There ’s been plenty of talk lately about why certain typefaces are good ( ortruly awful ) for our progressively screen - based reading . A new typeface by lionise typographer Tobias Frere - Jones is designed to elegantly bridge what is perceive to be a growing gap between print and digital worlds .
After avery public splitfrom longtime business pardner Jonathan Hoefler last twelvemonth , Frere - Jones has establish a novel foundry — Frere - Jones Type . His new face , Mallory , is the first he ’s develop from lettuce in two years .
Mallory actually begin innocently enough , with a thought experiment : What if there were a fount that draw evenly from both English and American type histories ? Frere - Jones himself is a kind of hybrid , as he ’s the child of both English and American parent ( Mallory is actually a family name on his father ’s side ) .
For inspiration , Frere - Jones looked at the work of some of the most illustrious character designers in chronicle . The English citation points are Edward Johnston , well make love for the hyperlegible font evolve for theLondon Underground system , and Eric Gill , recognize for the as utilitarianGill Sans . The American book of facts spot is W.A. Dwiggins , a typographer who was credit with coin the full term “ graphical designer ” back in the 1920s , and therefore made slightly more decorative ( but still useful ! ) fonts likeCaledonia . Frere - Jones notes the British influence are as “ dignified and ascetical , ” while the American side is more “ friendly and approachable . ”
Mallory — nicknamed the “ Transatlantic Sans”—actually oscillates between the two influences as well . you could see how some letterforms have a very stiff , angular geometry , and others are buxom and flowing . This make it a typeface that plays exceptionally well with others , easily move into the leading role or step aside to be the supporting actor .
In fact , this is how Frere - Jones sculpted Mallory , using the font - building software Font Lab and RoboFont as well as a entourage of custom - built tools . He ’d begin with a very tenuous , delicate version of each letter , and a thick , boisterous version , then see how far in either direction each alphabetic character could go . But as far as the free weight that finally gain ground out , it all came down to legibility at midget sizes — a fundamental component to Mallory .
The enceinte challenge facing new fount is that they ’re often being used in smaller and smaller lotion ; Frere - Jones developed one namedRetina for the Wall Street Journalto display stock selective information in 5 - peak letters . These teeny character reference have become more difficult to execute with the advent of tiny screens , where letterforms are even less forgiving . That ’s whyApple develop an entirely new typefacefor its Watch , San Francisco , which has become received for its other operating systems as well .
But for Mallory , Frere - Jones did n’t require to make one family for mark and a special one for the entanglement , as many contemporaneous type designer do . “ I did n’t desire to make a font that only had relevancy in one environment , ” he say . “ As mark and entanglement become less divided , the crossing between them becomes more frequent . It seemed like deliver one side of the divide was like building a motorcar that can only turn leave . ” And that ’s where Mallory’sMicroPluscomes in , the super - diminutive double purpose version that ’s the same for both mass medium .
There ’s been a lot of talk of the town about simpleness in character over the retiring few years . For case , Google claims thatchanging its logo from a serif to a sans seriph typefacehelps its digital practical software load faster . But something you could see easily in Mallory is that sometimes a letter ’s shape becomes more legible if it ’s slightly more complicated . This is the paint to small letterforms — the ‘ cubic decimeter ’ and the ‘ i ’ must look very unlike from each other to ready themselves aside from one another .
And that ’s another affair that Frere - Jones require to emphasize . character has evolved for hundreds of year , but one truth has remained for all those centuries : Legibility is everything . It does n’t matter if you ’re read a poster or an iPad .
“ I ’m glad people are taking more time to cogitate about what ’s more legible . I ’m hope this will help them understand that Helvetica ’s not this unvanquishable thing because it ’s actually very terrible for text , ” he articulate ( towhich I cheered ) . “ But this idea that typefaces react to what the human eye needs and how we say — that never transfer . ”
[ Frere - Jones Type ]
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