Colophon Type Foundry

Edd Harrington Anthony Sheret

Colophon Type Foundry

The Entente

Network of different people and studios with different skills can respond to lots of different jobs Bespoke typefaces for big and small organisations

Commissions as a Testing Ground

Colophon build their own custom tools, software, content management systems and most importantly typefaces for most of their projects.

Outside In

Stephen Gill book design custom typeface relative book often start with one one specific weight for one use case and expand the family from there proportional typeface with the feeling of a monospaced every letter stays the same width across all weights

Stuart Griffiths

• The myth of the airborne warrior
• Visual system black line
• Censorship, censor non factual information in essay
• Inspiration for letterforms from worn down letterpress letters
• Archive typeface

No Cash Value

• Amsterdam exhibition
• Touches on the value, cultural interpretation of money
• Type sizes linked to different notes: £20 -> 20pt
• Value Sans (inspired by old English grotesques), Value Serif (Both typefaces share the same skeleton)

Hotshoe Magazine

http://www.hotshoeinternational.com/about

• New display typeface for every isssue (4 a year)
• Allows for faster process, less polish needed than for commercial typeface release
• Same design system, different typefaces
• Real context for better evaluation

basis grotesque hotshoe own material off white and regular cut. off weight slightly heavier for coloured backgruunds, uk road sign face

Stanley Barker

http://stanleybarker.co.uk/ Custom font based on unica: Grotesk 54

La Fabrique

Documents design process in a visual way

Nasty Gal

Nasty Gal is a fast-growing clothes brand. They work with lots of different designers, freelancers and interns, so they needed some way to introduce consistency. A full brand styleguide would have been too limiting, so Colophone designed three bespoke typefaces for them.

• NG Grot 1

• NG Grot 2

• NG Grot 3

• No traditional Regular, Bold and Light weights, instead three distinct versions of the typeface that can be used in different ways

• Alternate characters, Alternate punctuation

• Automatic application of certan stylistic elements through Open Type features

Blog Post about the Project

Castledown School

• Type family for Castledown Primary School
• Combination of different attributes from Arial, Times and Comic Sans
• Relates to handwriting

Three different cuts:

1. Castledown Regular
2. Castledown Fun (rationalised comic sans)
3. Castledown Cursive & Castledown Cursive Instructional

The cursive version was a technical challenge, they used Open Type to create natural ligatures between chracters, each character has up to 14 different versions stylistic alternates

Wired Article on the Project

Five Years

• Retrospective show
• Explores loss of control when you release a typeface
• Applied 26 typefaces to made up scenes
• Developed new typeface Burgess Bold for the show