Font of the Month Club sends you a fresh new font every single month! Fonts of the month include distinctive display faces, experimental designs, and exclusive previews of my upcoming retail typeface families. Each font is lovingly designed and produced by me, David Jonathan Ross.
By diversifying your font collection at a minimal cost, the club can push you to try new and interesting type in your work. Learn more »
While we were working on Job Clarendon, Bethany Heck would occasionally send me scans of French Clarendons from her extensive research into nineteenth century wood types. She encouraged me to think about a horizontal-stress slab that could serve as a kind of B-side for Job Clarendon. This month, I am sending Job French Clarendon, a celebration of the bracketed horizontal stress slab serifs from the heyday of letterpress printing.
Megabase is a display gothic with strong horizontal stress
inspired by the clunkiness of 19th-century gothics like Gothic
Bold and the space-age funkiness of 1970s designs such as
Aldo Novareseâs Sintex and Bob Newmanâs Zipper. Megabase
goes beyond its forebears in emphasizing its horizontality;
while most typefaces strive for an even typographic color,
Megabase embraces its unevenness, allowing topheavy,
bottomheavy, and diagonal forms to stick out like sore thumbs.
The typeface offers several variants of especially disruptive
letters, allowing the designer to calibrate these interruptions.
A narrower cut of Roslindale! Like the rest of the Roslindale family, this design takes major cues from the Victorian-era serif De Vinne, particularly the narrow, space-saving cuts that began to pop up shortly following its release in 1890.
Ottavio is a dynamic humanist sans that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Ottavio Bottecchiaâs victory in the 1924 Tour de France, designed for his great-granddaughter Caterina Piatti. It freely explores shapes that have some connection to cycling, and more abstractly, the idea that an inherently unbalanced object can achieve balance through a sense of constant motion.
Nickel Stencil and Nickel Gothic Stencil are a stocky pair of based on lettering found on the same 1918 Chinese banknote. They retains the squarish forms and closed apertures of the original, but its significantly bolder weight and wider proportions endow it with an intense energy of its own. Despite the fact that it is based on lettering from over a century ago, it has overtones of the midcentury sans serifs like Microgramma/Eurostile as well as squared gothics form the â70s like Neographik and Serpentine.
Indoor Kid is a variable-first comic book superfamily that I made with comics writer/editor/publisher Ellis Bojar. It has all the weights and widths and accoutrements that a typographer might expect from a workhorse sans, but is designed specifically for a wide range of comics dialogue and caption styles.
This month, Iâve added a lowercase to Map Roman, a typeface based on the lettering of MacDonald Gill, whose work included a variety of beautifully handlettered maps of London, England, and the world. After stumbling upon his work in a map museum, I tried my hand at a typographical interpretation that attempts to capture the liveliness and authority of his letterforms.
Pomfret is a set of titling capitals with Arts & Crafts flair. After years of encouragement from Roger Black, I began the design as an homage to the work of Bertram Goodhue, famous as the architect of the Nebraska State Capitol as well as the typeface Cheltenham. The skeletons of the letters were initially inspired by the tightly-spaced capitals (especially the restrained R and K) found on his cover for The Knight Errant. Pomfret moves beyond its source material, adopting a more contemporary finish with discretionary ligatures, razor-thin hairlines, and restrained, bracketed serifs. Pomfretâs new Micro size is sturdy, wide, and slabbyâa big departure from the delicate, slender serifs of the original Banner style.
Megazoid is not a font begging for an italic companion. Itâs not some bookface that needs a secondary style, and itâs definitely not in need of added emphasis. Megazoid a typeface built up from pure geometryâsquares, circles, and trapezoids. But what if I attempted to harness those same shapes, and reassemble them with an Italic mindset? It feels like it shouldnât work, but Megazoid Italic turned out to be one of the most perversely fun italics Iâve ever worked on.
Encrypt your deepest typographic secrets with Input Cipher, and send them to your friends! The font contains substitution cipher variable axes that rotate through A-Z (Caesarâs cipher), ASCII (ROT47), and 0-9 (ROT5). In addition, you can map A-Z to its reverse (Atbash), redact the text completely, and use the Decode axis to gradually reveal your message. It can also read and write Morse code, which you can type with dots and dashes, like this: -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. .
Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burkeâs famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bildâs dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for âimageâ and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.
Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burkeâs famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bildâs dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for âimageâ and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.
Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhodyâs quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t.
