This month’s most popular fonts exude the smell of gingerbread, candles and fresh fir twigs. Not that they’re literally Christmas fonts — we have outgrown snow-covered serifs and star-topped swashes, haven’t we? But there certainly is something festive, cozy and Decemberish about this lot. Perhaps it’s just our imagination, or lack of it. What is absolutely true, however, is that each of these fonts comes from a microfoundry somewhere in this big world — a company run by just one or two hard-working independent designers who dedicate their life to the pursuit of typographic excellence. Beautiful, isn’t it?
This month’s catchword is “more”. First of all, the MyFonts website itself has been receiving some major (and rather amazing) updates, offering more and smoother ways of testing and installing fonts. Scroll down to the news section for more details. As for our Rising Stars, they are certainly not of the “Less is More” persuasion. Each offers a huge choice of options beyond the basic functions of a font — more ornaments, more swashes and ligatures; or fancy shadows and dynamic fillings for multicolored layering. Finally, this month’s recent text fonts are also rather maximalist in their approach, offering up to eight weights and lots of extra features.
Type designers (mostly the male ones) have often compared the curves of a well-drawn font to the female silhouette. Oh well, you may say, boys will be boys, and a little sensual fantasy will probably help reconcile designers to the fact that what they’re staring at for hundreds of hours are actually sterile pixels on a monitor representing unfeeling Bézier curves… But no, you’re wrong. Type designers are imaginative and sensitive people, and their relationship with those shapes on the screen can be something just as heart-felt as a painter’s love affairs with canvases, brushes and colors. Watch as the energetic, luscious and rounded shapes of this month’s Stars unfold.
Sorry, purists among you. This newsletter has turned out a little exuberant. It must have been something in the air, or perhaps it was the sheer quantity of sunlight that shone on so many of us over the past few months — the font-loving public seems to have been lusting for flourish. Most of the stars of the moment bathe in ornament and swashes. What’s true for hip-hop probably goes for typography too; you either love the bling, or you hate it. Should the latter be the case, please scroll down to our impressively serious Text Font section. We also have some great MyFonts news for screen typography addicts. Enjoy!
Clavo is the third font family from Warsaw’s Dada Studio. Its approach to the contemporary oldstyle genre is somewhat similar to Ludwig Übele’s Marat or Elena Albertoni’s Acuta (while being in no way an imitation). With its distinctive shapes, pronounced serifs and marked transitions, it has an animated energy about it that makes it stand out at display sizes. When used in smaller texts, Clavo is attractive and flexible, with proportions that are easy on the eye and help immersive reading. It comes in ten weights with matching italics, carefully adjusted for optical harmony. With a large set of numerals, small capitals, fractions and other OpenType goodies, it’s a bargain at its full price… and almost too good to be true at its current 90% discount, valid through July 28, 2013!
