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?”.

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’s Inspiration 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 WHEN YOU LOOK AT DRUK YOU SEE STRONG DECISIONS; BOLDNESS —Ilya Ruderma ‘‘ ‘‘

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

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

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.

RDESIGNED 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.