A sign of something better When designer Stuart de Rozario surveyed the fonts used in signage on London’s public transport systems, he reached a dead end. They seemed staid, sterile, lacking in personality, and ill-suited to use by modern brands. He was pointed in another direction entirely. ‘The driving force behind my thoughts was to design something more current and fresh without compromising legibility and clarity. A font with both personality and function, that’s versatile and large and small sizes, and effortless to read, but which also says something new.’ Speed reading Late for a meeting and can’t find your way? Trying to catch a flight? Lost in a hospital? Reading signs is a different business to reading a book or a newspaper. Text on signs needs to be deciphered quickly and effortlessly. So the legibility criteria for signage letterforms are different to those for normal reading, too. Throughout FS Millbank’s uppercase and lowercase alphabets, characters have been given features for extra definition, including: wide ink traps on the A, K, M, V, W, X and Y; a serifed i, accentuated spurs on the a, d, l u; and different x-height shapes on the b, g, p and q. Distinctive forms and generous, open internal shapes all help the quick reading of sign text, and wide, open terminals and counters allow similar letter shapes to be distinguished easily when viewed at different angles. Running down a corridor, maybe... Positive/negative Standard type tends to glow on the kind of dark backgrounds often used for signage, and look heavier than its true weight. To correct the imbalance caused by this optical trick, special weights of the typeface have to be drawn for these ‘negative’, light-on-dark applications. These are lighter than their comparable positive weights to overcome the ‘glow’ effect. After extensive tests of the negative weights, at all sizes, we achieved the right optical balance. Glowing, glowing, gone. Icons This wouldn’t be a signage typeface without its own set of icons, or symbols, to help people find what they’re looking for. So, to sit alongside the positive and negative fonts, we’ve created a comprehensive set of 172 icons, covering a wide range of applications from transport and user interface to information and directional. Designed within the typeface capital height, they sit on the baseline and are spaced centrally.

The Joanna® Sans Nova family is the only typeface in the Eric Gill Series that was not initially designed by Gill. Created by Monotype Studio designer Terrance Weinzierl over a three-year period with digital applications at the forefront of the design criteria, Joanna Sans Nova is a humanist sans serif based primarily on Gill’s original Joanna. The design comprises 16 fonts, from thin to black, each with a complementary italic. Joanna Sans Nova has a larger x-height to ensure high levels of legibility – even on small digital screens. Due to its inherent humanist proportions, Joanna Sans Nova is surprisingly comfortable for longer form reading. Its low contrast in character stroke weights also improves imaging in a variety of environments. In addition, the calligraphic and fluid details enable the roman and italic designs to shine in headlines and other display uses. Joanna Sans features a robust range of OpenType features for fine typography, including small caps, old style figures, proportional figures, ligatures, superscript and subscript figures and support for fractions. With over 1000 glyphs per font, Joanna Sans supports more than 50 languages – in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. “I've always been a fan of Gill’s work, explains Weinzierl, and found the simple, humanist qualities of Joanna really fitting for a sans serif design. I wanted to make something with Gill flavor, but with more harmony in the extreme weights than Gill Sans – and with my twist on it. I went through six or seven different italic designs before landing on the current direction.” “The original Joanna had a very distinct italic, Weinzierl continues. “It’s very condensed, and has a very shallow angle. I wanted to have an italic that stood out, but in a different way. I took a cursive direction for the italic details, which are wider and slanted more, both improving character legibility.” The Joanna Sans Nova typeface family is part of the new Eric Gill series, drawing on Monotype’s heritage to remaster and expand and revitalize Eric Gill’s body of work, with more weights, more characters and more languages to meet a wide range of design requirements. The series also brings to life new elements inspired by some of Gill’s unreleased work, discovered in Monotype’s archive of original typeface drawings and materials of the last century.

At VetteLetters we like food but we also appreciate our drinks. Yes, of the non-alcoholic kind as well. Like milk. Contrary to what Arnold Schwartzenegger once said, Milk is not just for babies. It contains a whole lot of stuff that is genuinely good for you. Like proteins, carbohydrates, minerals (calcium a.o.) and many vitamins. One time visiting The Hague, Donald DBXL spotted a tile tableau on a brick wall, advertising a dairy factory called ‘De Sierkan’. Yellow sans serif letters on a bright blue background, dating back to the late 19th century, immediately grabbed DBXL’s attention. Especially because the tableau showed both regular and bold letters with some lovely peculiarities here and there. De Sierkan appeared to have been a milk factory solely operating in The Hague from 1879 until 1961. A number of these wall adverts are still to be seen in The Hague streets today. Photos were taken for later reference. Later is now, the lettering has been digitized, missing characters added, and VLNL Melk sees the light of day. VLNL Melk is an all-caps geometric display sans serif family of three weights, Regular, Bold and Black. The basic shape of the letters is a rectangle with rounded corners, leaving a sturdy no-nonsense look and feel. It has a distinct historic aura, but with both feet in this digital day and age. It can equally well be used for the logo of a hipster coffee place, as the cover of a historic novel. Actually, VLNL Melk kan be applied in a wide range of designs like logos, posters, flyers, book covers and magazine headlines.

