This is Ordinary. With the world slowly dragging itself out of a pandemic-heavy few years, what used to be normal is now obsolete as we all have adapted to a new normal. So should our typeface, so should sans serifs. Ordinary is, well, an extra-ordinary attempt to take a snapshot of what is ‘now’ and what separates this new millennia from designs and ideas that are more than half a century old. So, here’s our new typographic normal, our new Ordinary.
Release notes
Typeface: Ordinary
Typeface: Crave Script
Elegant, indulgent, and filled with typographic elements that creatives crave, the Crave™ typeface families explore the influences of its predecessor, Lust™ by Neil Summerour, and then deliberately departs in more refined and unexpected ways to deliver a mainstay typographic collection all creatives can use. There have been variations of Crave circulating since 2016 as part of private commissions or experimental sets, but Summerour continued to iteratively refine and expand on what might be needed now and in the future, building out robust character sets, expansive alternates, and optical sizes in hopes of providing a truly useful set of display typefaces. The three Crave optical families: Standard, Display, and Fine each include true italics, small caps, multiple numeral sets, smart ligatures, and extensive language support. The Crave Script fonts provide an over-the-top collection of alternatives, swashes, whorls, loops, all refined in Summerour’s signature style and attention to detail. The most subversive family in the collection, Crave Aura, contains three optical sizes and six weights and truly focuses on over-delivering on emerging explorative typefaces that disruptively infuse excess and voluptuous forms in unexpected ways. This level of typographic excess is what Summerour is known for, and Crave Aura raises the bar on how to responsibly and cohesively deliver on what he refers to as Neo-Nouveau typefaces by refusing to producing a singular, one-off font and instead delivering an expansive family to bolster the tools afforded the creative user.
Typeface: Crave Aura
Elegant, indulgent, and filled with typographic elements that creatives crave, the Crave™ typeface families explore the influences of its predecessor, Lust™ by Neil Summerour, and then deliberately departs in more refined and unexpected ways to deliver a mainstay typographic collection all creatives can use. There have been variations of Crave circulating since 2016 as part of private commissions or experimental sets, but Summerour continued to iteratively refine and expand on what might be needed now and in the future, building out robust character sets, expansive alternates, and optical sizes in hopes of providing a truly useful set of display typefaces. The three Crave optical families: Standard, Display, and Fine each include true italics, small caps, multiple numeral sets, smart ligatures, and extensive language support. The Crave Script fonts provide an over-the-top collection of alternatives, swashes, whorls, loops, all refined in Summerour’s signature style and attention to detail. The most subversive family in the collection, Crave Aura, contains three optical sizes and six weights and truly focuses on over-delivering on emerging explorative typefaces that disruptively infuse excess and voluptuous forms in unexpected ways. This level of typographic excess is what Summerour is known for, and Crave Aura raises the bar on how to responsibly and cohesively deliver on what he refers to as Neo-Nouveau typefaces by refusing to producing a singular, one-off font and instead delivering an expansive family to bolster the tools afforded the creative user.
Typeface: Crave Fine
Elegant, indulgent, and filled with typographic elements that creatives crave, the Crave™ typeface families explore the influences of its predecessor, Lust™ by Neil Summerour, and then deliberately departs in more refined and unexpected ways to deliver a mainstay typographic collection all creatives can use. There have been variations of Crave circulating since 2016 as part of private commissions or experimental sets, but Summerour continued to iteratively refine and expand on what might be needed now and in the future, building out robust character sets, expansive alternates, and optical sizes in hopes of providing a truly useful set of display typefaces. The three Crave optical families: Standard, Display, and Fine each include true italics, small caps, multiple numeral sets, smart ligatures, and extensive language support. The Crave Script fonts provide an over-the-top collection of alternatives, swashes, whorls, loops, all refined in Summerour’s signature style and attention to detail. The most subversive family in the collection, Crave Aura, contains three optical sizes and six weights and truly focuses on over-delivering on emerging explorative typefaces that disruptively infuse excess and voluptuous forms in unexpected ways. This level of typographic excess is what Summerour is known for, and Crave Aura raises the bar on how to responsibly and cohesively deliver on what he refers to as Neo-Nouveau typefaces by refusing to producing a singular, one-off font and instead delivering an expansive family to bolster the tools afforded the creative user.
