Lunatica Display is a single weight, all capitals, slanted typeface ideal for titles and headlines due to its strong presence. It is constructed in a very modular fashion, stepping away from some typographic conventions, while keeping the form of its characters familiar and easily recognisable. This typeface is heavily inspired on the aesthetics of the space related sci-fi movie genre, specifically on the movie Moon (2009), directed by Duncan Jones and starring Sam Rockwell, from where it also picks up the inspiration for the name “Lunatica”. It was first designed as a branding exercise, thought to be the official typeface of Lunar Industries Ltd. — the company through wich the movie exists and unfolds. You can use Lunatica Display in more conventional contexts like branding but also in more experimental and futuristic-looking ways.

A creative context 2003. Fontsmith was sharing a small, cold, whitewashed studio space in Northburgh Street, Clerkenwell. But things were on the up following prestigious custom type commissions for The Post Office and E4. “Slab serifs were on the brink of another revival, we could feel it,” says Jason Smith. “All we wanted to do was have a play with these slabs, go as far as we could within what was acceptable and readable.” “It wasn’t initially clear what was happening,” recalls Phil Garnham. “We were becoming very influenced by our surroundings, outside the studio space. We absorbed the essence and the designer grime of where we were.” Process Jason began by drawing stems on-screen. “The key aspect of the font is the upward bend of the leading shoulder serif, the way it kind of ramps up and then plummets back down the stem. “The regular and light characters are quite narrow – great for text but the bold is quite wide and chunky – better for headlines. I think ‘y’ is quite different for a slab design. We call it the Fontsmith ‘y’.” Promotion Fontsmith were determined to get FS Clerkenwell noticed. To launch the font, Ian Whalley, a designer friend of Fontsmith, captured words heard on the streets of Clerkenwell, set them in the new font and crafted a small book of typographic conversations. It was a first for Fontsmith. “I think that’s part of why this font has been so successful,” says Phil. “It really does embody the spirit of the area, as a special place for design, arts and crafts. And designers love that.” Contemporary twist FS Clerkenwell, based on influences in and around this part of London with a rich tradition of printing and design, mixes tradition with creation. Old-fashioned values meet new-school trends. Its quirky, contemporary character lends an edge to headlines, logotypes and any large-size text.

Mancunium is a sans serif family with a contemporary monolinear character, though designed with the iconic proportions of Roman capitals in mind. In addition to reliable romans, the typeface includes proper, optically corrected italics. Also, uniquely, a set of ‘vertalics’ that contain the more script-like glyphs of the italics with angled stem terminals, but which are unslanted and upright in aspect, and without the slight narrowing of the italics. Each font includes a full complement of Latin Extended-A characters and additional oldstyle numerals. Mancunium is sold in two collections – a Regular/Bold package and a Light/Medium package. Each package contains six fonts - two romans, two italics, and two vertalics.

Some words from the foundry: The Pristine Light fonts are clean and crisp, sans serif, uppercase only. They were designed specifically for those applications where uppercase text is appropriate, such as display, headline, logotype, branding, and similar applications. There are numbers, punctuation, accented characters, symbols, and miscellaneous characters. For convenience the uppercase alphabet is repeated under their respective lowercase keys.