Our Fontlympics are in full swing. In this newsletter, we celebrate fonts and their many feats, highlight classic pairs and introduce underdogs worth a look. Plus, meet VirusFonts’ latest edition of Olympukes, the inchoately iconoclastic, decidedly desanitized Olympic themed pictograms.

Stay tuned to the FontShop Blog and The FontFeed during the games, July 27 through August 12. And don’t miss our Fontlympic Decathlon, wherein you can help decide the best all-around typeface.

Image Credit: Tobias Titz/fStop

In the sport of typography, great pairs know one anothers’ limitations and complement their partners’ strengths. One style of type can establish the rhythm from which the other takes its cues.

In pairing faces, the typographer can choose to play up the designs’ differences, or fit both into a tight, cohesive whole.

Image Credit: Tobias Titz/fStop

Scotch Modern & Figgins Sans

Published by ShinnType

Searching for a complement to his Scotch Modern, type designer Nick Shinn looked to the seminal work of 19th-century punchcutter Vincent Figgins. Together the two usher in the Modern era.

Malabar & FF Hydra

Published by Linotype & FontFont

Malabar’s sparkling, angular forms accentuate FF Hydra’s smooth, spare nature and vice versa. This separation allows the complementary face to act as an impartial moderator to the voice of the content.

Baskerville Original & Tablet Gothic

Published by Storm Type Foundry & TypeTogether

Together, the many playful quirks of Tablet Gothic invite the reader to see the jovial, conversational side of Frantisek Storm’s Baskerville. Play with scale to strike just the right tone. See also John Sans.

The Olympic Games are all about surpassing one’s abilities. Traditionally certain countries excel in specific disciplines, but sometimes success comes from unexpected places. In the 1988 Winter Olympic Games a Jamaican team qualified for bobsledding. They quickly became a fan favorite because they were seen as the ultimate underdogs of the games.

Typography also has its underdogs — great typefaces that are perfect alternatives to overused type families and classic genres. Here are 10 hidden gems to help your communication win gold.

Image Credit: Charles Orr/fStop

Fakt by OurType

More than simply a contemporary re-imagining of the “neutral” grotesque, a clever stylistic switch turns Fakt into a geometric-like sans.

MVB Verdigris by MVB Fonts

MVB Verdigris is more than a slavish revival of the faces by Garamond and Granjon, instilling flexibility in the refined workhorse text type.

Eason by Fountain

Eason radically remodels the Roman designs by Nicholas Jenson — the blueprint for countless classic serif typefaces — for modern graphic design.

FF Super Grotesk by FontFont

FF Super Grotesk takes the geometric sans serif back to its roots, adding a classic flavor to this feature-rich type family.

Today Sans by Elsner+Flake

Today Sans tweaks the iconic shapes of the ultimate British sans serif, making its stately, engraved features softer and more friendly.

Musee by DSType

The sturdy and balanced shapes of Musee gain an unprecedented level of sophistication thanks to its many ligatures, swashes, and alternates.

Carmen by Typerepublic

The elegance of baroque typography is extra flamboyant in the high-contrast, idiosyncratic shapes of the passionate Spanish typeface Carmen.

Chevin by G-Type

With its slightly curved features in key characters and rounded stroke endings, Chevin proves that a technical sans can also be warm and personal.

ARS Maquette by ARS Type

Although ARS Maquette is a generic sans serif in the best possible sense of the word, its myriad of special features offer surprising possibilities.

Le Monde Journal by Typofonderie

This workhorse, designed for use in news publications, owes its perfect legibility to its open character shapes and large x-height.

 

On the occasion of the London 2012 Olympics, VirusFonts released Olympukes 2012, a new set of pictograms. In 2004, VirusFonts had taken on the Olympic pictograms — the ultimate designer’s commission — but with a witty subversion. Rather than expressing “inspirational” human endeavor, the Virus pictograms acknowledged the Olympics’ general greed, manipulation and skulduggery.

The London 2012 games gives Barnbrook an opportunity to revisit the concept and incorporate new developments they’ve noticed. The 2012 version looks more specifically at complaints, controversies and accusations leveled at the London games and associated events.

 

Countless hours went into researching accurate and thought-provoking stories, presented here in pictogram form. Olympukes 2012 is available for free in dark and light weights in the multi-platform OpenType format. Read more on The FontFeed.

Download Olympukes 2012 for free

Museo Sans Condensed

Designed by Jos Buivenga
Published by exljbris

Jos Buivenga keeps expanding his popular Museo typeface. After adding a Sans, a Slab and a Rounded, he designed the newest family member with economy in mind. Museo Sans Condensed is the ideal solution if you want that typical Museo flavor but lack the space.

Epoca Classic

Designed by Dieter Hofrichter
Published by Hoftype

Epoca Classic is the contrasted companion to Epoca. The stressed sans serif looks crisper and more distinguished than its monolinear sister. Its economical proportions, discreet elegance, and decided neutrality are equally suited for text and display use. Its well balanced proportions result in an even text flow, which allows for pleasant reading, even with large volumes of text.

Monte Cristo

Designed by Patrick Griffin, Kevin King
Published by Canada Type

Picking up where Libertine left off, the exuberant Monte Cristo makes an impressive leap forward to attain its luxuriously seductive personality. With a minimum of four variations on the uppercase letters, and up to 38 variations on the lowercase, Monte Cristo offers up mountains of design possibilities. The huge variety of letter shapes — from simple alternate forms to multiple beginning and ending letters, ligatures, and exuberantly swashed and ornamented variants — are going to make your next packaging project, wine label or entertainment cover a lot of fun.

Canary

Designed by Mark Frömberg
Published by Gestalten

Canary is a peculiar hybrid, combining the structure of a left-leaning antiqua with the fluid strokes of brush-painted scripts. Its many automated letter connections shift the font away from everyday typography, into the world of lettering. Although it was primarily designed for illustrative use in graphic design, Canary also works beautifully in medium-length copy settings.

Gratis

Designed by Martin Aleith
Published by Gestalten

Despite what its name may suggest, Gratis is not a free font, but a highly recognizable and striking blackletter typeface. It owes its memorable appearance to the systematic repetition of a limited number of angular shapes, making it ideal for headlines, titles and signage. Gratis’ jagged-edge look is powerful and energetic yet perfectly readable.

Sinews Sans

Designed by Jakob Runge
Published by Gestalten

Think of Sinews Sans as typographic connective tissue, just like its namesake. It strikes a perfect balance between static geometric construction and dynamic humanism. Constructed with squarish curves and open shapes, Sinews Sans is a highly legible, all-purpose sans serif.

Stina & Stina Web

Designed by Joern Oelsner
Published by profonts

Stina mimics the manual process of creating letterforms through cross-stitched embroidery. Previously relegated to sweet expressions such as ‘Home sweet home’, cross stitch is making a comeback, this time with a penchant for irony.

Happy Birthday FontBook!

FontBook App for iPad celebrated its first birthday on Saturday, July 21. Take a look at how we celebrated, including a look back on awards and changes, on the FontShop Blog.

Read more on the blog »

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