Typeface: Crave Display
Elegant, indulgent, and filled with typographic elements that creatives crave, the Crave™ typeface families explore the influences of its predecessor, Lust™ by Neil Summerour, and then deliberately departs in more refined and unexpected ways to deliver a mainstay typographic collection all creatives can use. There have been variations of Crave circulating since 2016 as part of private commissions or experimental sets, but Summerour continued to iteratively refine and expand on what might be needed now and in the future, building out robust character sets, expansive alternates, and optical sizes in hopes of providing a truly useful set of display typefaces. The three Crave optical families: Standard, Display, and Fine each include true italics, small caps, multiple numeral sets, smart ligatures, and extensive language support. The Crave Script fonts provide an over-the-top collection of alternatives, swashes, whorls, loops, all refined in Summerour’s signature style and attention to detail. The most subversive family in the collection, Crave Aura, contains three optical sizes and six weights and truly focuses on over-delivering on emerging explorative typefaces that disruptively infuse excess and voluptuous forms in unexpected ways. This level of typographic excess is what Summerour is known for, and Crave Aura raises the bar on how to responsibly and cohesively deliver on what he refers to as Neo-Nouveau typefaces by refusing to producing a singular, one-off font and instead delivering an expansive family to bolster the tools afforded the creative user.
Typeface: Crave
Elegant, indulgent, and filled with typographic elements that creatives crave, the Crave™ typeface families explore the influences of its predecessor, Lust™ by Neil Summerour, and then deliberately departs in more refined and unexpected ways to deliver a mainstay typographic collection all creatives can use. There have been variations of Crave circulating since 2016 as part of private commissions or experimental sets, but Summerour continued to iteratively refine and expand on what might be needed now and in the future, building out robust character sets, expansive alternates, and optical sizes in hopes of providing a truly useful set of display typefaces. The three Crave optical families: Standard, Display, and Fine each include true italics, small caps, multiple numeral sets, smart ligatures, and extensive language support. The Crave Script fonts provide an over-the-top collection of alternatives, swashes, whorls, loops, all refined in Summerour’s signature style and attention to detail. The most subversive family in the collection, Crave Aura, contains three optical sizes and six weights and truly focuses on over-delivering on emerging explorative typefaces that disruptively infuse excess and voluptuous forms in unexpected ways. This level of typographic excess is what Summerour is known for, and Crave Aura raises the bar on how to responsibly and cohesively deliver on what he refers to as Neo-Nouveau typefaces by refusing to producing a singular, one-off font and instead delivering an expansive family to bolster the tools afforded the creative user.
Typeface: Dorset
Dorset marks Léon Hugues first script typeface and first release with the Positype Flourish label. Built crosscurrent to a strict revival or calligraphic digitization, Dorset’s aim was to understand how a font could interact with various calligraphic influences in a single execution and how that interpretation by Léon would lead to new, exclusive design choices.
Typeface: Air Pro XCondensed
Air Pro XCondensed is a neutral, highly legible neo-grotesque that includes both true italics and obliques. This typeface is refinement and expansion of Air, originally designed in 2011 by Neil Summerour. Heavily influenced by Summerour’s Aaux Next typeface and Akzidenz-Grotesk, the typeface features a very efficient footprint, logical weight options, small caps, expanded numeral sets, extensive language support, and 5 total widths. The new Air Pro Collection focuses on flexibility, accessibility, and usability rather than hinging the design on distracting design traits that could diminish legibility or become dated over time. Besides, even with grotesques, we all need a little fresh air from time to time.
Typeface: Air Pro Extended
Air Pro Extended is a neutral, highly legible neo-grotesque that includes both true italics and obliques. This typeface is refinement and expansion of Air, originally designed in 2011 by Neil Summerour. Heavily influenced by Summerour’s Aaux Next typeface and Akzidenz-Grotesk, the typeface features a very efficient footprint, logical weight options, small caps, expanded numeral sets, extensive language support, and 5 total widths. The new Air Pro Collection focuses on flexibility, accessibility, and usability rather than hinging the design on distracting design traits that could diminish legibility or become dated over time. Besides, even with grotesques, we all need a little fresh air from time to time.
Typeface: Air Pro Compressed
Air Pro Compressed is a neutral, highly legible neo-grotesque that includes both true italics and obliques. This typeface is refinement and expansion of Air, originally designed in 2011 by Neil Summerour. Heavily influenced by Summerour’s Aaux Next typeface and Akzidenz-Grotesk, the typeface features a very efficient footprint, logical weight options, small caps, expanded numeral sets, extensive language support, and 5 total widths. The new Air Pro Collection focuses on flexibility, accessibility, and usability rather than hinging the design on distracting design traits that could diminish legibility or become dated over time. Besides, even with grotesques, we all need a little fresh air from time to time.
Typeface: Air Pro Condensed
Air Pro Condensed is a neutral, highly legible neo-grotesque that includes both true italics and obliques. This typeface is refinement and expansion of Air, originally designed in 2011 by Neil Summerour. Heavily influenced by Summerour’s Aaux Next typeface and Akzidenz-Grotesk, the typeface features a very efficient footprint, logical weight options, small caps, expanded numeral sets, extensive language support, and 5 total widths. The new Air Pro Collection focuses on flexibility, accessibility, and usability rather than hinging the design on distracting design traits that could diminish legibility or become dated over time. Besides, even with grotesques, we all need a little fresh air from time to time.