Lab DJR is a variable color pixel font with variable axes that lets you morph its default square element into a circle, a diamond, and a sparkle. On top of that, you can adjust their size in a variety of ways and even “split the atom” to divide each shape into four similar shapes. But the real fun comes when you mix the axes together and the outlines start to glitch out. When you use two at a time, the transformations are usually somewhat predictable, but after three or more, chaos reigns.
Megascope is back, this time in a series of weights from Thin to Bold! Itâs my take on the expressive Deco-inspired Geometric Sans Serifs of the 1970s, with a unique âScopeâ axis that changes the size of the circular elements of the design.
Megascope is my take on the expressive Deco-inspired Geometric Sans Serifs of the 1970s. This style graced many a sci-fi book and album cover in its day, some of which I recently had the opportunity to sift through thanks to a recent moving sale held at a local used bookstore. The typeface is characterized by little circles in letters like B, P, and R that combine geometric roundness and exaggerated proportions. It also features tight spacing, a consistent diagonal stroke angle, and a variable axis that enlarges the circular forms.
Glyptic DJR revives Herman Ihlenburgâs Glyptic, a decorative Victorian serif designed in 1878 and issued by MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan. My interpretation leans into the frenzied energy of the design, emphasizing the angularity of the wedges and vertical serifs, and then contrasting them against delicate spirals and curlicues. The spacing is tightâoptimized for contemporary use. This monthâs update adds an Uncial-inspired lowercase, lining figures, and borders, none of which were present in the original design.
When I first drew it in 2017, Pappardelle was my jamâI even used it in the Font of the Month Clubâs original logo. But it always felt like it was more fun for me to make than it was for anyone else to use; even though itâs ostensibly a Display font, it felt too straight-down-the-middle and throwbacky to have any freshness or spark. I typically try to put a damper on âlook at meâ energy in my typefaces, but Pappardelle needed exactly that. So this month Iâm sending you Pappardelle v2, a top-to-bottom overhaul of my beloved little French Antique.
Since I released Warbler Text in February, Iâve received more requests for Warbler Text Bold than for anything else. Itâs not a glitzy request, but I get it. Roman + Italic + Small Caps might be enough to typeset a traditional start-to-finish book, but a more complex document calls for more complex typography to guide the reader through it. And in turn, more complex typography calls for more complex type families. A Bold certainly comes in handy!
Six months ago, I sent an update to Nickel Gothic that included lowercase and a couple narrower widths. As I hit âSendâ on the mailing, I felt a pang of regret, thinking to myself: âI should have gone narrower!â So this is Nickel Gothic going narrower, first to a Condensed and then to a Compressed. These new styles get pretty far from the 1918 Chinese banknote that served as Nickel Gothicâs jumping-off point, but I think they feel like a logical extension for the family, not to mention a lively variable axis to play with in your headlines.
Gimlet Sans is a Grotesque sans serif companion to my typeface Gimlet, which was in turn inspired by Georg Trumpâs 1938 typeface Schadow. While superelliptical sans serifs can sometimes feel cold, Gimlet Sans harnesses Schadowâs unique blend of geometric clunkiness and organic spunkiness to add some bounce and liveliness to the mix. This month adds optical sizes and italics!
Glyptic DJR revives Herman Ihlenburgâs Glyptic, a decorative Victorian serif designed in 1878 and issued by MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan. My interpretation leans into the frenzied energy of the design, emphasizing the angularity of the wedges and vertical serifs, and then contrasting them against delicate spirals and curlicues. The spacing is tightâoptimized for contemporary use. Ornaments were prominently featured in Glypticâs original showings, so I made sure to include some here, as well as contextual alternates and a more decorative K.
So I started with the four letters I actually needed for my title: F, E, R, and N. All I had to do was make them look like Fern Text, but a little less horsey when blown up to 36 or 40px. Then, I applied the same transformations to the rest of the alphabet and small caps. I retained some of the splotchy color that comes from the fluctuation of thick and thin in the serifs and round strokes, and added generous spacing so that titles feel nice and airy. On average, the thin strokes of the Titling Caps are 20 units lighter than in Fern Text.
I love it when a type family is allowed to cross the invisible threshold between expected, practical proportions and something that bumps up against the limits of what we can read and perceive. Job Clarendon is already a narrow typeface. But with the encouragement and art direction of Bethany Heck, Iâm sending you some new Hairline weights that are so narrow, they make the original version feel like Hellenic Wide!
