This time we look at a handwriting font, two interpretations of w.a. dwiggins’ work, two new sans serif families, and a delightful new roman.

PETRONELLA
Petronella is the newest design from Robbie de Villiers. The script was inspired by the writing of several members of his family in Holland who wrote daily journals to each other during World War II. With the ubiquitous status of handwriting fonts like Cezanne and Texas Hero, one might question why we need yet another slightly ragged, highly personalized, script. I did—until I saw Petronella. While it is impossible to recreate someone’s handwriting, Petronella is an attempt to capture the unique and stylish characters that were apparently written with such confident strokes and distinctive flare that a feeling of sure optimism becomes the underlying message.

Petronella’s capitals are distinctive designs with remarkable personality. They could be used on their own, as initial letters. The R and P are downright unique. The lowercase is quite small compared to the full-bodied capital letters, requiring that the point size be kicked up a notch or two to arrive at copy that can be read easily. Once there, however, Petronella delivers highly personal and remarkably believable “handwritten” text. De Villiers also added a series of alternate “ending” characters that, if used with discretion, provide an additional uplifting quality in short blocks of copy. (Ending every word with one of these swash characters looks contrived.)

If you are in the market for a handwriting font and want to avoid the usual suspects, look to Petronella. It rates an inspiring 60 points.
Petronella is available from MyFonts

FOUNDRY STERLING
Foundry Sterling is the latest typeface family from The Foundry, a small design office and digital type foundry in London. First, it’s clear that this is a type family created by typographers as well as typeface designers—it shows an understanding of good typography. The family is made up of six roman weights and only one italic. The wide range of weights will provide the right number of styles for everything from signage to display headlines to editorial text copy. The lone italic is a complement to the Book weight and the only one needed for text. The Foundry designers had the restraint not to create a bevy of italics just because they could. Maybe it’s a British thing.

If you believe that fonts have a personality, Foundry Sterling’s is slightly aloof, with most of its personality showing up in the lighter weights. It’s not as clinical as Neue Helvetica or DIN but no one is going to call the design “lively.” Individual letters, however, do keep Foundry Sterling from falling into anonymity. The a and g are quite distinctive and the cap R is a wonderful, typical British design.

Foundry Sterling communicates without a lot of fuss or drama. There is a “horizontal” quality to the design—a subtle design trait that probably aids the reading process in text copy. Open lowercase counters also add to readability levels at small sizes. Foundry Sterling easily attains a 48 point rating.
Foundry Sterling is available at www.foundrytypes.co.uk

ODILE
Sibylle Hagmann’s most recent design, Odile, is inspired by an experimental typeface of W.A. Dwiggins. (I’ve always admired his work.) Dwiggins’ design, named “Charter,” was a study in informal roman character shapes. Dwiggins only drew a lowercase and the design was not released commercially. In her interpretation of Charter, Hagmann has not only added the missing caps but also additional weights, a suite of swash letters and two italics (a sloped and upright design).

The result is a versatile, if slightly eccentric, type family. The roman is an unusual mix of cursive and angular character shapes. The shoulders of the h, m, and n are also distinctive in their plunging angle. Serifs are square and robust—a nice trait to see returning to typeface design after so many years of cookie-cutter sans serifs.

Text copy set in Odile—like a good cup of coffee—is dark and rich. Its ligatures, however, are a little too strong and detract from smooth reading. And, as long as we’re on the subject of strong characters, Odile has a suite of initial caps that are clearly not for the timid. You either love them or hate them. I’m in the latter camp. If you forego the over-the-top ligatures and initial caps, the Odile type family will provide rewarding results at large or small sizes and in a variety of applications—giving it a 48 point rating.
Odile is available at www.vllg.com, a Type Co-op in New York.