Typeface: Air Pro
Air Pro is a neutral, highly legible neo-grotesque that includes both true italics and obliques. This typeface is refinement and expansion of Air, originally designed in 2011 by Neil Summerour. Heavily influenced by Summerour’s Aaux Next typeface and Akzidenz-Grotesk, the typeface features a very efficient footprint, logical weight options, small caps, expanded numeral sets, extensive language support, and 5 total widths. The new Air Pro Collection focuses on flexibility, accessibility, and usability rather than hinging the design on distracting design traits that could diminish legibility or become dated over time. Besides, even with grotesques, we all need a little fresh air from time to time.
Typeface: Ice Cream
Ice Cream is the product of an abandoned typeface concept a non-connected script for food packaging. The original exemplars were so iconic, so inspiring, it demanded completion. Curvy with a huge dollop of fun, to be honest, and I wouldn’t have it any other way with this one. Influenced heavily by Kari and Juicy (and even the shameless copies of my originals, wink wink), Ice Cream’s recipe blends in some very simple elements that are unobtrusive and clean, perfect for packaging designs, children’s books, and anywhere a light-hearted scoop with a cherry on top is needed.
Typeface: Organic Pro
When I released the original Organic in 2009, I was satisfied with it. It was what was possible from me and the technology at the time. The Organic Pro of 2021 takes those original desires of delivering a highly legible and friendly sans serif, and doubles down on those notions, while exploring what further infusing warmth in a highly structured sans serif can really do for a client.
Typeface: Faubourg
Faubourg marks the first professional typeface release by Marie Boulanger. As much traditional as it is unconventional in its celebration of letterforms, this typeface dances on the page and screen as it moves from a more conventional appearance to monoline and back again. The flowing silk-like undulation only accentuates this distinguishing feature and produces one opportunity after the next for headline settings where the word is as important as the content supporting it.
Typeface: Huai Thai
Huai and Huai Thai marks the first professional typeface release by Potch Auacherdkul and represents the culmination of research into the duality of influences between handwritten, vernacular Thai lettering and Latin typefaces. The result is a warm, expressive typeface that doesn’t abandon the human hands and the language that produced them.
Typeface: Huai
Huai and Huai Thai marks the first professional typeface release by Potch Auacherdkul and represents the culmination of research into the duality of influences between handwritten, vernacular Thai lettering and Latin typefaces. The result is a warm, expressive typeface that doesn’t abandon the human hands and the language that produced them.
Typeface: Lust
Lust’s original masters were completely redrawn, expanded, with a new optical size added based on customer requests. Lust now sports 6 fonts, instead of the original 4: Standard, Display, Fine, and complementing Italics. The character set has been expanded as well to include more OpenType features and more swashes.
Typeface: Lust Didone
Lust Didone’s character set was expanded as well during the redraw and update, the Italics were separated and reimagined anew from the universal italics in the original offering. Lust Didone also includes the new Fine optical size with complementing Italics for each size as well. And, yes, more swashes.
Typeface: Lust Sans
Lust Sans is the penultimate exploration of producing a high-contrast sans wholly influenced by its bracketed ancestor. The aspect of this endeavor I enjoyed the most was finding sneaky ways to infuse warmth and whimsy into the letterforms when you least expect it. The result, however, is subtle and uniquely balances against Lust and Lust Didone without becoming cold and overbearing. To accomplish this, Lust Sans has 6 weights. What I found during development was, based on any setting where Lust or Lust Didone were in the same layout, the amount of contrast shown with Lust Sans needed to be adjusted. Expanding the weight offering, produces opportunities for Lust Sans to modulate the rhythm of the layout comfortably while keeping contrast—this is even more obvious with the Italics. I love those. You will too. If you don’t, you do not have a soul. Not sorry.
Typeface: Lust Script
Boom. You asked for more, um, well just ‘more’—more swashes, more options, more weights, more of everything. I cannot give you more weights. The design just won’t allow it and anything else would be a compromise or a bastardization of the exemplars just to make money that I am unwilling to do. But, I did give you an overly indulgent, 90% cacao bar and espresso, Lust Script Fine. The ending strokes on these glyphs will literally draw blood. Enjoy it as much as I have.
Typeface: Lust Stencil
When you hear that name, you likely ask yourself, ‘why?!’ I did too, but the number of requests could not be ignored. Once I finally decided to move forward with it, the only way to solve the offering would be to adhere to the same theme of indulgence, I planned for the same number of optical weights AND Italics. Yeah, italic stencils… ok, why not? It’s not a new concept. One thing to note and a creative liberty I assumed during the design. Lust Stencil would not be just a redaction or removal of stress to produce a quick stencil. To do that, would just be a cheap solution. Strokes had to resolve themselves correctly and/or uniquely to the concept of the stencil format. And, it had to be heftier. For it it to look correctly, it needed about 8% additional mass to the strokes for it to retain the effervescent flow of the curves and the resolute scalloped lachrymals.