Nickel is a stocky engraverâs alphabet based on the inscription of a 1918 Chinese banknote. In this face, the traditionally round letters (like O and S) are straight-sided, as if chiseled from a block. Meanwhile, the traditionally straight letters (like H and N) are dominated by the sweeping curves of large, bracketed serifs. Nickel shares the monumentality of the lettering on todayâs American currency, but its squarish forms add a peculiar strengh and energy with overtones of the 1970s classic typeface, Serpentine. This version adds a lowercase and color fonts.
Nickel Gothic is a stocky grotesque based on lettering found on the same 1918 Chinese banknote its serifed counterpart Nickel. It retains the squarish forms and closed apertures of the serifed design, but its significantly bolder weight and wider proportions endow it with an intense energy of its own. Despite the fact that it is based on lettering from over a century ago, it has overtones of the midcentury sans serifs like Microgramma/Eurostile as well as squared gothics form the â70s like Neographik and Serpentine.
This monthâs offering adds a lowercase to the original Wide style, as well as SemiWide and Normal widths.
This month, I break my own rules and dive back into Warbler, offering three optical sizes for larger settings. Thereâs a 96pt Banner cut for massive titles, a 48pt Display cut for headlines, a 24pt Deck cut for subheads, and a variable font that encapsulates all the space between Banner and Textâthose point sizes are just suggestions.
Warbler Text is a typeface for extended reading, with an emphasis on the screen. Stylistically, it follows in the footsteps of the types cut by William Martin in 1790 for the English printer William Bulmer, who famously used them in his editions for the Shakspeare Printing Office (sic). This interpretation attempts to showcase the softer side of the Modern serif that Martin cultivated in his designs, a more genteel approach that contrasts with the vigorous, authoritative tone of the Scotch Romans that would follow it.
Klooster Thin is a new take on the uncial script, and now it has a lowercase! Itâs a mix of traditional Roman capitals with round, hybrid forms that would event what the alphabet was like before the lowercase had fully evolved. This typeface is related to the Black weight I drew in 2017, but also has its own unique features: a distinct diagonal stress connecting it to its calligraphic roots, and super-long vertical serifs that add snap and elasticity to the curves and give the letterforms an untamed energy.
This month, Iâm sending you my revival of Bradley Initials, a set of ornate drop caps designed as a companion to Bradley, the âfairytale blackletterâ that I revived for the club in September 2018. It was based on lettering by renowned illustrator and designer Will H. Bradley, and published by American Type Founders in 1895. This is my first font to come in COLRv1 format!
Note: This font has an extremely limited character set. There is a known bug with the display of accented characters in the color font, so please use the layer fonts instead.
Rustique is an abstracted take on Capitalis Rustica calligraphic hand that was used in Rome during the first several centuries of the common era. Scribes wrote these Rustic capitals with a steep pen angle, producing narrow letterforms with tapering stems, heavy draping diagonals, and a distinctive horizontal stress. Rustique transforms this historical style into an abstract typographic system, amplifying stroke contrast and the swing of curves to produce a design that feels at home in the future as it does in the past.
When I want to just set some type without any fuss, I start with Output. With a voice that is fresh and a little techy, it is designed to excel in situations where information comes before style, when type must be understated without becoming generic. This month, Iâve converted Output Sans from a conventional font family into a tractable, tweakable variable font. But for now itâs just a proof of concept, and gets a little lumpy as you navigate away from the default Regular style. But I hope sending this out gives me a kick in the butt to keep working on it, as opposed to letting it sit for another five years.
Roslindale Extended follows in the footsteps of De Vinne Extended, a font that doubled down on the blotchy texture of the De Vinne types and was perhaps the ugliest duckling of them all. Typically oldstyle serifs arenât taken to extremes in width, but I became curious to see what this might look like in Roslindale, which seeks to smooth out some of De Vinneâs lumpiness and unevenness. The result might be too wide for its own good, but you never know until you try!
Megazoid celebrates the awkwardness of raw geometry. With little in the way of fine-tuning or optical compensation, it mashes blocky rectangles together with circular counterforms to create striking abstract shapes. Asymmetrical diagonals punctuate the design, adding a touch of unexpected dynamism. The result is a geometric sans that manages to feel just at home on a retro guitar amp as it would on a futuristic interstellar satellite.
Pomfret is a titling face with Arts & Crafts flair. After years of encouragement from Roger Black, I began the design as an homage to the work of Bertram Goodhue, famous as the architect of the Nebraska State Capitol as well as the typeface Cheltenham. The skeletons of the letters were initially inspired by the tightly-spaced capitals (especially the restrained R and K) found on his cover for The Knight Errant. Pomfret moves beyond its source material, adopting a more contemporary finish with discretionary ligatures, razor-thin hairlines, and restrained, bracketed serifs. And this month I added a lowercase!
