New Additions: June 2025
29th June 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:
Hugh Morse – Apta (Weekend Type)
This new release of Apta is a development of your original design, published by Colophon in 2022. What inspired you to extend it into three variants?
The extension of Apta into three variants (Geometric, Humanist, and Mix) was to simplify access to the different stylistic expressions inherent in the original design. The original Apta included a wide range of alternates and stylistic sets that allowed for humanist, geometric, or hybrid characteristics to be expressed through OpenType. The new Weekend Type release streamlines this by offering Apta in three distinct cuts, making it easier for designers to access these specific styles without navigating OpenType menus, while still providing the complete set of variants within each cut for versatility.
Were there any particular classic typefaces that influenced you for the three styles in Apta?
The original inspiration for Apta was a collection of vernacular signs on mid-century social housing estates in Islington, North London. These signs exhibited a balance between humanist and geometric sans serif designs. At a glance, the generously open apertures and vertically cut terminals are reminiscent of Johnston (Edward Johnston, 1916), while details such as the straight leg of the ‘R’ and pointed vertices of the ‘W’ and ‘V’ are reminiscent of Futura (Paul Renner, 1927).
The letterforms highlight that both Futura and Johnston, despite seemingly opposing approaches, share commonalities such as Roman block capital proportions and near monolinear builds. The design of Apta aims to explore the intersection of these two influential styles.
A closer look at the two designs reveals further idiosyncrasies and perceived deviations from their respective classifications and approaches. For example:
- Proportions of ‘E’, ‘F’, and ‘L’: Johnston’s ‘E’, ‘F’, and ‘L’ are wider than traditional calligraphic models. Conversely, Futura, despite its geometric nature, adheres more closely to Roman proportions than Johnston in these specific characters.
- Optical balance in strokes: The strokes of both Futura and Johnston are near monolinear, however, Futura demonstrates greater finesse in optical balance.
- Aperture and terminals of ‘C’: The open and slightly extended aperture of Johnston’s ‘C’ is distinguished by vertical terminals, not dissimilar to Futura’s version. The former represents an expression of cursive writing, while the latter comes across as a more severely cut geometric form.
- Terminals of ‘S’: In contrast to Johnston's open ‘C’, the ‘S’ in Johnston has perpendicular terminals, creating a more closed form, a characteristic also observed in Futura's ‘S’.
Other designs, successors of Johnston and Futura, that were studied include: Gill Sans (Eric Gill, 1928), Tempo (R. Hunter Middleton, 1930), and Granby (Stephenson Blake type foundry, 1930).
Many characters appear to be identical between the three styles, such as ‘B’, ‘Q’, ‘R’, ‘Z’, ‘b’, ‘p’, 'v’, and ‘y’. Is that correct, and are you encouraging designers to mix and match between the three styles?
All of Apta’s stylistic alternates share a core structure: Roman proportions with a monolinear build, vertically cut terminals, and hard joins. This means the alternates can be seamlessly interchanged. Apta Mix represents one of many ways to combine the forms.
Although the name Apta Mix suggests that it is a mixture of the Geometric and Humanist styles, there are a few characters that are different from both in Apta Mix: for example, ‘M’ and ‘t’. Why did you give these their own identity in Apta Mix?
Deciding on the variants for Apta Geometric and Apta Humanist was relatively straightforward. However, the decisions for Apta Mix were more nuanced. We chose its characters to both capture the spirit of the original signage that inspired Apta and to serve as pure expressions of the typeface's core structural qualities. For instance, Apta Mix's ‘t’ is a natural expression of the design's signature vertically cut terminals while its ‘M’ is true to Apta’s Roman proportions.
Luke Prowse – NaN SuperX Serif (NaN)
You’ve described the SuperX family as a homage to phototypesetting-era typefaces. Are there any particular typefaces that inspired you?
In general, we don't really do revivals at NaN. We never try to replicate a specific style of font we’ve seen and liked. Instead, we try to explore some corners of the type palette that haven’t been explored enough yet. SuperX follows this logic. We indeed took general inspiration from how some fonts in the phototypesetting-era were suddenly drawn with shorter extenders. That’s not something exclusive to this time, and many fonts today sport a very big x-height, but we combined this with the idea of creating a serif typeface, elegant but also almost caricatural in some aspects. The contrast is pushed to its maximum, some shapes like the ‘g’ needs to do with very little space. But still, the font looks balanced and had a natural rhythm to itself.