Typeface: Lust Text
Yes, finally. This one took the most time and the most restarting. Years went into imagining what Lust Text should look like and how it should structurally behave in order to truly improve upon a setting that includes any of the Lust typefaces. I approached it as much from the side of the type designer, as I did a potential user. The flow, the warmth, the personality needed to be there, but all of the excess had to be removed responsibly. In the process, and in need of inspiration, I looked backward to historical artifacts and precedent. In each early Lust Text approach, the solution was lackluster and/or vanilla and not actually a ‘Lust’ typeface. The exercise was not in vain though. By exploring past examples, I found my footing drawing for media now and how it might be used later—all the while, producing seamless, elegant curves and restrained indulgence (that sounds almost silly to say, but I like it).
Typeface: HYPE
Hype lives up to its name. An energetic attempt to blow past previous sans’ descriptive words of massive, large, extensive, super and others. Hype transcends the everyday marketing terms and rests solely atop them all with a jaw-dropping current offering of 396 fonts that spans 18 widths and 11 weights. Insert a long pause and mic drop here, because nothing compares.
Typeface: Good Karma Smooth
Good Karma (its namesake) will be extended to you as you use this new relaxed script family. Originally, produced from hand and the sumi brush of Neil Summerour, Good Karma Smooth is a smooth digitization of the original exemplars in Good Karma. Good Karma is filled with a lot of heart, reliable and genuine movements, and a wide range of letter options to befit any project needing an honest hand-lettered look. And on top of that, proceeds form the sale of this typeface will be distributed to charities and organizations intent on combatting the Covid-19 global pandemic.
Typeface: Agent Sans
Agent Sans is an intentional departure. It ignores the cold, unemotional flavor of geometric typefaces and current trends, and instead opts for warmth, personality, movement. In order to stand out, Agent Sans is filled with everything it can—small caps, 6 numeral sets, fractions, super- and subscripts, case-sensitive glyphs, dingbats, expanded language support, and true italics drawn to complement the uprights… not just to skew alongside them.
Typeface: Kari
Kari is a complete redraw and expansion of the award-winning typeface originally released in 2005. Featuring both upright and ‘italic’ styles, this soft and curvy script is perfect for packaging, expressive headlines, and fun settings. Feature-rich and flexible, Kari is stocked full of alternate characters, swashes, titling options, expanded numeral sets, new dingbats, and a lot more… and for the first time, the much-requested ‘Medium’ weight is now available.
Typeface: Ribbons
Ribbon type. Holy grail of complex-lettering-turned typeface or an elusive Loch Ness monster that is often teased, possibly seen in the wild, but never confirmed? From the amazing lettering artist and author Martina Flor and masterful type designer Neil Summerour, comes the aptly named Ribbons. Ribbons is a sincere and well-conceived approach to providing a reliable solution to ribbon and ribbon-styled type for creative professionals when a lettering artist just isn’t available.
Typeface: Sneakers Max
Sneakers was a typeface that I originally drew all the way back in 2005, with a release in 2006. Its most recent iteration, Sneakers Pro was released in 2009. Since then, the idea of reworking the design has lingered in the back of my head, but I wanted to add additional flexibility and value to anything offered beyond the originals. Sneakers Max does just that and I am happy to see it released and available to everyone.
Typeface: Dream Big
Ever sit up late at night and dream in letters—big, expressive, swash letters. Dream Big carries those grandiose thoughts and captures them as natural brush lettering on paper. Nothing manufactured here… each letter is derived from Summerour’s own hand and translated to this typeface—lofty, expressive, and joyful.
Typeface: Courage
High-contrast? High impact? Have Courage? Eye-catching and (extra, extra) bold, Courage balances ultra-high stroke weight, delicate details, and unique letterforms with a self-indulgent passion that will make you feel a little guilty using it. Honestly, use it large and don’t try to force it into a small space, because these fearless letterforms need room to move. Flavored with both upright and italic styles, each font includes an indulgent level of alternates, swashes and titling options, visual elements and more.
Typeface: Grava
Grava is Neil Summerour’s injection of warmth within the geometric sans font category. Historically, geometric sans families have been based on primal shapes — triangle, circle, square — and the more closely they held to those rigid rules, the more internal inconsistencies they showed. Angles won’t match up correctly, letters will lean, overshoots complicate clean typesetting, and idealized circles become grotesque and unwieldy in some weights. Because of issues like these, geometric sans fonts have a reputation of being cold, austere, even a bit “off”. Grava was made to hold a T-square and triangle in one hand while giving a welcoming handshake with the other.
Typeface: Grava Display
Grava is Neil Summerour’s injection of warmth within the geometric sans font category. Historically, geometric sans families have been based on primal shapes — triangle, circle, square — and the more closely they held to those rigid rules, the more internal inconsistencies they showed. Angles won’t match up correctly, letters will lean, overshoots complicate clean typesetting, and idealized circles become grotesque and unwieldy in some weights. Because of issues like these, geometric sans fonts have a reputation of being cold, austere, even a bit “off”. Grava was made to hold a T-square and triangle in one hand while giving a welcoming handshake with the other.