Fern is a Venetian oldstyle typeface with exaggerated diagonal stress. Its weight clumps in round strokes and chunky triangular serifs, giving it a rich texture that sparkles even at the smallest size. Its ribbonlike forms are modeled after the Renaissance faces of Nicolas Jenson as well as related twentieth century revivals such as Centaur and Dante. This month, Iâve added a larger âTextâ optical size to the family, as well as Bold weights and ornaments.
Extendomatic is a monolinear connecting script based on the streamline lettering of the mid-20th century. The typeface juxtaposes flowing, cursive forms with a rigid rectangular skeleton, all connected by an ever-present baseline. In addition to its adjustable weight and slant, Extendomaticâs variable font features a tracking axis that extends the baseline as it spaces out the letters.
This month, Club Lithographer gets an uppercase! This typeface is a wide-set italic with elongated serifs, blobby outstrokes, and an unusually steep slant (roughly 24°). Itâs a response to the typeface Lithographic Italic, credited to Andrew Little and published by A. D. Farmer & Son in the mid-19th century. My rendition plays up the expansion contrast present in this style of lettering, letting the weight quickly swell up in the downstrokes in a way thatâs reminiscent of the expanding nib of a pointed pen. It goes even further than pointed-pen lettering by punctuating the beginnings and endings of strokes with expressive blobs.
Job Clarendon is an homage to the Condensed Clarendon, the versatile bracketed slab serif style that was a mainstay of 19th century British and American job printing. A collaboration with Bethany Heck, this interpretation builds on the Hairline weight published in 2020 and extends the weight range to the opposite extreme. This design changes across weight more than any other typeface Iâve designed: stems get up to 45 times thicker from Hairline to Black, and the average letterform more than doubles in width.
Megavolt is a broad sans serif with no curves. Instead, it relies on an intricate network of trapezoids and 54° angles to communicate forcefulness, intensity, and motion. After beginning the typeface as a formal geometric exercise, I quickly learned that I needed to lean in to its sci-fi and metal connotations. The result is letterforms so severe and uncompromising that they challenge legibility, not to mention good taste!
Klooster Thin is a new take on the uncial script, a mix of traditional Roman capitals with round, hybrid forms that would event what the alphabet was like before the lowercase had fully evolved. This typeface is related to the Black weight I drew in 2017, but also has its own unique features: a distinct diagonal stress connecting it to its calligraphic roots, and super-long vertical serifs that add snap and elasticity to the curves and give the letterforms an untamed energy.
This month, I add lighter weights to Gimlet Sans, a Grotesque sans serif companion to my typeface Gimlet, which was in turn inspired by Georg Trumpâs 1938 typeface Schadow. While superelliptical sans serifs can sometimes feel cold, Gimlet Sans harnesses Schadowâs unique blend of geometric clunkiness and organic spunkiness to add some bounce and liveliness to the mix.
Club Lithographer is a wide-set italic with elongated serifs, blobby outstrokes, and an unusually steep slant (roughly 24°). Itâs a response to the typeface Lithographic Italic, credited to Andrew Little and published by A. D. Farmer & Son in 1873. My rendition plays up the expansion contrast present in this style of lettering, letting the weight quickly swell up in the downstrokes in a way thatâs reminiscent of the expanding nib of a pointed pen. And it goes even further than traditional pointed-pen lettering by punctuating the beginnings and endings of strokes with expressive blobs.
Where do I even start with this one? Megabase Open is a hollowed-out version of Megabase, a display gothic with strong horizontal stress inspired by the clunkiness of 19th-century gothics like Gothic Bold and the space-age funkiness of 1970s designs such as Aldo Novareseâs Sintex and Bob Newmanâs Zipper. This monthâs issue features experiments that fill those hollow spaces with colors and gradients.
This month, Iâve finally added wider and lighter Display styles to Roslindale, my cheeky serif typeface. Roslindale takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldnât shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase.
Heckendon is a bracketed slab serif based on the Condensed Clarendons of nineteenth century British and American poster typography. Under the guidance of Clarendon-enthusiast Bethany Heck, I drew this Hairline style far thinner than any of its Victorian predecessors, and we hope this is only the beginning. Heckendonâs simple and confident forms make it feel industrial-strength even at the thinnest possible weight, while its ball terminals lend it a touch of gracefulness.
Note: An updated version of this font is available as Job Clarendon.