Macaroni Sans evolved from our search for an extended font family consisting of a range of weights in both uprights and obliques, with a contemporary appeal. The desired character was to be sympathetic with a range of high-tech consumer products so a friendly, soft approach was called for. The resulting mix of geometric shape, rounded terminals, subtle italic angle of just six degrees and a few quirky stroke endings met with an enthusiastic response. As its subject product line exhibits brilliant color and imagery, a style was called for that conveyed contemporary appeal and readability but would not compete with the savvy products. We arrived at a clean, modern, sociable look that would suit a broad subject field in either text, semi display or signage. Its simple lines and monoline strokes fit well with logo usage or screaming posters, enhancing letterheads or websites, for foodstuffs to autos, insurance to swimming pools, lawfirms to babyfood. Macaroni Sans is the perfect typeface for branding, logotypes, may even flatter challenging viewing conditions. Rounded types have been around (pardon the pun) for centuries; numerous examples can be seen on old wood type posters, which in a small way prompted the name: in fashion Macaroni was a term used in mid-eighteenth century Europe to describe a dandy, a chap who displayed flamboyance in dress and hairstyle and spoke outlandishly or in an effeminate manner. Hence the term macaronic verse.

Inka is the name by which the closest-ones called my partner. Inka is also the name of a text typeface – in its form very friendly and welcoming. The same way as relationships develop through the life, text typefaces develop, too. I had started the work on this typeface about the same time as I met Inka, while reaching the final output has been a long and progressive process. Inka is a modern serif typeface with wide universality in functions (various editorial usages as books, magazines, annual reports…). The concept and the scope of the complete type family are based on the principle of optical sizes of the typeface designed for the particular use of the size of typesetting. Inka consists of several drawing variations for the typesetting of small sizes (Small), text typesetting (Text), larger typesetting sizes (Title), and headlines sizes (Display). Two constructive alternatives, differing in the height of the construction of the font signs, further extend the variability of the usage of the typeface. Inka A has classical proportions ideal for book typesetting. Inka B has lower ascenders and descenders, lower uppercase glyphs and numbers. Typeface with such construction allows us to use the typesetting efficiently while using tighter leading and still looking more contemporary. Each of the font set (Display, Title, Text, Small) consists of four weights (Regular, Medium, Bold, Black), each has wide character set and a lot of OpenType features. “Inka is dedicated to Inka.”

Some 40 km north of Helsinki, surrounded by meadows and a serene Finnish lake, lies Ainola, the former home and now museum of composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). I know the place quite well, since it is only a stone’s throw away from the art school where I began my graphic design studies. We sometimes went there after classes—a beautiful walk, especially in spring, when the days were getting longer, the snow melting in the sun and the ice cracking on the lake. The composer often professed his love for this landscape and found constant inspiration in its moods, sounds and scents during different seasons. For many people, Sibelius and his music, most notably his famous symphonic poem Finlandia, are a symbol of Finland. I decided to name the typeface family I’m presenting here FinlandiaScript, because it owes its influence to both Sibelius’ manuscripts and the Finnish landscape around Ainola. The shape of letters, their poise and the rhythm they create resemble Sibelius’ handwriting without copying it. The letters form gently flowing lines of text which is legible without giving up individuality. The font family comes in three styles: FinlandiaScript, FinlandiaScript Bold and FinlandiaScript Frost. Together they are perfect for magazines, websites and brands aiming to create a personal and sincere image. While the fine details of FinlandiaScript Frost are best suitable for display sizes, FinlandiaScript and FinlandiaScript Bold work well in both headlines and texts of smaller sizes. Hundreds of ligatures give them an especially flexible appearance. The FinlandiaScript family contains Western, Central European and Extended Cyrillic character sets and supports almost 100 languages. It is best suited for Opentype savvy programs with the “standard ligatures” and “contextual alternates” features turned on.