New Additions: January 2025
31st January 2025
From the hundreds of fonts we add to the Identifont database every month we chose a selection of the most interesting recent additions, and interviewed the designers about their approach to each design:
Andrej Dieneš – Resonay Text (TypeMates)
Resonay Text is a calligraphic text typeface developed as a companion to your earlier Resonay typeface from 2021. Was a text version in your original plan when you designed Resonay?
Originally Resonay was planned to be a script (see Making of Resonay on my website), but as soon as I decided to make it a serif I planned a text version. I think it would be a pity not to expand the options for this typeface. In addition, I made several sketches for a sans-serif version with layers, and even a blackletter version with layers, but that would be too much :)
To achieve the calligraphic feel of Resonay Text did you draft characters first with pen and ink, or do you work entirely on the screen?
I hardly use pen and ink, but I did many sketches with a pencil to see how the shapes work together. It was not my intention to make an accurate transcription of manual calligraphy, rather than a stylization. The main idea was to create a font that would be like an interesting illustration in its own right, so it mixes the effects of renaissance calligraphy, stone carving, but also Gothic scripts. Since it combines different influences it can feel very free, as suggested by the name Resonay, implying resonance.
The original Resonay typeface was a layer font, consisting of the layers Resonay Base, Resonay Cover, and Resonay Solid that could be combined to create multi-colour lettering. Do you have any plans to provide layers for Resonay Text?
There was never a plan to create layers for Resonay Text, and it wouldn't make sense, as it is intended for setting text that conveys an atmosphere of ancient times. But I think that even in the original Resonay typeface the layers are seldom used. I will try to finish the sans-serif version; maybe a simpler design will be easier to use.
Do you envisage Resonay Text and Resonay Solid being used as a text and display combination in the same context?
Of course, it should be, and they even have the same glyphs and functions. I can well imagine some magnificent historical story like the Iliad and the Odyssey, where Resonay Solid and Resonay Text would be used together.
Dušan Jelesijević – Dorat (Tour De Force)
Dorat is a simplified blackletter font with a modern appearance. What gave you the idea of designing it?
Honestly, I wanted to try myself in that category and wanted to try to make something recognisable; not some historical recreation or pure calligraphic style.
The closest classical blackletter I can find to compare with Dorat is Linotype Textur Gotisch. However, you’ve written that you designed it without any reference to classic historical blackletter fonts. Did you just rely on your memory of the blackletter style?
Yes, it was designed without any reference. Like with most of my releases, I just sit and work. I know the order of basic calligraphic moves and steps for each or most of the letters, so I just worked with it as a base.
Contemporary applications for blackletter fonts seem to be limited to historical novels, computer games, beer mats, and certificates. Are these the sorts of applications you had in mind?
My intention was to offer a modern version of a blackletter font to those designers who know how and in what projects to break the chains with the font. I would like to see this font used, for example, on women's perfume packaging, or as the logo for an IT company. People (companies, designers, and final users) are used to following current trends and it's hard to find a brave client who's willing to be different with this or any other uncommon font for their market.
Emmanuel Besse – Cedrat (Formagari)
Cedrat is a serif typeface with Text, Standard (heading), and Display optical sizes. What inspired you to design it?
I wanted to add a serif family to the Formagari catalogue. During my research through French type specimens from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I found this display face called “Hollandaises” that had everything I love: varying rhythm between characters, round and large letterforms, and distinctive spiky endings. I began drawing something inspired by these forms, exploring different directions. However, I realized that creating just a display and bold typeface wasn’t sufficient, so I expanded my various drafts into a larger family.
You’ve written that Cedrat was based on typefaces called “Hollandaises” designed by the Berthier & Durey foundry in around 1895. How closely did you follow the designs, and what reference materials were you able to work from?
I discovered the source while browsing through the online collections of Paris’s public libraries. I then booked an appointment to see the physical specimen. I did a bit of research to look at some similar typefaces from that period but I didn’t want to draw a proper revival so I quickly moved in my own direction.
The original “Hollandaises” typefaces were intended for display use; what changes did you make to create the Text and Standard optical sizes for Cedrat?
During my first drafts that were pretty display-oriented, I played a bit with interpolation/extrapolation and realised that I could make something that works also fine in text use. At that stage, I brought Fanny Hamelin to the project and we set for a minimal approach to optical sizing: the three variants share the same vertical metrics (x-height, ascender, and descender). Cedrat Display is tighter, a bit narrower and has more contrast. Cedrat Text features looser spacing, a darker color and more open forms. Finally, Cedrat Standard, as you can guess, sits between the two extremes. I believe this lazy approach actually brings the family members closer together and keeps the project elegantly simple.
The italics are true italics, with cursive letter shapes for many letters such as the ‘a', ‘f’, ‘l’, ‘m’, ‘x', and ‘z’. How did you approach their design?