Pomfret is a set of titling capitals with Arts & Crafts flair. After years of encouragement from Roger Black, I began the design as an homage to the work of Bertram Goodhue, famous as the architect of the Nebraska State Capitol as well as the typeface Cheltenham. The skeletons of the letters were initially inspired by the tightly-spaced capitals (especially the restrained R and K) found on his cover for The Knight Errant. Pomfret moves beyond its source material, adopting a more contemporary finish with discretionary ligatures, razor-thin hairlines, and restrained, bracketed serifs.
Note: An updated version of this font is available as Pomfret v2.
This expansion of my sans serif Bild leaves the original bold weights behind and explores the lighter end of the spectrum. The sketches for this date back to 2012, when Sam Berlow encouraged me to develop a Grotesque family built around Trade Gothicâs âoutliersâ: two anomalous straight-sided weights that had little to do with the rest of Jackson Burkeâs classic midcentury family.
Gimlet Sans is a Grotesque sans serif companion to my typeface Gimlet, which was in turn inspired by Georg Trumpâs 1938 typeface Schadow. While superelliptical sans serifs can sometimes feel cold, Gimlet Sans harnesses Schadowâs unique blend of geometric clunkiness and organic spunkiness to add some bounce and liveliness to the mix.
Roslindale is a text and display serif that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldnât shake its Victorian sensibilities. This Deck series is meant for uses that are between text and display, and includes four weights (RegularâBold), accompanying Italics, and a variable font.
Dattilo DJR revives the slab serif counterpart to Forma, released between 1972 and 1974 by the renowned type foundry Nebiolo and created by a team of Italian designers led by the inimitable Aldo Novarese. Like Forma DJR, this revival attempts to bring new life to this bygone era of typography, embodying the peculiar collision of midcentury modernist idealism with the smudgy realities of metal, ink, and paper. With rounded corners and tapered serifs, this monthâs offering explores the heavier side of the designspace, including Regular, Medium, Bold, and Black weights (not to mention a variable font).
Megabase is a display gothic with strong horizontal stress inspired by the clunkiness of 19th-century gothics like Gothic Bold and the space-age funkiness of 1970s designs such as Aldo Novareseâs Sintex and Bob Newmanâs Zipper. Megabase goes beyond its forebears in emphasizing its horizontality; while most typefaces strive for an even typographic color, Megabase embraces its unevenness, allowing topheavy, bottomheavy, and diagonal forms to stick out like sore thumbs. The typeface offers several variants of especially disruptive letters, allowing the designer to calibrate these interruptions.
Zenith Slab DJR is a slab serif version of Zenith DJR, a set of Art Deco capitals based on a fire station inscription in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this design, each letter gets a single heavy stem, eschewing traditional weight distribution and enriching words with a distinctive rhythm. The slab serif version enhances Zenithâs Art Deco geometry with angular vertical serifs, which adds a sense of playfulness to the otherwise-spare design. Zenithâs chunky strokes and open spacing make it a perfect choice for headers and packaging.
Roslindale was inspired by De Vinne, a typeface attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner and released by the Central Type Foundry in 1892. Whether I like it or not, Roslindale Ultra may owe more to the bold, high-contrast, Victorian-inspired serifs of the International Typeface Corporation (better known as ITC) and designers such as Herb Lubalin, Tom Carnase, and Ed Benguiat that came to define American typography in the 1970s.
Clavichord is a spindly textura inspired by a little-known American typeface from the mid 1800s called Cuneiform or Italian Text. The design is built around a repeating âsparkleâ shape that is abstracted from the diamondlike forms made by a broadnib pen held at 45°. Any connection to broadnib calligraphy is severed after that, as the typeface descends into lavish Victorian excess with razor-thin hairlines and decorative ball terminals. The Optical Size axis keeps the hairlines at 0.5pt across a wide range of sizes.
Lautsprecher DJR is a revival of Lautsprecher, a curious hybrid of cursive capitals and an italic sans-serif lowercase designed by Jakob Erbar. The typeface was released by German foundry Ludwig & Mayer in 1931, but disappeared from their catalog after Erbarâs death and the foundryâs destruction during the second World War. A specimen for this funky design recently made its way to Letterform Archive in San Francisco, and thanks to some cheerleading from Stephen Coles, I have attempted an interpretation for contemporary use.
The Wonderground map is famous for saving the London Underground. But when I first encountered Gillâs work in La Jolla, the map that struck first most was actually Wondergroundâs 1922 successor, âIn the Heat of the Summer.â Titling caps feel elegant because we allow them to take up the space that they need. So what impressed me about the capitals on this particular map is that they managed to retain so much of their elegance despite being so aggressively crammed together.