Typeface: Decorata
How many times have you seen lettering on a book cover, poster, or card and wanted to make something similar? Decorata’s eight intertwining weights finally make that possible in an intelligent way. The first major collaboration of its kind, Decorata pairs the talents of supreme lettering artist Martina Flor and masterful type designer Neil Summerour. Lettering was traditionally understood as using words in an artistic way, while type design created written language for easy reading, the one overlapping the other in several ways. For this unique project, Martina created several versions of the alphabet and its decorative layers in her eye-catching style. Neil then took those designs and created an enormous eight-style font family that respects the designer’s need for control and capitalizes on the artist’s expressiveness.
Typeface: Reserve
First and foremost, Reserve is a companion typeface developed to complement the Scotch Suite of typefaces.
Typeface: Reserve Condensed
First and foremost, Reserve is a companion typeface developed to complement the Scotch Suite of typefaces.
Typeface: Scotch Display
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Deck
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Text
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Display Condensed
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Deck Condensed
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Text Condensed
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Display Compressed
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Deck Compressed
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Scotch Text Compressed
Clean, crisp, rational, familiar, modern… serifed. Positype Scotch reaches back to history just enough to produce something warm and easy on the eyes. No corners were cut, no quick tricks… this type suite was drawn for specificity: Text, Display, and Deck… ALL in 3 widths that now include Condensed and Compressed. Each unique, each inter-connected, each part of the whole.
Typeface: Cherry Blossoms
It’s spring and the Cherry Blossoms are in bloom… and so is the new typeface by Neil Summerour and Positype. Cherry Blossoms is the new relaxed script family in the same vein as Good Karma. Produced from hand and sumi brush of Neil Summerour, Cherry Blossoms is a natural brush textured font family. Cherry Blossoms is blooming with personality, reliable and genuine movements, and a wide range of letter options to befit any project needing an honest hand-lettered look.
Typeface: Juicy
Juicy is different… in a good way. An art deco-inspired, high-contrast, upright semi-script, layered typeface best describes the playful letterforms that make up Juicy Pro (semi-connected) and Juicy Simple (unconnected). Great care has been taken to provide a wide complement of options and intelligent letter combinations thanks to OpenType. And that’s right, Juicy *is* a layered semi-script typeface. Pro and Simple variants provide a full character set (yep, lowercase). Pro variants include a wide variety of Stylistic, Swash, and Titling Alternates to really allow the expressiveness of the typeface shine… and all characters are available in the layered font counterparts… no shortcuts were taken on the delivery of this typographic chimera.
Typeface: Good Karma
Good Karma (its namesake) will be extended to you as you use this new relaxed script family. Produced from hand and sumi brush of Neil Summerour, Good Karma is a natural brush textured font family. Good Karma is filled with a lot of heart, reliable and genuine movements, and a wide range of letter options to befit any project needing an honest hand-lettered look.
Typeface: Marshmallow
Marshmallow is a fun, fat, super high-contrast script typeface in two variants. A slick connected (Script) and a mellow unconnected (Fluff) style that provides the versatility you need regardless of the display usage you plan.
Typeface: Aago
Aago is year-long project to create sans inspired by Positype’s popular Aaux Next typeface, but not beholden to its previous conventions.
Typeface: Aago Condensed
Aago is year-long project to create sans inspired by Positype’s popular Aaux Next typeface, but not beholden to its previous conventions.
Typeface: Aago Compressed
Aago is year-long project to create a sans inspired by Positype’s popular Aaux Next typeface, but not beholden to its previous conventions.
Typeface: Rough Love
Rough Love, it’s fair to say, came before Love Script. The brushed letter specimens that would ultimately serve as the template for the much ‘cleaner’ Love Script have now been turned into a typeface. As I packed these up, I just kept coming back to them and staring at the texture and movement caught on the page. On a lark, I decided it would be fun to let people see an almost a before and after scenario of how one led to the other and decided to produce a typeface from these specimens… Rough Love.
Typeface: Delphi
Delphi grew from a logotype Lily Feinberg produced using Greek-column-inspired letterforms. As that concept expanded to include more and more letters, the typeface had its beginnings. Intertwined, kinetic, and deliberate, Delphi carves itself onto the page and screen, encouraging variation and experimentation. The letterforms’ unique construction and predispostion for experimentation inspired two varying sets: Delphi Dio, comprised of two-line strokes, and Delphi Tria, built of both 2- and 3-line strokes.
Typeface: Lust Pro
Confident and versatile, Lust Pro™ is an exercise in indulgence—an attempt to create something over the top and vastly useful.
Typeface: Lust Pro Demi
Confident and versatile, Lust Pro™ is an exercise in indulgence—an attempt to create something over the top and vastly useful.