ANTENNA
Antenna is one of the newest releases from The Font Bureau. It is a large family—at 56 styles, it’s bigger than your father’s old Buick. The styles range from a hairline weight, called “Thin” to a robust, but not overpowering, heavy weight called “Black.” These weights are available in widths that range from “Normal” to “Condensed” to “Narrow” (even more condensed) and finally “Compressed” (we’re talking as thin as a copy of The Atlas of Indigent Televangelists) —all with italic counterparts. In contrast to Foundry Sterling, the folks at The Font Bureau decided, “if they could, they would.”

Once you get over the bulk of the family, Antenna is a deft melding of traditional 19th century grotesque character shapes and proportions joined with up-to-the-minute design statements. The bowl-and-loop g, three-piece k, and no-nonsense caps give homage to the sans serif types available from American Type Founders at the turn of the last century, while the single-stroke u, curved l, and angle-clipped terminals make Antenna as contemporary as tomorrow’s morning paper.

Text set in the lighter weights of Normal through Narrow styles of Antenna will be straightforward and easy on the eyes— although the lowercase does space a little tight for my taste. The heavier weights, especially the more condensed designs, are powerful headline tools. They are definitely the “alpha animals” of the family. Antenna rates a solid 48 points. Antenna is available from The Font Bureau

ITC ANIMA
ITC Anima will be released from International Typeface Corporation this fall. Drawn by Olivera Stojadinovic, Anima is charming, provocative, and a delight to read. Stojadinovic is a calligrapher as well as a typeface designer, and the grace and energy of her lettering finds its way into her typeface designs. Anima is a four-weight family, each having a complementary cursive italic.

Given its angled weight stress, softly curved serifs, and angled crossbar on the e, Anima could be classified as an old style design. Where most old style designs show a slight calligraphic influence, the calligrapher’s brush makes a much more definitive statement in Anima. Character strokes swell toward the terminals and details like the ear of the g, the crossbar of the t, and bowl of the a also pay homage to the calligraphic arts. The italic lowercase dances on the page. An ample x-height combined with generous counters also ensure that Anima ranks high on the legibility scale. The Latin word anima means breath, air, spirit, soul, and living creature. A good choice for this typeface. Stojadinovic’s Anima is a lesson in grace, pulchritude, and service to readers. It captures a 60 point rating with ease.
ITC Anima is available from International Typeface Corporation

OFFICE METRO
Office Metro is Linotype’s newest revival of one of its old classics. Metro is another Dwiggins’ design, first drawn for Linotype in 1930. The original design was released with three weights, each with an italic counterpart. In addition, Dwiggins also drew alternative designs for the A, G, J, M, N, V, W, a, e, g, v, and w. In its first announcement of the family in the ’30s, Linotype claimed, “the finely proportioned capitals suggest the feeling of inscriptions on old Greek and Roman coins.”

About the lowercase, the company wrote, “While the Metro letters are true sans serifs, they retain something of the feeling of a well-designed old style lowercase—they have more life and sparkle than the average sans serif, and may be read more quickly and easily.” Both statements are true with the original, and the new digital revival.

I was only provided a “beta” version of the family to review, so the following comments may not be true of the final digital release. The original Metro had three weights, while the new Office Metro only gets by with two. Three would be better. The new version is also lacking the alternate characters of the original —naturals for OpenType fonts.

In spite of these drawbacks, Office Metro is one of Linotype’s better revivals. The company resisted the urge to overwork, and thus homogenize, the design. Office Metro is a true, and honest reworking of a great typeface, giving it an easy 48 point rating.
Office Metro is part of the Linotype Library

Ratings
72 Point: We’re looking at the next Garamond
60 Point: Very good, but not Matthew Carter
48 Point: Rock-solid design tool
36 Point: Worth the ticket price
24 Point: Wait for it to be bundled with 500 other fonts for $29
12 Point: Garamond would roll over in his grave
6 Point: OK, who trained the chimp to use FontLab?

Dr. Hermann Püterschein is the president of the Society of Calligraphers and a noted typeface and typographic critic.