Tortellini is an extended slab serif with horizontal stress. Originally intended as a wide companion for Pappardelle, it took on a life of its own as I incorporated more and more aspects of the Extended French Antique typefaces of the 19th century. The resulting typeface has wider proportions and thinner hairlines than its predecessors, enlivened by a funky mix of squared-off slabs and bouncy, elastic rounds.
Based on metal type found by Indra Kupferschmid, this interpretation captures the rounded corners, tapered stems, and subtle quirks that were byproducts of the printing process. These new âChiaroscuroâ styles go beyond the original weights to explore the extremes of Light and Dark in Forma DJRâs designspace.
Bild is a straight-sided sans inspired by two outlier styles found in Trade Gothic, Bold and Condensed No. 20. These styles stand apart from the majority of Jackson Burkeâs famous midcentury grot, with a clunky rigidity more in line with Alternate Gothic or Railroad Gothic. Back in 2012, Sam Berlow suggested an entire family stemming from these outliers, and Iâve been toying with the idea ever since.
Every bit as dense and blocky as the original, these new styles take on a rhythm now that things arenât so squished together. In order to maintain this density, the stroke weight gets significantly thicker as the design gets wider.
Polliwogâs Art Nouveau-style capitals are inspired by the work of German artist Max Joseph Gradl. Rather than adopting the oranmental excess of Gradlâs original, this typeface suggests that all you need is a single drop of that proto-psychedelic Jugendstil energy to create a compelling rhythm. Intended for short bursts of novelty text, Polliwog juxtaposes straight stems with broad, swooping curves that flatten out abruptly as they hit the tops and bottoms of letters. This creates a clumping in weight that is echoed by the softened and tapered stroke endings, giving a lively wobble to an otherwise-skeletal design.Â
Gimlet Banner is a funky quirkhorse workhorse inspired by Georg Trumpâs 1938 typeface Schadow. At the behest of Nick Sherman, I reimagined the oddball serif as an energetic contemporary workhorse, and this Banner exploration raises the thick/thin contrast to new heights. A multifaceted series that speaks with a singular voice, Gimlet is a rare find: a typeface that is as funky as it is functional.
Nickel Gothic Wide is a stocky grotesque based on lettering found on the same 1918 Chinese banknote its serifed counterpart Nickel. It retains the squarish forms and closed apertures of the serifed design, but its significantly bolder weight and wider proportions endow it with an intense energy of its own. Despite the fact that it is based on lettering from over a century ago, it has overtones of the midcentury sans serifs like Microgramma/Eurostile as well as squared gothics form the â70s like Neographik and Serpentine.
A sloped Roman was not enough for Roslindale. Like De Vinne before it, Roslindale combines a rational structure typical of the Victorian era with echoes of historicized âoldstyleâ shapes. And because Roz has a foot in both the âmodernâ and âoldstyleâ worlds, I felt that its Italic should as well.
Italics can have an especially complicated relationship with their companion Romans. This is because they can differ from the Roman not only in slope, but in cursiveness as well.
Forma and Dattilo share an interesting history as the product of a committee of eight prominent Italian graphic designers led by Nebioloâs art director, Aldo Novarese. The struggling foundry assembled this committee to create a new âuniversalâ typeface that would compete with the likes of Helvetica and Univers. Indra Kupferschmid documented this unusual tale of design-by-committee in an article that accompanied Forma DJRâs release, and even more detail can now be found in a pair of recent articles by Alessandro Colizzi. Just like Forma, Roger has admired the design for decades, even commissioning a phototype version from Jim Parkinson for a 1977 cover of Rolling Stone when the original metal was unavailable.
Pappardelle Party expands on Pappardelle, a French Antique slab serif inspired by the modernist uses of horizontal stress in the twentieth century, particularly Herbert Matterâs branding for Knoll. This new stencil style further abstracts the design, complete with horizontal bridges that form bands across a line of text. It also combines color font technology, a variable axis, and OpenType contextual alternates to cycle through a sequence of four colors that changes position with each letter is typed.
Fern Micro is a Venetian oldstyle that is native to the screen. With exaggerated diagonal stress, Fernâs weight clumps in round strokes and chunky triangular serifs, giving it a rich texture that sparkles even at the smallest size. Its ribbonlike forms are modeled after the Renaissance faces of Nicolas Jenson as well as related twentieth century revivals such as Centaur and Dante.
