Especially if you work with connected scripts on a regular basis, it helps to set a few defaults in your design apps so that script fonts function as designed. In addition to ligatures, which are generally on by default, you'll want to make sure contextual alternates are also turned on.

A typeface is a system in itself: a number of individual characters are designed to relate to each other to perform rhythm and consistency – a carefully balanced relation of form and counter form, black and white. Hermann Zapf once said: “I could try to draw each letter so that it stood in graceful relation to the other twenty-five.” ¹ While less than 100 glyphs within a single font (a California Job Case consisted of 89 compartments) was common at the time of his statement (1965), over 1,000 has become a rather usual number of glyphs in recent years. What’s more, the demand on this system of relationships immediately increases with the designer’s decision to add further weights, widths or styles. Each glyph then has to successfully function in additional variations, which all share basic characteristics to form a harmonious and consistent visual system.

Typefaces are an expression of their time. FF Mark is a new typeface and yet it clearly draws on historical examples from the past. Precisely, the mid-1920s, a period in German history with exceptional innovation in engineering, in the arts and in design. In particular, the years between 1925 and 1930 produced several ideas that were new to the world – among them a new concept in type design: the geometric sans serif.