FF Extra is an ultra heavy, minimal sans serif. The family includes two widths: regular and condensed. The extra blackness of FF Extra came about while Paul H. Neville, the typeface’s designer, was reading Erik Gill’s book “An Essay on Typography.”

At one point in the book, Gill illustrates how typefaces are NOT to be designed. His exhibit shows, among other things, a capital A that is very thick, with a very small counter. It is labelled as being “hardly recognizable.”

Neville immediately knew that that this would be great inspiration for a typeface. As he worked on FF Extra’s characters, he reduced them to their simplest forms. His aim was to develop an incredibly thick display face, while still retaining a high degree of legibility.

Whether he has achieved both maximum heaviness and legibility is for you to decide! Hopefully, though, you’ll find FF Extra as much fun to use as he had in developing it!