Bradley DJR is a revival of Bradley, a typeface released by American Type Founders in 1895. It is based on Will H. Bradleyâs cover for the Christmas edition of The Inland Printer magazine, and most records show that it was Hermann Ihlenburg who completed the design. Its simplified forms make it more accessible to readers who arenât accustomed to blackletter, and this revival seeks to preserve its softness, descending caps, and distinctive storybook character.
Map Roman is an elegant set of capitals based on the lettering of MacDonald Gill, whose work included a variety of beautifully handlettered maps of London, England, and the world. After stumbling upon his work in a map museum, I tried my hand at a typographical interpretation that attempts to capture the liveliness and authority of his letterforms.
Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhodyâs quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t. The July 2018 edition adds Light, Medium, and Black weights to the Rhody family, as well as a bonus variable font for licensees of the February 2018 edition.
Merit Badge is a variable color font based on blocky modular letters found in a 1970âs boy scout guide. In contrast to the stark simplicity of its design, the font is technically complex, allowing for variation in weight and serif length, as well as for color to be applied to its three layers. These features make it perfect for animation and experimentation with emerging font technologies.
Roslindale is a text and display serif that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, making for a headline and text face that is eminently usable but still quite distinct. Mayâs offering includes two Condensed Display weights, Light and Regular, as well as a Bold companion to the text weights.
Rumpus Extended is a super-wide typeface with sharp Latin serifs. It is descended from Stephenson Blakeâs 1883 Wide Latin, which contrasts super-pointy serifs with super-round forms. Rumpus keeps a bit of the wild side of other Latins, but isnât as overtly circuslike. Unlike its predecessors, Rumpus has a distinctly humanist structure, evidenced by its interior corners and punctuated by its diamond shaped dots. And the sheer width of Rumpus Extended is enough to give significant heft to any message, no matter how short it may be.
Output Sans Hairlines is a special cut of the thinnest weights of my upcoming release, Output Sans. While its cousin Input is tuned for code, Output is quieter and more versatile, with softer curves and tighter spacing, so it can better confront the demands of varied reading and interaction. With this prototype variable font, you can set the Optical Size axis to the same value as the fontâs point size (or even better, your app or browser may do it for you), and the stroke weight will be roughly one point thick (between 34ptâ166pt, anyway).
Rhody is a stocky geometric slab with distinctive vertical serifs in Supported Languages include: unexpected places. Its jumping-off point was the cover of a 1952 garden calendar that I found in the Mölndals Stadsmuseum outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With narrow, straight-sided forms and curves, Rhodyâs quirky, mechanical look is punctuated by extra-gappy inktraps as well as blocky forms of f, j, and t.
Extraordinaire is an adjustable hairline sans inspired by single-stroke lettering of the Art Deco period, particularly the signs that I saw on early 20th-century buildings in SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil. Its uppercase descends below the baseline so that the small caps appear vertically centered, and the round endings of its strokes gives the face a breezy, informal feel. Designers can use its variable axes to maintain a consistent stroke weight across different sizes, or layer multiple shade distances together to create a variety of dazzling effects.
Klooster is a thick, broad titling face modeled after the uncial script. While the uncial script dates back to the fourth century, this rendition has its origins in a twentieth century ex-libris shown in D. Giltay Vethâs 1950 book Dutch Bookplates: A selection of modern woodcuts & wood engravings. Some letters resemble Roman capitals as we know them, while others lean towards the rounded forms destined to eventually become our lowercase. Bursting with energy, Kloosterâs harsh angles contrast with its gestural curves.
Roslindale Text is a serif for extended reading that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldnât shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase. Sure it can be a bit cheesy at times, but aims for a creamy brie instead of a stinky bleu.
Pappardelle is a French Antique slab serif inspired by the rationalized, modernist uses of horizontal stress in the twentieth century, particularly Herbert Matterâs branding for the furniture designer Knoll. Its vertical stems range from dense to delicate across the duplexing family, but its thick horizontal strokes always stay the same. Ample letterspacing will counterbalance Pappardelleâs condensed forms in a fresh and surprising way; think about adding some tracking to accentuate its stacatto rhythms.
Bild builds on the features of Trade Gothic Bold and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 20, outliers in Jackson Burkeâs famous midcentury grot. These weights are clunkier and narrower than the rest of the family, with echoes of Bentonâs Alternate Gothic and ATF Railroad Gothic. Started in 2012 at the suggestion of Sam Berlow, Bildâs dense texture, narrow proportions, and straight-sided letterforms make it structured but not rigid. The typeface is named after the German word for âimageâ and was designed with a singular goal: to set a damn fine headline.
Note: An updated version of this font is available in Bild Widths.