Typeface: Lust Pro Slim
Confident and versatile, Lust Pro™ is an exercise in indulgence—an attempt to create something over the top and vastly useful.
Typeface: Flirt Script
Young, playful, loopy, flirty. Flirt Script® carves out a niche for itself by concentrating on natural writing tendencies and not the simplified mechanics of script-to-font type design. A free-flowing monoline, the two weight typeface exploits the common letter-to-letter transitions of the typical cursive hand by utilizing three variable-height strike points controlled within the machinations of OpenType Contextual Alternates. The ease of writing (and the decisions made from letter to letter) is reflected as the structure and cadence of the writing evolves as the user types.
Typeface: Lust Pro Didone
Confident and versatile, Lust Pro™ is an exercise in indulgence—an attempt to create something over the top and vastly useful.
Typeface: Lust Pro Didone Demi
Confident and versatile, Lust Pro™ is an exercise in indulgence—an attempt to create something over the top and vastly useful.
Typeface: Lust Pro Didone Slim
Confident and versatile, Lust Pro™ is an exercise in indulgence—an attempt to create something over the top and vastly useful.
Typeface: So Lovely
Sometimes, you just get an idea that needs to texture, needs a place in the world. Picking up a pen, the elements slowly emerged… like many of my Relaxed Script typefaces.
Typeface: Clear Sans
Clear Sans™ is a… wait for it… rational geometric sans serif. It is intended to fill a niche… to provide an alternative to the somewhat based-on-vernacular signage, somewhat geometric sans. I hear the word vernacular thrown around too much and too loosely. If a typeface is based in the vernacular, based on hand-painted or hand-crafted signage, then it should be based on the movements of the hand, retain that warmth and not on a pretty geometric model. For me, clean, geometric and precise doesn't have to be cold and expressionless.
Typeface: Clear Sans Text
Clear Sans™ is a… wait for it… rational geometric sans serif. It is intended to fill a niche… to provide an alternative to the somewhat based-on-vernacular signage, somewhat geometric sans. I hear the word vernacular thrown around too much and too loosely. If a typeface is based in the vernacular, based on hand-painted or hand-crafted signage, then it should be based on the movements of the hand, retain that warmth and not on a pretty geometric model. For me, clean, geometric and precise doesn't have to be cold and expressionless.
Typeface: Clear Sans Screen
Clear Sans™ is a… wait for it… rational geometric sans serif. It is intended to fill a niche… to provide an alternative to the somewhat based-on-vernacular signage, somewhat geometric sans. I hear the word vernacular thrown around too much and too loosely. If a typeface is based in the vernacular, based on hand-painted or hand-crafted signage, then it should be based on the movements of the hand, retain that warmth and not on a pretty geometric model. For me, clean, geometric and precise doesn't have to be cold and expressionless.
Typeface: Shameless
I will spare you the long-winded description this time and all of the motivations and witty innuendoes. Quite frankly, I forgot about creating this typeface and it sat on my hard drive for almost a year. Luckily, my daughter Isobel saw the initial drawings one day and ask me about those pretty letters and I remembered… yep, that happened. That said, time made this a better typeface… with fresh eyes and time, much was redrawn, retooled and expanded to something I truly enjoy playing with.
Typeface: Anago
Anago shares the same DNA as its sibling Macha, but is a completely different species than the former or any of my other sans serifs (Aaux Next, Air, Akagi Pro or Wasabi). Soft, ample letterforms are casually constructed and the end result produces a typeface that changes color as it varies in size — allowing the type family to work well in both text and display settings as long as attention is given to size.
Typeface: Macha
Macha shares the same DNA as its sibling Anago, but is a completely different species than the former or any of my other sans serifs (Aaux Next, Air, Akagi Pro or Wasabi). It's no-nonsense construction bears many influences from Gill Sans and Frutiger while stubbornly blending my own humanist touch. The focus on developing Macha was just to get to the point with each letterform and discard the rest.
Typeface: Love Script
Love Script came about as a way to finally answer the requests by individuals to take my brush pen/marker lettering styles and turn them into a typeface. Literally, everything lined up perfectly and there was a renewed impetus to push this genre, this style of lettering I have adapted over the years into what will become a series of brush pen/marker typefaces. The first I chose to complete was a high-contrast variant… I seem to be attracted to high contrast, high energy letters (think Lust, Lust Slim and Lust Script). As I was finalizing everything, I kept saying ‘I love this script’, which ultimately led the christening of the typeface as Love Script.
Typeface: Halogen Slab
When I released Halogen, I asked ‘Who doesn't want or need an expansive contemporary extended sans that has a sense of style and swagger… what if it had a lowercase, small caps and various numeral options… how could you say no?’ Go, click on the Halogen link and read on, if you're interested. Halogen was well-received, so I decided to take it further with Halogen Slab (the name kinda tips you off as to what kind of typeface it is, don't ya think?). As always, I prefer not to take short cuts and provide an anemic offering of glyphs — a modern typeface offered today must provide more than just the basics and this one does — lowercase, smallcaps, old style numerals, tabular forms, stylistic and titling alternates, fractions, case-sensitive features, and even an alternate uppercase ordinal set is included. Now go make cool print and digital things with it, and share them with me.