SuperX Serif seems to have contradictory aspects to its design: its high contrast seems ideal for display use, but the large, open counters and minimal ascenders and descenders suggest it would be good for setting text at small sizes. What is the thinking behind these features?
What makes a good font for smaller size is quite easy to answer; what makes a good titling font is a more difficult question. Open counters, for instance, that are a feature welcome at smaller size, are nothing bad for bigger ones. They create nice negative space at big size too. Similarly, minimal extenders can prove very practical at bigger sizes, allowing for very tight line-space and to cramp more title lines in the same vertical space. In essence, if it's good in small doesn't mean it will be bad in big. After all, we've seen designers regularly use micro or text versions of fonts at a huge size, looking for these specific features.
A characteristic feature of SuperX Serif is the terminals shaped like glass drops in characters such as the ‘a’, ‘c’, ‘y’, ‘3’, and ‘5’, and especially distinctive in the bold and black weights. What was the inspiration for these?
These terminals are quite typically inspired by calligraphy. They are somehow remnants of the calligraphic influence in this rather rational typeface. But they were also a way for us to balance roundness and sharpness in the same font. They are round, but the angular counter they create makes for a more dynamic look than a totally rounded drop. A nice perk of this glass drop shape is how flexible it is too. You can make it narrower or wider without it looking goofy, which is very useful to manage apertures in complex characters.
The typefaces you’ve released so far are titled SuperX Serif Display and SuperX Sans Display, implying that you have other optical sizes in mind. It that correct?
Very perspicacious, indeed. We started exploring the idea of having some companions for SuperX tailored for smaller sizes weeks before the release. We were not going to postpone the release but have been busy working on SuperX Serif Text and SuperX Serif Headline since then. These versions offer a smaller x-height, a lower contrast, and a looser spacing. We're not sure yet about the timing of the release and whether SuperX Sans will also get the same treatment.
Valerio Monopoli – Macrosoma Grotesque (Blaze Type)
Macrosoma Grotesque is a sans-serif superfamily with an impressive nine weights from hairline to extra bold, and nine widths from compressed to wide. How did the project originate?
The very first weight of Macrosoma, which now serves as the condensed extra bold extreme of the typeface, was created back in 2020 and originally named Behrens. That same year, the excellent typographic newsletter Fresh Fonts selected it as their Font of the Month, offering the initial style to their members. After receiving a lot of positive feedback on that early, exclusive release, I felt inspired to expand the family. Given its minimal and versatile structure, I envisioned a large design space, including a slab variant and a variable setup spanning both weight and width axes. At the time, however, my technical skills didn’t quite match the scope of my ambitions, so I had to shelve the project for a while.
Jump to 2024: Fred Wiltshire and I had been chatting on Instagram for quite some time, bonding over a shared love for each other’s work and a pretty similar sense of humour. We decided to collaborate on a big type family for Blaze Type, which we both work with. At first, the idea was to start something new from scratch, but then I thought of Behrens and the plan I had for it. I suggested we revive the project and collaborate on its expansion, and Fred was fully supportive of the idea. This is how the new, extensive type family, now named Macrosoma (meaning “born too big”), came into being.
When designing with such a large range of instances in each of two dimensions, did you find that you had to rethink design decisions to get certain characters to work over the whole range?
This whole project has been a humbling exercise in compromise. At several points, we had to reassess aspects of the typeface, not just in terms of design, but also from a production standpoint. Some early decisions, like keeping all subfamilies in a single file or relying on interpolated virtual masters instead of traditional ones, ended up becoming obstacles later on. Eventually, we had to take a step back and restructure the file to move forward.
Our initial enthusiasm gradually gave way to a more sarcastic kind of exhaustion, which we managed to handle with good humour, mostly by sending each other custom memes about the project. That was our way of staying sane while dealing with the… (checks notes) 39,552 glyphs we had to design for Macrosoma.
