Extra Bold: Wood Types

Stephen Coles

Last edited July 22, 2014

Back when type was set by hand, the biggest, boldest letters were made of wood to save costs. Headline typefaces from this era have a particularly warm, organic quality or charming idiosyncrasies.
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Linotype Bariton is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype's International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designer Alexei Chekulayev designed his font in one weight to mirror the Zeitgeist of the early 1930s. The characters of this extremely bold font are based on the form of a rectangle though its rounded edges soften its look a bit. Linotype... Read More

Dave West released the Behemoth Semi-Condensed font in 1960. With nineteenth-century wood-cut influence PL Behemoth Semi-Condensed is an example of the revival of slab serif styles, popular in the sixties and seventies.

Designed by Dave West and released in 1960, the name Barnum associates this face with the famous nineteenth-century traveling American circus and showman P.T. Barnum. The wood-cut influence of the letter makes the PL Barnum Block font ideal for posters, signage and creative titling and packaging.