New Additions: November 2025
30th November 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:
Niklas Herrmann – Material (Optimo)
Material is an expansion of the single-weight typeface Material Headline, released by Optimo in 2006. What prompted you to develop it into a complete family of five weights from thin to black, and italics?
The original Material Headline has a unique modernity that could not be found elsewhere, so we all felt it carried something worth building on. We set out to shape its character more fully and develop it into a complete family. Especially we felt that the slab serif genre had room for something like Material, for a typeface that carries a certain sophistication, even elegance, in its punchy spirit.
It was also the opportunity to add new features like the all-caps ligatures that add another layer of dynamism to Material. These qualities were already present in the original Headline, and we wanted to build upon them. Eventually, the family came together as a close exchange between myself as the external designer, Nicolas Eigenheer who designed the original Material Headline, and the Optimo core team.
You’ve written that Material was originally inspired by Breite fette Egyptienne from the Bauer Foundry. Did you access the original drawings when designing the extended family?
Diving into original specimens was a crucial part of the process, and they significantly guided our decisions. Beyond Breite fette Egyptienne, other Egyptienne typefaces of the time by Bauer and Berthold served as reference points, helping us capture that certain spirit in Material. Equally important was our exchange with Nicolas Eigenheer, the original designer, who could share his original ideas and fresh perspectives. So Material was only able to move forward by being grounded in its roots.
Historically designers usually seem to start by designing the regular weight, and then subsequently build the family by adding bolder weights, but with Material your starting point was what became the heaviest weight, Material Black. Was it difficult working back to lighter weights in this way?
In the beginning it was quite a challenge to derive Material Thin, since features or details involving contrast simply aren't possible to translate to that weight. This made it necessary to really distill and shape Material’s core character, resulting in a more monolinear structure to the thin. And the further we went in the process, the more each weight developed a spirit of its own while maintaining unity as a family. Eventually all weights cross-influenced each other, which gives Material its very own taste.
Mário Feliciano – Statius (Feliciano)
You’ve written that Statius began as an attempt to design something like Albertus from memory. I’m impressed that you could do this; how far did you get before you were tempted to look again at the original?
As in most of my designs, at the beginning I did not have a plan. I normally begin by drawing a couple of letters and setting a few words, and then I move on from there. In the case of Statius, I realised pretty soon that it was becoming a sort of Albertus – something that in fact I wanted to avoid. However, I realised that I couldn’t avoid the fact that it was becoming my own take on Albertus. I guess that because I'd seen it so many times over the years that it was pretty natural to move on to that direction.
Then I decided to not look at the real Albertus until all the upper and lower case were done. And just after that I began looking at some examples, mainly to be sure that it wasn’t too close to the original. Honestly, I only took a more serious look at the original work of Berthold Wolpe when it came to design the figures.
You’ve made it clear that Statius is not a revival of Albertus but a contemporary reinterpretation, and there are subtle changes to several characters, including the ‘a’, ‘J’, ‘M’, ‘Q’, and ‘R’ (compare Statius Bold and Albertus). What was your thinking behind these changes?
I really didn’t want to be nostalgic, and also because I kind of dislike those letters in Albertus, mainly the lowercase ‘a’, the ‘M’, and the ‘R’.
Your italics are very different from the original Albertus Italic. Why did you choose to take a different approach?
While working on Statius I investigated Berthold Wolpe's work a bit more, in particular his work for Faber & Faber, and noticed some really interesting approaches to the italic forms, so I decided to make the Statius italics a bit more like a mix between my own vision about how an italic for such a typeface should look, and Wolpe’s work.
As a final note, while Albertus is mainly seen as a display typeface I wanted Statius to be more text friendly, which is why it has a higher x-height and some other minor adjustments in contrast and proportion.
Paulo Goode – Mysteron (Paulo Goode)
Mysteron is a square-shaped typeface in eight weights plus italics, and three styles. What inspired you to design it?
After completing Psylon I found that I was still enveloped in a science-fiction inspired mood. My initial sketches for Mysteron became the stencil style; in my mind’s eye I was thinking of futuristic transportation and cargo containers with giant stencilled lettering emblazoned across them.
You’ve described Mysteron as a modular typeface; does that mean that it’s designed on a grid?
Yes, absolutely; it’s not something I had tried before. The final results are almost monospaced with a few exceptions to the rule, such as the ‘I’, ‘J’, ‘M’, and ‘W’ in uppercase and lowercase, along with some necessary optical adjustments for legibility. The uppercase and lowercase all conform to the same width because of the inherent rigid grid structure. Then there are many repeating forms that give it a modular-construction feel. Overall, this gives Mysteron an unusual footprint and a quirky personality that breaks with traditional type design theories and practices.
I’m interested that typefaces like this are often described as futuristic, although Morris Fuller Benton’s design Agency Gothic has many similarities and it dates back to 1932! What aspect of them do you think conveys a futuristic impression?