The original document shows an italic that is essentially much just a slanted version of the upright style. Since I planned for a complete functional family, I wanted to offer true italics. The neutral structure of Times’s italic was the right fit; I didn’t want something too round, too historical, or too sharp. For bolder weights, I found it interesting to add features reminiscent of Caslon from the phototype era: as the weight increases, a subtle curviness appears that makes the shapes warmer.
Renan Rosatti – Solar (Dinamo)
Where did the idea for Solar originate? Was it for a particular project?
The idea started a while ago when Fabian Harb (Dinamo co-founder) digitized a “hand-lettered Futura” sample from an old lettering manual he found in 2014 in Tallinn. It looked like a Futura drawn from memory, with some unexpected details, like straight terminals which probably came from the traditions and techniques of sign painting.
It sat in the drawer for some time, until all of us got excited by the idea of a new Dinamo geometric sans serif to live among all the grotesque typefaces in our library. We had collected a lot of reference material and exciting ideas on the genre by then, and started to look there to find out where the author could have drawn inspiration from to draw some of the more odd shapes that had nothing to do with Futura. With time, we started to also look at these references of geometric and humanistic typefaces of the early 20th century trying to find which ideas we wished were in our typeface, and started to try them out as well.
You’ve written that Solar is a homage to the classic geometric sans-serif typefaces: Kabel, Vogue, Metro No. 2 (digital release as Metrolite #2), Johnston (digital release as P22 Underground), Erbar-Grotesk (digital release as Erbar), and Futura. However, Solar clearly isn’t just a revival of any of these, and has its own distinct character. How did these typefaces influence the design of Solar?
Kabel was probably the main reference in my head during the whole Solar design. Not so much for the individual letterforms (though you can see direct influences in the alternate ‘a’ and ‘e’ for example), but for the overall feel and rhythm of the proportions. It also inspired the overall concept of Solar and Solar Display, as the two generations of Kabel (the 1927 original by Rudolf Koch and the 1975 revival from ITC) were a great example of two different approaches to the same base design tailored to different applications: text and display, respectively.
Futura was referenced in a very interesting way. Since it was the main inspiration of our source material, we indirectly got a lot of shapes and proportions from it, but they had already been interpreted and modified by the author. We also decided to reference it even more in the alternate selection, with options for the classic Futura ‘j’ and ‘u’, as well as the square tops in ‘a’, ‘m’, and ‘n’, which draw inspiration from the original drawings from Paul Renner.
From Vogue we got the straight ‘Q’ and the narrow descenders in ‘g’ and the alternate ‘y’. From Johnston we got the ‘G’ and the diamond dots, and the ‘2’, ‘3’, and ‘4’ that were already present in the original scans. From Erbar we got the alternate ‘K’, ‘k’, and the more down-to-earth apexes of ‘A’, ‘V’, and ‘W’ (which were available as an alternative to the sharper default forms already in the 1920s). And finally, Metro was a more general reference of how some more calligraphic gestures can be blended with a more rational geometric skeleton.
A distinctive feature of Solar is its forward-leaning ‘S’ and ‘s’. What was the inspiration for this?
That’s a good question! The ‘S’ and ‘s’ probably came from a completely unrelated set of references in my head. There might be a reference to some early century art-deco typefaces like ATF Broadway or ATF Parisian, but my best guess to where it came from is a set of photos from my camera roll at the time I was drawing it.
Anyway I remember at one point we were experimenting with the rhythm of the typeface, and wanted to introduce more variety in the letter widths. After adding more variety to the uppercase widths, I was looking for more candidates for different proportions and tried the narrow, forward-leaning ‘S’. It felt just right among its round and geometric neighbors, and ended up making the final cut and becoming a distinctive feature of Solar.
Solar Display is almost the opposite of what you’d expect for a display optical size, with closer tracking and a smaller x-height. Why did you decide to take this approach?
Since Kabel was a major reference in the project, it was inevitable to run into many applications of ITC Kabel (an American reinterpretation released in 1975 of Rudolf Koch’s Kabel from 1927) during our research. The larger x-height and extended weight range inspired us to consider a display version of Solar, which would be able to compose tight headlines like the brilliant uses of Kabel (and other typefaces such as ITC Avant Garde Gothic, Antique Olive, and Gill Kayo) we kept seeing in 70s and 80s posters, album covers, and ads.
Looking at Antique Olive Nord, Futura Maxi, and ITC Kabel, they all have very large x-heights and work very well in titles. I don’t think that is going against any rules for a display optical size, since that characteristic allows for headlines that are also vertically more compact. Tighter spacing is of course a very important aspect of a display typeface, and with Solar we tried to honor the “tight but not touching” philosophy; but with the x-height, I think that’s a much more negotiable parameter which depends more on what you’re trying to convey and how you expect the typeface to be used.