Smörgåsbord Studio created a design system for the Welsh government, including the typeface Cymru Wales Sans from Colophon.
The accompanying video lists the design principles:
- Elevate our status
- Surprise & inspire
- Change perceptions
- Do good things
- Be unmistakably Wales
Two new typefaces, designed to be deliberately lacking in expression.
The write-up of the making of the typefaces is as open and honest as the finished output. This insight into the design process rings very, very true:
Post rationalisation is an open secret in the design industry. Only when a project is finished can it be written up, the messy process is delineated and everything seems to follow a logical sequence up until the final thing is unveiled, spotless and perfect.
However, I suspect the process is largely irrational for most designers. There is a point where all the input has been processed, all the shit drawings, tenuous concepts and small ideas have been thrown away and you just work towards the finish, too exhausted and distracted to even know if it’s worth anything or not. And, if you’re lucky, someone or something will come along and validate the work.
Here’s one of them new-fangled variable fonts that’re all the rage. And this one’s designed by David Berlow. And it’s free!
Google’s Noto (short for no-tofu; tofu being the rectangle of unicode sadness) is certainly ambitious. It has glyphs from pretty much every known alphabet …including Ogham and Linear B!
I’ve always loved the way that Edward Tufte consistently uses Bembo to typeset his books. Here’s a version made for screen and freely licensed.
The history and physiology of text on screen. You can also see the slides from the talk that prompted this article.
A single page showing all the weights available from Google fonts at a glance.
The missing font generator for Mac OS X.
Very handy for subsetting fonts for the web. It doesn’t (yet) export WOFF2 unfortunately.
Many of the free fonts available from Google are pretty bad, but this site showcases how some of them can be used to great effect.
Here’s the font that Brian created at the line-mode browser hack day at CERN.
A cute approach to pairing typefaces: treat it like a dating game.
Who knew? The reissue of the classic thirteen-part Star Wars radio series was the first appearance of a proto-Proxima Nova.
A lovely new service from Mike Stenhouse: install the bookmarklet and then when you come across a website with a nice combination of fonts, you can save a snapshot of the page (and its fonts) for later perusal. You can then browse those fonts on Typekit, Fontdeck, MyFonts or Google Fonts.
A fascinating look at what happens when you mash up beauty and ugliness in one typeface.
A lovely new typeface from Nicole Dotin that’s available to purchase as a web font under the very reasonable terms of the Process license agreement.
A nice look at some rules of thumb for combining typefaces.
Here's a Kickstarter project worth supporting: fund a documentary on crafting typefaces.
Some beautiful typefaces here, gathered together for your enjoyment.
Oh, the irony! Unconstitutionally draconian French "anti-piracy" organisation uses a pirated font in its logo.