Crayonette DJR is a revival of Crayonette, a typeface designed by Henry Brehmer and first issued by Philadelphiaâs Keystone Type Foundry. Until now, this typeface has survived without a digital interpretation that does it justice. This delightfully quirky italic features horizontal stress, luxurious curves, and oversize swash capitals. Crayonette DJR retains the key features and proportions of the original, but improves its spacing and tames a few of the wilder letterforms. Use this typeface with care, and it wonât take too much to add a healthy dose of that weird and wonderful Victorian charm to your page or screen.
Zenith DJR is a set of Art Deco capitals based on the inscription on a fire station in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this design, each letter gets a single heavy stem, eschewing traditional weight distribution and enriching words with a distinctive rhythm. Zenith also avoids the glitz and glam of Broadway, the famous contrasted sans, instead finding its voice in the stoic optimism of Art Deco geometry. Zenithâs chunky strokes and open spacing make it sturdy enough for smaller headers and extended inscriptional text, and its layerable inline can ensure that its unusual texture will truly shine.
Roslindale is a text and display serif that takes its inspiration from De Vinne, a typeface named for the famed nineteenth century printer and attributed to Gustav Schroeder and Nicholas Werner of the Central Type Foundry. De Vinne was an oldstyle that couldnât shake its Victorian sensibilities, designed in a time that was so immersed in the upright Modern style that folks seemed to forget what diagonal stress actually looked like. Roslindale smooths out the clunkiness of the original and dials up the contrast, flirting with the slickness of 1970s interpretations such as ITC Bernase. Sure it can be a bit cheesy at times, but aims for a creamy brie instead of a stinky bleu.
Nickel is a stocky engraverâs alphabet based on the inscription of a 1918 Chinese banknote. The font is the first offering in the Font of the Month Club!
In this face the traditionally round letters (like O and S) are straight-sided, as if chiseled from a block.
Meanwhile the traditionally straight letters (like H and N) are dominated by the sweeping curves of large, bracketed serifs. Nickel shares the monumentality of the lettering on todayâs American currency, but its squarish forms add a peculiar strengh and energy with overtones of the 1970s classic typeface, Serpentine.
Yes! The club is a great way for me to share my work early and often, and a great way for you to diversify your font library at a minimal cost. Itâs part-Patreon, part-Substack, part-font subscription service; a goofy concept I admit, but one that I take very seriously. Iâve been emailing out a font every month since May 2017âŠthatâs months of typographic goodness!
Can I get past issues of the club?
Yes! Back issues can be ordered from this very page for $24 (includes a free club membership) or $12 for existing members. And now members can also access many back issues through the Fontstand Pilot Program during the course of their membership at no additional charge.
What are the fonts like?
Every month is different. Sometimes the fonts are one-off styles, other times theyâre a piece of a larger family, an expansion of a previous release, or a variable font that includes multiple styles. Sometimes theyâre a bit experimental, other times they are functional workhorses. Sometimes theyâre caps-only, other times theyâll have a decked-out character set. (I do always try to make sure they are usable in all major European languages that use the Latin alphabet, and most have support for Vietnamese as well.) I will say this: whatever these fonts lack in completeness, they will make up for it in charisma!
What is the license like?
Club fonts are distributed under my standard Mini license, which permits you use of the font in perpetuity on up to 3 desktop workstations, websites with up to 15,000 monthly web visitors, and 1 e-book/app.
Ugh, subscriptionsâŠ
Yeah, I hear you on this. This is why I made Font of the Month Club different than most subscriptions in two crucial ways:
Recurring payments are 100% optional: you can order a yearlong subscription as a one-time purchase, and then re-up as often as youâd like.
The fonts you get wonât disappear; every font I send comes with a perpetual license, so you can keep on using them long after your subscription ends.
Do I qualify for the discounted membership?
This is for you to determine. I truly believe that the $6/month full membership is a good deal and a fair price. But I also realize that capitalism is far from fair, and that not everyone has the resources to make the club a part of their monthly expenses. I want this club to be inclusive of all font lovers; if you cannot afford the full price, the discounted membership is for you.
Does my download link expire at the end of the month?
No! The download links in the Font of the Month Club mailings should keep working for a while, and you can also access past downloads on your downloads page while logged in. If a membership or back issue isnât associated with your account or if a link isnât working, please let me know and I can hook it up.
I donât have a credit card handy. Can I pay a different way?
Sure! I can accept non-renewing membership fees via PayPal, Venmo and other payment platforms. Just let me know what youâre paying for, and Iâll send you a code that you can use to activate your subscription.