New Additions: April 2019
22nd May 2019
We add hundreds of fonts to the Identifont database every month. Most of these are recent releases, and some are simply new acquisitions from foundries who were not yet represented on our site. David Johnson-Davies reviews some of the most interesting recent additions.
Magnat is a family of three optical sizes by René Bieder that vary in contrast from the low-contrast Magnat Text, through the medium-contrast Magnat Head, to the high contrast Magnat Poster. The family has an art deco feel to it, and all three optical sizes include a number of endearlingly quirky characteristics, such as the tail of the ‘Q’, the break in the strokes of the ‘R’ and ‘2’, and the spiky spurs on the ‘b’ ‘d’ ‘q’ and ‘u’, which give the font a distinctive character. Magnat Text will be useful for characterful text setting, whereas Magnat Poster, which is similar to Quiche Sans, will be ideal for headings and display. It's nice to have this range of applications in a single, consistent family.
When Göran Söderström discovered drawings for an unpublished typeface he immediately fell in love with its 1970s look. The designs had been created by painter and jazz musician Claes Nordenstam, when he was an art student in 1976, and he agreed to collaborate on the digitisation. It's now published as Sväng (which means “groovy” in Swedish) by Göran's Letters from Sweden foundry. The design is unique but has similarities to other fonts from the seventies, like Aldo Novarese’s Stop and Othmar Motter’s Motter Tektura. Although each character has sections missing, like a stencil font, it remains surprisingly readable.
P22 Schneeberger is a new font by Tracy Sabin, an experienced illustrator whose work includes the bestselling children's pop-up book “Castle”. The font includes solid and outline versions which can be overlaid for nice colour effects. It joins a large selection of similar whimsical fonts frequently seen on greetings cards and in children’s books, such as Alleycat and Hallmark's Twizot. However, unlike these older fonts P22 Schneeberger takes advantage of OpenType features to offer many ligatures and stylistic alternates, which can be used to make lettering look more varied and natural.
Playland is a new script font by Colombian designer Oscar Guerrero for Monotype, and he says it’s inspired by Italian signage. It’s similar in character to the lighter weights of Alianza Script from Corradine Fonts, but has smoother curves, more like natural neat handwriting written with a technical drawing pen.
At first sight Yuxin Huo's typeface Hua looks like a conventional geometric sans-serif, but look closely and it’s clear that there are no straight lines in any of the letters, which gives it a natural, organic appearance. The curves are more subtle than in other organic sans-serif fonts, such as Capucine or Overlock, which may make Hua more useful in applications where just a hint of character is needed.
CA Saygon by Cape-Arcona's Thomas Schostok and Stefan Claudius is a geometric sans-serif font with a few constructivist elements. Compared to other constructivist fonts, such as ITC Stenberg, it lets you convey a hint of post-modernism in otherwise readable text. They've also included CA Saygon Text in the family in case you want matching text in a more conventional sans-serif.
By David Johnson-Davies