Typeface: Halogen Flare
When I released Halogen, I asked ‘Who doesn't want or need an expansive contemporary extended sans that has a sense of style and swagger… what if it had a lowercase, small caps and various numeral options… how could you say no?’ Go, click on the Halogen link and read on, if you're interested. Halogen was well-received, so I decided to take it further with Halogen Flare (the name kinda tips you off as to what kind of typeface it is, don't ya think?). As always, I prefer not to take short cuts and provide an anemic offering of glyphs — a modern typeface offered today must provide more than just the basics and this one does — lowercase, smallcaps, old style numerals, tabular forms, stylistic and titling alternates, fractions, case-sensitive features, and even an alternate uppercase ordinal set is included. Now, go make cool print and digital things with it.
Typeface: Halogen
Who doesn't want or need an expansive contemporary extended sans that has a sense of style and swagger… what if it had a lowercase, small caps and various numeral options… how could you say no? This was the foundational argument I made for myself when I drew the initial alphabet on my birthday last year (something I do each year, draw a new font, kind of a fun OCD thing). I wanted to see a wide, utilitarian sans that had more to it than just a basic character set and didn't resemble standard geometric models. As I continued sketching, the letterforms were being influenced more by my ‘lettering tendencies’ than the normal mechanical trappings of drawing flat, wide letters. The letters have retained aspects of letters created by hand — stresses, modulation, naturally ending terminals. Truncation and quick clipping of strokes became antithetical to the letterforms I drew, so I continued this once I brought the design into the computer. I kept it precise and dependable, but made every attempt to keep a conscientiously crafted typeface and not let it devolve into a grid-based drone. As such, it works just as well looking back in time as much as it does assuming a lead role in a sci-fi movie.
Typeface: Akagi Pro
Akagi Pro is a complete rebuild and expansion of my popular Akagi typeface. Contemporary, clean, simple and friendly continue to serve as the adjectives for an expansion that includes 250+ additional characters per weight, many new ligature options, expanded stylistic alternates, 4 sets of figures, new symbols, case-sensitive punctuation, superscripts, subscripts, ordinals, expanded language support and two new styles that provide even more flexibility within the lighter weights of the family. When I designed Akagi in 2007, I wanted this new sans serif to “smile” at you — with this new expansion, I hope you smile back.
Typeface: Lust Slim
If Lust Slim seems both new and familiar, that’s because it is. The series unapologetically channels Herb Lubalin, but produced with a deliberate, contemporary twist. There is an intentional slyness infused in the letterforms—the extreme thick and thin lines flow effortlessly without becoming gratuitous. It’s always just enough, not too much. What makes the type series so appealing? The curves. When asked to describe the letterforms, most people unwittingly allude to the human form, using adjectives usually reserved for describing physical traits… creating all-too-familiar comparisons. Summerour has grown to accept this as unavoidable and reasonable given his acknowledgement of its influences and has provided nuances within the letterforms to accentuate that.
Typeface: Aaux Next
When the original Aaux was introduced in 2002, I intended to go back and expand the family to offer more versatility. Years went by before I was willing to pick it up again and invest the proper time into building a viable and useful recut. Just putting a new designation and tweaking a few glyphs here and there would not do the designer or the typeface justice; instead, I chose to redraw each glyph’s skeleton from scratch for the four main subsets of the super family along with their italics. Each glyph across the super family is ‘connected at the hip’ with each style—each character carries the no frills, simple architecture that endeared so many users to it.
Typeface: Aaux Next Condensed
When the original Aaux was introduced in 2002, I intended to go back and expand the family to offer more versatility. Years went by before I was willing to pick it up again and invest the proper time into building a viable and useful recut. Just putting a new designation and tweaking a few glyphs here and there would not do the designer or the typeface justice; instead, I chose to redraw each glyph’s skeleton from scratch for the four main subsets of the super family along with their italics. Each glyph across the super family is ‘connected at the hip’ with each style—each character carries the no frills, simple architecture that endeared so many users to it.
Typeface: Aaux Next Compressed
When the original Aaux was introduced in 2002, I intended to go back and expand the family to offer more versatility. Years went by before I was willing to pick it up again and invest the proper time into building a viable and useful recut. Just putting a new designation and tweaking a few glyphs here and there would not do the designer or the typeface justice; instead, I chose to redraw each glyph’s skeleton from scratch for the four main subsets of the super family along with their italics. Each glyph across the super family is ‘connected at the hip’ with each style—each character carries the no frills, simple architecture that endeared so many users to it.
