H&FJ News | Hoefler & Frere-Jones

A family of energetic display faces in the baroque style, Hoefler Titling is the large-size counterpart to our Hoefler Text family. Twelve styles, from $199

A new width of Gotham designed for space efficiency — think web graphics, publications, annual reports, and signage. Sixteen styles, from $169

Friendlier than your average slab serif, Archer is forthright, colorful, credible, and charming. Romans and italics in eight weights each, including a delicate hairline, featuring small caps, fractions & tabular figures. 40 styles, from $149

A vigorous hybrid of time-honored forms and contemporary design strategies, Chronicle is a suite of typefaces that brings strength and utility to the classic serif. 106 styles, from $199

Signage fonts favor clarity, editorial ones demand space-efficiency. Originally designed for the Whitney Museum, our Whitney family tackles both challenges. 58 styles, from $199

From out of the six typefaces originally created for the Guggenheim Museum comes Verlag, a family of 30 sans serifs that brings a welcome eloquence to the can-do sensibility of pre-war Modernism. 30 styles, from $199

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23 June, 2010

Lettering of the WPA

Our designer Brian Hennings stumbled across a great resource this morning: on the website of the Library of Congress, a collection of 926 posters from the Works Progress Administration. The LOC has done a nice job with this collection, providing for each poster not only the relevant archival information, but high-resolution TIFF files that are free to download.

I’ve yet to meet the designer who doesn’t have at least a little affection for optimistic lettering of the WPA. We’ve stopped short of ever developing a full-tilt Art Deco revival, but many of our sans serifs undeniably feel the pull of the Machine Age. Verlag’s stark geometries include a conscious nod to the bold logo of the National Recovery Administration, while Tungsten is a modular typeface that resists the retro vibe of WPA “gaspipe” lettering. The Library of Congress collection offers a rare opportunity to see rarer styles still, perhaps ones that might obliquely inform some future H&FJ design. —JH

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Tags:

Collections, Posters, Americana, Lettering

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