102 / Easy on the eyes 😏

A special font selection from the Fresh Fonts team.

Noemi Stauffer
May 17th, 2024

Welcome to issue 102!

Hey, it’s good to see you again! I’m just returning home from nearly a month on the road. I spent three weeks in Barcelona, where I used to live, and then I had the chance to spend a long weekend in San Sebastián in the Basque Country. Honestly, the food there was amazing. I’m already looking forward to going back! Especially because it’s fair to say that Switzerland didn’t welcome me back very warmly, as it hailed today in Lausanne, which is unusual for the season. I hope the content of today’s email brings you a bit of design inspiration!

Enjoy! ✌︎ — Noemi

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Typeface of the Month

Don’t just look at it, play with it! Upgrade to our paid membership and get a license of our typeface of the month.

Easy Grotesk from TypeMates

This month again, we are excited to offer one of the typefaces that they most voted for to the members of our paid membership. Designed by Alexander Rütten and Olivia Wood, Easy Grotesk is a fresh and friendly sans-serif with a visual twist. As the Fresh Font member who submitted the typeface put it: “A little quirkiness never hurt anybody.” However, note that Easy Grotesk includes a satisfying roster of alternates that can tone down the design if needed. The typeface comes with numerous OpenType features, including several sets of circled, squared, and even diamond-shaped numerals. Easy Grotesk comes in seven weights, ranging from ExtraLight to Black, for a wide range of use.

For a limited time, upgrade to our paid membership and get a lifetime license that allows for the following usage:

The complete Easy Grotesk family (14 font styles + variable)
Use in personal and commercial projects
Desktop use (for up to 3 users)
Web use (with up to 30k monthly pageviews)

✌️ Cancel your paid membership anytime, use the fonts forever.

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View Easy Grotesk →

Cool New Foundry

July Type Foundry

July Type is the new cool foundry on the block. The type design studio was founded last year by Edward Dżułaj, who previously attended TypeMedia in The Hague. Based in the Netherlands, the small foundry launched with three typefaces to its catalog: Picolo, a variable sans-serif, Peleton, a serif in three optical sizes (Text, Headline, and Poster), and Multona, with distinct squarish letter shapes. All three typefaces support both Latin and Cyrillic. “Language support is essential to us, and we devote significant attention to ensuring our fonts are accessible and usable across a diverse range of languages” the designer explains.

View their typefaces →

Fresh Releases

Esperanza by Labor and Wait

Esperanza was designed in 2022 for the Athens Cultural Center, located near the village of Athens, New York. The design was inspired by the lettering stamped into salt-glazed stoneware manufactured there throughout the 19th century. The Esperanza collection includes two families: Headline, and its Stencil sister family. Their design is based on the original Esperanza types, which were caps-only, to which the designers added lowercase letters. In addition, they created italic styles, but not any kind of italics — upright italics.

View Esperanza →

Rialta by Playtype

Designed by Jeppe Pendrup, Rialta is the latest addition to the Playtype catalog. A do-it-all and intentionally neutral grotesque that perfectly adapts to whatever you throw at it. Crisp, clean, and contemporary — Rialta draws inspiration from and pays tribute to the multitude of neo-grotesque styles that came before it. With its large x-height and low contrast, it works perfectly as a text typeface, remaining legible even at small point sizes. It is available in nine different weights, ranging from Thin to Black, with corresponding Italics.

View Rialta →

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Euchre by Okay Type

Introducing Euchre, a sans designed with text in mind. I love how Okay Type describes it, so let me quote them on that: “Euchre’s real charm comes from its perfect balance of contrast, just enough to make words sparkle but not dazzle. Euchre isn’t quite a jack-of-all-trades — but when it comes to making text shine, it’s the real deal.” This is because, in addition to its weight and width axes, the variable font version comes with a third axis that allows you to adjust text density without affecting characters’ width. Euchre comes in two widths, Regular and Condensed, each including seven weights (from Thin to Black) with matching italics.

View Euchre →

Frame in use, paired with Caslon Doric for titles, on Rapha’s editorial web content

Frame by Commercial Type

Originally created for the cycling brand Rapha — hence its name — Frame is a contemporary serif typeface with a large x-height and compact extenders. It was designed by Paul Barnes with Dan Milne and Thomas Bouillet. Frame draws inspiration from the seriffed faces of William Caslon I, in particular his Great Primer (1734). Frame comes in four weights with separate versions for text, deck, and headlines. Designed to work on screen, the family is also available as a variable font with axes for weight and optical size.

View Frame →

Creative Spotlight

Studio Feixen

I thought it would be nice to see some cool design projects in this newsletter, so I’m introducing this new section that puts the spotlight on creatives who use type in their projects — but not necessarily. This month, the focus is on Studio Feixen. Led by Felix Pfäffli and based out of Lucerne, Switzerland, the studio produces work that is bold, colourful, and full of type animations. In addition, the studio also makes fonts, and lavish posters that are available for sale.

Felix will be on tour starting from next week, giving talks and lectures at the following design festivals:

🇫🇮 Huiput Creative Festival, Helsinki, May 21st
🇳🇱 Forward Festival, Amsterdam, May 24th
🇳🇱 The Stories That Matter, Amsterdam, May 25th
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Birmingham Design Festival, Birmingham, June 6th

If you have a chance, make sure to catch him! His talks never disappoint.

Explore their work →

Do you like this new section of the newsletter?

Should I keep the “Creative Spotlight” section (see above) in the next emails?

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Goods

Sharp Type Volume One is now available for pre-order. It offers a deep dive into 24 of the foundry’s most iconic typefaces. The book also includes a license of Sharp Freehand, an unreleased font that is only available with the purchase of this book!

I love the fresh type on these soaps, which consists of Jeans & Towels logotype. Also cool that Fresh Fonts member Armando Tranquille worked on the design and development of the brand’s website.

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What did you think of today’s issue?

Thanks for reading! 👋

As always, it would be really nice to hear from you if you have thoughts or suggestions. Just reply to this email, I read all the messages that I receive.
— Noemi

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