Typeface: Aaux Next Wide
When the original Aaux was introduced in 2002, I intended to go back and expand the family to offer more versatility. Years went by before I was willing to pick it up again and invest the proper time into building a viable and useful recut. Just putting a new designation and tweaking a few glyphs here and there would not do the designer or the typeface justice; instead, I chose to redraw each glyph’s skeleton from scratch for the four main subsets of the super family along with their italics. Each glyph across the super family is ‘connected at the hip’ with each style—each character carries the no frills, simple architecture that endeared so many users to it.
Typeface: Magneta
To describe what inspired Magneta would be to add a little Dwiggins, throw in some Benton with a hint of Austin, wrap it up in a crisp, contemporary package and serve.
Typeface: Magneta Condensed
To describe what inspired Magneta would be to add a little Dwiggins, throw in some Benton with a hint of Austin, wrap it up in a crisp, contemporary package and serve.
Typeface: Romp
With all ego aside, Romp was designed and influenced by my daughter, Angel. For some time now, she has wanted me to design a font based on her handwriting. But each time I sit down to do it, I run into more that she needs to do and redo. On a recent attempt, I ran into the same situation again. Instead of moving on to something else, I decided to whip out a sumi brush and start making letters...for me, type design is something a little ‘serious’ and never a time to just have fun. This typeface proved that notion wrong—it really was fun. As a result, each letter encouraged another and the design grew...and grew!
Typeface: Muscle
Muscle came from the original sketches for Sneakers. At the time my concentration with Sneakers was to create a curvier, chunkier display. I left Muscle behind, thinking it was too masculine.
Typeface: Ginza
Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and the only way to get rid of that demon is to put something down on paper. A year later the doodles became a skeleton, and then the skeleton had a body, then the body had a name, then the name got a personality.
Typeface: Ginza Display
Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and the only way to get rid of that demon is to put something down on paper. A year later the doodles became a skeleton, and then the skeleton had a body, then the body had a name, then the name got a personality.
Typeface: Ginza Narrow
Here’s what I said about the original Ginza: Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and the only way to get rid of that demon is to put something down on paper. A year later the doodles became a skeleton, and then the skeleton had a body, then the body had a name, then the name got a personality.
Typeface: Fugu
When Baka and Baka Too did very well commercially (Baka was named the Best Cursive Rough Script in 2005), I shied away from doing rough, handwritten scripts in fear as being seen as a one-trick-pony. A few years have passed and some early sumi-e brush ‘doodles’ kept appealing to me. I initially thought this new font would just fall under the Baka mantle and just become a new sibling, but as brush hit paper over and over again, the letters took on a different personality from Baka.
Typeface: Tactical
Tactical is nothing more than a testosterone-laced typeface. Rigid, mechanical and unforgiving.
Typeface: Wasabi
Remastered in 2019. Wasabi is the re-imagining of my very first release, Iru. Like Iru, Wasabi was heavily influenced by the monument lettering style, Vermarco.
Typeface: Wasabi Condensed
Remastered in 2019. Wasabi is the re-imagining of my very first release, Iru. Like Iru, Wasabi was heavily influenced by the monument lettering style, Vermarco.
Typeface: Friendly
Friendly is an homage to Morris Fuller Benton’s adorable Announcement typeface. It is not a strict interpretation, digital revival or reverent reproduction of the original letterforms… but I would be remiss and shady to not acknowledge the letterforms that inspired this typeface. If you are looking for a more accurate ‘scanned revival’ I would recommend searching “Announcement” on MyFonts. As stated earlier, it is an homage to the original letterforms of the typeface but takes a great bit of freedom tightening the construction up in order to loosen up the movement of the variant letterforms to allow a great deal of usable personality. I enjoy stating this dichotomy… “loosen up to tighten up the forms” and vice versa. It seems counterintuitive or silly but by allowing the letterforms to normalize, I felt more comfortable going back and adding rather indulgent personality. Infused with stylistic alternates, swashes, titling, many many contextual alternates, 9 stylistic sets and 2 stylistic sets with wordmarks, the typeface became far more ‘friendly’ for me… how could it not? With so many loops, swashes and typographic indulgences, it was bound to be fun.
Typeface: Rhythm
I hate the idea of revivals. I have publicly said I choose not to do revivals because they make me uncomfortable. This is as close as I have been to crossing my own line. To be direct, Rhythm is based on the ATF typeface, Ratio (I just recently learned the foundry of origin) which was based on the original typeface, Adastra, designed by Herbert Thannhaeuser for the Foundry D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany. I came across this typeface from a printed specimen years ago when I was in school and held onto it. It was unique and I loved how well integrated the inline worked within both the flourish and serif of the glyphs—it was old, but not, reminiscent, but fresh.
Typeface: Yumi
Neo, modern, future, space, techno, technical, stuff. Yeah, things like that ;-)
Typeface: Baka
This simple typeface has a secret—behind that nonchalant attitude is a ton of Stylistic, Swash, and Titling Alternates. It even contains 44 special ligature combinations to insure you have the smoothest entrance possible.