I would say Agency Gothic is futuristic by association and that we, the general public, are used to seeing it used in situations such as for sci-fi movie titles and posters, dystopian book covers, etc. This is what I would hope for Mysteron: an association with high-technology, advanced concepts, space exploration, and so on. Futuristic seemed the best way to sum up this typeface, as, yes, Mysteron is a sans-serif, it is rounded, it is modular, it is square, it has low-contrast, but it doesn’t really fit too well in any traditional category as it spans the genres. To reference The Mighty Boosh, Mysteron is a genre spanner!
Did you have any applications in mind when you designed Mysteron?
In addition to the futuristic applications I mentioned above I would love to see it used for branding on an all-terrain vehicle, such as a Land Rover!
Olivier Gourvat – Urbolyt (Mostardesign)
What inspired you to design Urbolyt; was it for a particular project?
No, it wasn’t a client project but a personal one for my foundry. I wanted to create a solid typeface, in the spirit of block letters, that could work well for large headlines. The idea was to design something massive, a style I had never really explored before. It was quite new for me and allowed me to step out of my comfort zone. The initial goal was to design a very compact, all-caps, serifless typeface with strong compression to give the illusion of a dense, powerful block. It was also a very free project, without constraints, which allowed me to experiment and take more daring directions than I would on a more traditional typeface.
For Urbolyt, the question was simple but demanding: how far can you push compression, density, and visual impact without sacrificing readability and rhythm? I wanted to explore that boundary, to create something imposing that remained readable while flirting with the limit. It is, for me, a quite radical project compared to everything I’ve done before.
Urbolyt has a Sixties look to it, but I’ve found it difficult to find any similar fonts on Identifont to compare it to. Were you inspired by any classic fonts?
Yes, the final result naturally has a slight 60s–70s feel in the way the letter shapes interact, but that wasn’t the original intention. It recalls the aesthetics of that era, but to be honest, I wasn’t inspired by any specific typeface. As I mentioned, the starting point was mainly the idea of a very solid, almost carved from a block. I began working on Urbolyt during the summer of 2025 and built it step by step. At first, I thought that by simply working with massive, highly compressed shapes without curves, the alphabet would come together naturally and without too much difficulty. But once the first prototypes were done, I realized the whole thing was far too rigid. I found the result not very successful, and I even asked myself whether I would use the typeface. The answer was no, so I kept exploring other directions.
I tried softening certain points by adding slight curves or rounded angles, but that worked even less. I absolutely wanted to preserve two things despite the extreme compression: good readability and a strong contrast, almost like that of a highly contrasted serif but applied to sans-serif shapes. And it was when I drew the lowercase ‘y’ that everything unlocked. I draw a very oval tail of the ‘y’, mirrored horizontally, produced a sort of ‘C’ shape that I then refined. This form was more lively, more organic, and above all it interacted naturally with the rigidity of the capitals. The ‘y’ tail became a key: by integrating it into the rest of the design, I finally found the “graphic system” that had been missing to complete the project.
Urbolyt was built this way: a very dense base, almost carved out of solid material, animated by a few softer, more contrasted shapes to counterbalance the initial rigidity. I think what most evokes typefaces from that era are probably the capital ‘E’, ‘G’, and ‘C’, which have a more organic tone, almost reminiscent of old wooden printing types.
You’ve provided two additional variants of Urbolyt: Urbolyt Compressed and Urbolyt Wide. At first sight one might think that these are just geometric transformations of the regular width, but on closer inspection it’s clear that you have changed many of the character shapes; for example, in the compressed the spacing between the arms is wider in the ‘C’, ‘E’, and ‘G’. Why did you do this?
It’s great that you noticed it, because it’s not something that stands out at first glance, and it’s a technical detail that I intentionally emphasized in the compressed version. That’s where I became fully aware of the readability limits of this typeface. In its compressed version, I felt the letters looked a bit too closed up, too “blocked”. The compressed style simply didn’t breathe. So I shortened the arms of letters such as ‘C’, ‘E’, and ‘G’ to create more space and air within the compressed design. The goal was to maintain the density and massive appearance while ensuring clear readability. After several trials, I found that this approach worked well and allowed Urbolyt Compressed to remain legible while preserving its graphic impact.
Urbolyt looks ideal for book jackets, poster headings, and product logos. Did you have any particular applications in mind when you designed it?
I didn’t have anything specific in mind when I started designing it, but as I progressed through this typeface project, I realized that Urbolyt could adapt to a wide range of applications: album covers, posters, or product logos. Its massive, compact design gives it an immediate presence that captures attention, making it particularly effective for headlines and strong visual identities. Like many type designers, I often face the same recurring question throughout a project: for which uses could this typeface truly be relevant? With Urbolyt, the answer gradually became clear. It’s certainly a typeface with a strong visual presence, but it can work anywhere a bold, clearly defined artistic direction is needed.