Cyclone
The Shades package includes three more fonts for just $129.00!
How to use
Cyclone
Part of our Shades collection of decorative typefaces, Cyclone is a ‘unicase’ display face whose adaptable timbre draws on the distinct personalities of upper- and lowercase letters.
Cyclone is provided as both a standalone typeface, and a pair of chromatic layers designed to be used with multiple colors.
The Cyclone Inline and Background fonts can be individually colored and superimposed in register, to create different typographic effects. Managing each layer individually allows designers to control opacity, choke, and spread. Reversing the tonal relationship between letterforms and their inlines can dramatically affect the mood of the type.
Cyclone is designed for headline sizes. The following table offers some conservative guidelines for the smallest sizes at which the fonts can comfortably be reproduced and read, assuming typical reading conditions, and conventional contrast between type and background colors. The recommendations for sizes on screen are based on the coarser resolutions of older, entry-level monitors: at the higher resolutions available on modern phones, tablets, and laptops, type is viable at even smaller sizes.
Layers
Cyclone provides options for quieting its delicate surface decoration.
To eliminate Cyclone’s inline, use the included Cyclone Background Layer font. In text sizes, Cyclone’s unadorned cousin Knockout (available separately) includes two typefaces that recommend them as small-size companions. In the Knockout Series E package, Knockout No. 67 shares Cyclone’s underlying design but features optical compensations more suitable for small size reproduction; in Knockout Series C, the lighter Knockout No. 47 has thinner stems and more generous fit, making it easier to read when text is small, dense, or long.
Many of Cyclone’s special characters and alternates are grouped into Stylistic Sets, an OpenType feature available in many applications that makes it easier to apply related substitutions together.
4.1Unicase Forms
Cyclone includes unicase versions of the letters A, E, M, N, U, and Y, following the construction of the lowercase and the height of the capitals. These alternates can help change the tone of the typeface from earnest to exuberant.
4.2Stylistic Sets
Cyclone automatically adjusts spacing to improve typography.
5.1Kerning
Cyclone is spaced and kerned to perform in most circumstances without the need for manual intervention. In applications that offer multiple options for kerning type, always use the default kerning that’s native to the typefaces (labeled auto in Illustrator, and metrics in InDesign) — never use the setting for optical kerning.
So-called ‘optical kerning’ was originally developed as an automated assist for fonts that lack kerning. But applied to a professional typeface, it overrides the visual decisions made by the font’s designers, and instead spaces characters using a mathematical model. It routinely misjudges common pairs and ignores important context, creating erratic and disruptive rhythms. Because its algorithms are subject to change with each software update, ‘optical kerning’ can cause text to be reflowed without notice.
Because ‘optical kerning’ dissociates a font’s chromatic layers, it is especially unpredictable when setting type in multiple colors.
Cyclone features H&Co’s Expanded Latin character set.
Cyclone supports 503 languages including Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Basque, Bosnian, Breton, Catalan, Cebuano, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Galician, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgeois, Malagasy, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Scots Gaelic, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish, Welsh, and Zulu.