A distinctive feature of Macrosoma Grotesque is that in the heavier weights, some features such as the parentheses, accents, and ‘Ø’-slash, stay hairline weight. What was the thinking behind this?
The original design of Macrosoma featured these hairline details mainly because they worked well with the condensed black shapes without requiring major contrast adjustments or forcing compromises in the letterforms. We decided to keep these elements in the expanded family, partly because they contribute significantly to Macrosoma’s distinctive character and partly because they were easier to adapt to the many additional masters.
The descenders in Macrosoma Grotesque are unusually short: one seventh of the x-height, compared to one quarter in Helvetica. Was this a design decision to enable tight-set headlines?
Correct! The idea was to keep the font compact in sentence case scenarios, but it also served as a way to differentiate it stylistically from more conventional grotesque families. That said, it became something we had to approach creatively later on, especially in the slab wide weights, where fitting the serifs into the limited space proved challenging. This influenced some of our design choices for characters like ‘y’, ‘d’, and ‘q’, which feature only one serif on their extending stems. Once again, compromises led to some unexpectedly interesting solutions.
Juan Luis Blanco – Basati (Blancoletters)
You’ve written that Basati is influenced by the Basque lettering style. What inspired you to design it?
The Basque lettering style is quite peculiar. A significant part of its uniqueness stems from its popularity as a means of expressing 'Basqueness', leading to widespread copying and adaptation from available sources. This continuous process resulted in a style that is anything but conventional. In previous works, such as Harri and Harri Text, I aimed to make it more conventional and regular, making it more adaptable to contexts beyond its primary usage.
The approach in Basati (meaning “beast” in Basque) is quite the opposite. Basati aims to exploit the rawness and oddities of the Basque lettering style without any inhibitions. My perspective on this style has changed over the years. I am now comfortable with its unorthodox shapes and enjoy experimenting with eccentric and freakish solutions that deviate from typographic standards.
Basati is the result of a personal journey that begins with the need to standardise a wild and unrestrained phenomenon, ultimately ending in the joy of playing and pushing its heterodoxy and eccentricity.
You’ve designed five weights in Basati, from regular to black. Did you plan the range of weights at the outset, and how did you approach them?
The project started very casually, with hand-drawn sketches and working with the thickest weight of the range, which offered the most options for experimenting with unconventional solutions (see Initial sketches on blancoletters.com). I discovered that having a lot of black allowed for very radical alterations that didn’t greatly affect the legibility of the characters. For example, interchanging the positions of the inner straight and curved sections in an uppercase ‘B’ or ‘D’ produced unusual yet perfectly legible characters.
The real challenge arose later when I decided to experiment to what extent these oddities could be kept within the regular weight limits. Less black meant fewer options. The process was also extremely interesting, ending with a regular weight that shows quite a lot of eccentricities but doesn’t stray too far from conventionality. The three intermediate weights were produced by interpolation, displaying a singular transition from boldness and weirdness to regularity.
In Basati Rounded the sharp edges at the ends of the strokes are rounded off. What’s the thinking behind this version?
In its initial sketches, the basic characters of Basati were drawn quickly and with energetic movements. This resulted in bold, sharp, and extremely provocative shapes. Every time I describe them I tend to use words as "wild", "cutting", "carving", "axe", or "scalpel". The character of these letters is very challenging, and I thought it would be a good idea to make a more user-friendly version that could be used in a wider range of applications. With Basati Rounded you can be wild and strong, but your voice becomes slightly warmer.
Did you have any applications in mind when you designed Basati?
Considering the Basque lettering style was the main source of inspiration, I expected it to be used in designs associated with Basque culture. It wasn’t surprising, then, that the first example of Basati I saw was used in a Basque restaurant identity. However, Basati is a highly versatile family due to its numerous letter variants and contextual alternates, allowing users to choose whether to use the font with a Basque flavour or not.
I believe Basati is an appropriate font for posters and other media featuring short, powerful messages. It’s also well-suited for packaging where the text is brief and needs to stand out and attract attention. Having a rounded version is helpful in ensuring that the tone of the message matches the kind of product displayed. In this regard, Basati's variable version, which combines weight and roundness axes, adds a much more precise degree of control.