Typographer.org

bald condensed from may 2005

I fear people may feel I'm too long-winded. At least that's how I interpreted a recent remark that only readers who are really interested in my reviews will read them in their entirety. I do realise I often get carried away when discussing new type designs and typography in general. Fair enough, if you agree that I should write more concise reviews, drop me a line. I'd rather have more people reading and enjoying my column than I would have me performing literary masturbation. I'll get on a stage behind my drum kit if I want my ego stroked.

Once more, the review of a type family benefited from me having the opportunity to properly test-drive review copies of the fonts. When I first saw Ricardo Santos' Lisboa, I thought it was a pretty, decent neo-humanist sans, but nothing more. As I received beta versions to play around with, I decided to use those to set some lengthy text with it. The results made me reconsider my first impression in its favour.

The type family comes in two variants: Lisboa and Lisboa Sans. This is quite peculiar, because the differences between them are ever so subtle. Lisboa has hooked terminals and a curved tail on the Q and leg on the R, features Lisboa Sans� simpler shapes don't have. The distinction between the two variants is more pronounced in the italics. While Lisboa Sans italic is more conventional, the structure of Lisboa Italic is truly Latin, akin to classic Spanish cursives.

I thought the light weight would be too skinny, but the text setting proved my concerns were unfounded. Still I would've liked the bold to be a tad bolder. The large number of ligatures are a treat, and as I'm a total ligature bitch, I substituted all of them. Though they are not indispensable, they did improve the setting, so it's nice the choice is up to the user. The Dingbats are a nice addition as well. Lisboa is elegant and stylish, with a dash of Southern sensuality. It sets smoothly, is very pleasant to read, and is just idiosyncratic enough to make it stand out. I prefer the 'regular' to the Sans as it possesses more zest and reveals its Latin temperament better.

As I wrote in the previous instalment, only recently I found out that the Fedra family of typefaces got augmented with Fedra Display 1 ('1' meaning more Display versions will follow.) Since the original release of Fedra Sans four years ago, Peter Bilak has been expanding his brilliant type system, whose design combines Eastern European temperament and a strong sense of style with Dutch elegance and restraint. Its well-defined personality doesn't impair its usefulness, as it works well in wildly varying settings. The family is without a doubt one of the classics of the turn of the millennium.

True to the current fashion in display type, Fedra Display comes in two anorexic weights — Hairline and Thin, both of them available in three widths — Regular, Condensed and Compressed. The new versions make the stylistic details that make Fedra such an appealing design really shine. The feature-rich OpenType fonts contain loads of delectable goodies, such as an expanded set of lowercase ligatures, 300 capital ligatures (eat your heart out ITC Avant Garde Gothic), and a special set of common prepositions and articles in various languages. Now this is what I call 'with all the trimmings'.

Truth to be told, I actually hate reviewing typefaces that are so good I can�t think of anything interesting to say about them. But this release stirred up something else though. It reminded me of how the availability of ITC Avant Garde Gothic Alternates was announced triumphantly in a FontShop newsletter some months ago. Honestly, who needs an awkward geometric face from the seventies that frankly doesn't even look so good, when fresh new fonts like Fedra Display cover the same grounds, look a lot better and outperform them effortlessly?

That's what exasperates me about those recurring 'Which five fonts couldn't you do without' threads at the Typophile General Discussions forum. Always the same old faces! As if there wasn't anything decent released in the last five years. It's just like people who still pretend The Beatles are the greatest band on Earth and artists stopped producing good music in the seventies. No way! We are living exciting times, with experimentation, innovation and cross-pollination producing thrilling music and typefaces. Of course there's a lot more rubbish as well, but the good stuff is really good. Who needs Gill Sans when you have Bliss? Garamond when you have FTF Merlo? DIN when you have Sophisto? Sabon when you have MvB Verdigris? Helvetica when you have Parisine? Futura when you have Neutraface? I could go on and on and on, believe me.

It's long overdue we reconsider our type preferences and usage. Most of us graphic designers and typographers operate as small or medium sized businesses. Most innovative type designers operate as small or medium sized businesses. So, stop lining the pockets of big, faceless type foundries who stopped innovating long ago — I'm not naming any names, you know who you are — or more accurately, money-grubbing, faceless shareholders with no interest whatsoever in developing the field. They all seem to suffer from the same disease that plagues Hollywood, content with releasing the Next tired remake of a classic blockbuster, or clogging the market with corny genre faces. If you've read this far I'm quite confident you didn't just skip to the last paragraph, so send me an e-mail with the subject line: Enough with the feature-rich OpenType blandness!

Instead, support independent type designers and foundries, just like you appreciate your clients supporting you instead of taking their assignments to the big design agencies. Because it's those independents who are advancing the field and providing us with the truly good stuff.