager of content, I feel that as a graphic designer you can also be a creator of content and if you don’t learn how to design typefaces you’re always dependent on using someone else’s typeface without really properly understanding it.” — Noël Leu
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Grilli Type Grilli Type is an independent type foundry that was founded by Noël Leu and Thierry Blancpain in 2009. The rest of their team consists of Reto Moser, Lind Haugaard, and Tobias Rechsteiner. They also collaborate with other designers, artists, and developers such as Josh Schaub, Pieter Pelgrims, Refurnished+, XXIX, and David Elsener. The foundry creates both custom typefaces and retail typefaces available for purchase on their website. They are based out of Lucerne, Switzerland. (“Information.”) Their customers include the Swiss government, GQ Magazine, Google, New York City’s promotional organization NYC & Company, and agencies like Sid Lee, Wolff Olins, and Arnold Worldwide. (Hassell, Lisa.)
GT SUPER DISPLAY 51
GT Super
Display The Design The design began with the super weight of the display subfamily. Due to its roots in display typefaces of the 1970s and ’80s, the designers took an unique route and based the text subfamily off of the display letter forms. The lower case a of GT Super Display is a particularly unique character. Instead of the typical serif, the letter has pointed terminals, allowing for one swift stroke from nose to tail. The entire form has a swooping, almost gestural quality. Additionally, there is very high contrast, which can be seen clearly in the bowl, tapering off at the start and end of the stroke. The entire typeface family was based off of this letter form and its “expressive and idiosyncratic nature of calligraphic motions, compelled into stable, typographic shapes.” (GT Super.)
The Italics The italics do not follow many historical models and take their inspiration from broad-nib pen calligraphy. The italics “compel the rhythm and speed of handwriting into typographic form.” (GT Super.)
aa
The Flow The fluid, calligraphic nature of the lower case a is also very evident in the uppercase letter forms, especially curved ones such as S and C. Instead of the flow being interrupted by a serif, the stroke ends in a smooth, curved point. When there is a serif, it is very gradual to minimize the disruption of the stroke.
CK
I love type. The stress is horizontal, which maintains the structural integrity of the letters.
The display subfamily also has a very tall x-height, and short descenders & ascenders.
GGGGG GGGGG
Weights: Light Regular Medium Bold Super
GT SUPER DISPLAY  53 
LL Circular Lineto.com, lineto.com/typefaces/circular. Shaykin, Benjamin, et al. “LL Circular.” Typographica, 11 Mar. 2014, typographica.org/ typeface-reviews/ll-circular/. “Digital Strategies in Genre Defining-Magazines: Interview with Laurenz Brunner.” Digital Strategies in Genre Defining-Magazines | Interview with Laurenz Brunner, 20 July 2015, digital-strategies.ma-ad.ch/interview/interview-laurenz-brunner/.
Prospectus Bailey, Dave. Dave Bailey: Letter-Centric Design. Dave Bailey | Letter-Centric Design, davebailey.xyz/. Accessed 09 March 2020. Cheney, Danelle. The Making of Prospectus. Prospectus, A New Typeface from Lost Type. Lost Type, prospectus.losttype.com/. Accessed 09 March 2020.
Gill Sans Nova “Gill Sans® Nova Font Family Typeface Story.” Fonts.com, www.fonts.com/font/ monotype/gill-sans-nova/story. “The Eric Gill Series.” Monotype, www.monotype.com/fonts/gill-sans-nova. “Monotype: Most Innovative Company.” Fast Company, 1 Jan. 2000, www.fastcompany. com/company/monotype.
Druk “Druk Collection.” Commercial Type, http://www.commercialtype.com/catalog/druk, Accessed March 3, 2020. Hardwig, Florian, et al. “Druk in Use.” Fonts in Use, http://www.fontsinuse.com/typefaces/7304/druk, Accessed March 3, 2020. Hasebe, Berton. Berton Hasebe, http://www.www.bertonhasebe.com/, Accessed March 3, 2020. Type.today, 2014, http://www.type.today/en/druk, Accessed March 3, 2020. Raposo, Tânia. “Druk.” Typographica, Mar. 2019, http://www.typographica.org/typeface-reviews/druk/, Accessed March 3, 2020. Shoaf, Jeremiah. “Druk Font Combinations & Free Alternatives–Typewolf.” Typewolf, http://www.typewolf.com/site-of-the-day/fonts/druk, Accessed March 3, 2020.
Grifo Abreu, Rui. “Grifo.” R-Typography, 2020, r-typography.com/10_grifo/. Abreu, Rui. “Grifo.” Vimeo, 28 Feb. 2020, vimeo.com/160855252. Abreu, Rui. “Making Grifo.” I Love Typography, 14 June 2016, ilovetypography. com/2016/06/14/making-fonts-designing-grifo/. “Rui Abreu: Adobe Fonts.” Adobe Fonts, fonts.adobe.com/foundries/rui-abreu. “Rui Abreu.” Myfonts, www.myfonts.com/foundry/Rui_Abreu/.
Narziss Jocham, Hubert. “Hubert Jocham on Behance.” Behance, Adobe, 2014, www.behance. net/hubertjocham. Accessed 3 March 2020. Jocham, Hubert. “Me.” Hubert Jocham, 2009, https://www.hubertjocham.de/me/. Accessed 3 March 2020. Jocham, Hubert. “Narziss Display.” Hubert Jocham, 2009, www.hubertjocham.de/shop/ type/display/Narziss/. Accessed 3 March 2020.
Bureau Grot Black, Roger. “Making Type.” David Berlow, 2014, davidberlow.fontbureau.com/. Typedia. Typedia, typedia.com/explore/typeface/bureau-grotesque/. “Type Network.” Font Bureau on Type Network, 2020, fontbureau.typenetwork.com/.
GT Super Display GT Super. Grilli Type, 2018, www.gt-super.com. “Information.” Grilli Type. www.grillitype.com/information. Hassell, Lisa. “Swiss Graphic Designer and Grilli Type Cofounder Noël Leu.” Inkygoodness, Inkygoodness, 2019, inkygoodness.com/features/grilli-type-cofounder-noel-leu/.
Bibliography
Mady McNeill Abigail Tate Runar Schmidt
Cayley Nickerson Shahla Prouty Mia Scibelli Noah Sharp Adi Saaf
LL Circular Prospectus Gill Sans Nova
Druk Grifo Narziss Bureau Grot GT Super Display
Contributors TYPEFACE 57
Designed by Shahla Prouty A collaborative project with the Cal Poly students of Typography II during Winter Quarter of 2020. Typeset in: Barlow
