BLACK MAMBA

Caution: Black Mambas escaped from Lab

The Lab is Swiss Typefaces’ Research & Development department where we explore new ways of thinking about shapes for the future. In our latest experiment, we aimed to synthesize the perfect font by crossbreeding a bold serif and an ultralight sans serif. We brought together samples of the SangBleu styles Empire Bold and Sunrise Air in our test tubes, and added a drip of dark hot chocolate. What can we say? Something went horribly wrong. A first evaluation showed the two faces didn’t blend. Instead they spawned a font suffering from bipolar disorder, alternating between a bold uppercase and light caps in the lowercase slots. 

The reaction couldn’t be stopped, though, and we soon witnessed abnormally formed letters. The mutations ranged from mild glitches (‘J’, ‘U’) and spasmodic hiccups (‘B’, ‘R’) to glyphs with severe seizures: a throbbing ‘M’, a squirming ‘Q’, sizzling arabesques. ‘E’ grew angrily lashing tentacles. ‘Z’ pierced right through the cover plate with venomous spikes. The letters started joining into words that looked like typographical Tourette’s. The supervisor reached for a scalpel, but it got ripped from her hand. The last thing we saw was a serpentine creature rising up and smashing the lights. Swiss Typefaces regrets to announce the outbreak could not be contained. Expect to see Black Mambas rear their heads in magazine headings, drop caps, logos, covers, posters, and more.

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KRSNA

KRSNA started out as a custom version of NewParis Skyline, made for two vinyl record sleeves by Geneva-based musician Grace Core. This experimental typeface abandons the convention of a continuous baseline and introduces a three-storey space where the letters can sit at the top, center or bottom, with the remaining space filled by bars and spikes. The resulting word images are captivating patterns with logo-like qualities.

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EUCLID STENCIL

Pretty sliced up

Euclid Stencil may be seen as an ironic comment on the undiminished popularity of stencil fonts in the digital age. The placement of bridges doesn’t follow the conventional pattern determined by the requirements for making physical stencils. Instead, the slicing occurs wherever it yields visually compelling results: Mosaics of shards, miniatures of modularity. Gaps are applied vertically and horizontally, sometimes emphasizing symmetry (E, H), but most often diagonally, at opposing angles (R, X). A spin-off of Euclid Flex Bold, it’s the typographic equivalent of Vincent Cassel doing the Laser Dance.

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ABOUT IKANSEEYOUALL

In this posh display typeface, the stroke contrast is turned up to the max: thicks are ultrabold, while thins are mere hairlines. IKANSEEYOUALL is brawny and delicate at the same time. Get closer so that you can see all the details: Arches in ‘m’ are sharp as raptor talons. Serifs in ‘N’ or the top arm in ‘k’ resemble rose thorns. Bowl and leg of ‘R’ dramatically taper to meet in a point – if this shape looks familiar, you may be thinking of related approaches seen in Tiffany Heavy or the Prada logo. The contrast axis is markedly inclined, see the ‘o’ or compare ‘p’ to ‘q’. Swiss Typefaces has explored similar terrain for the Black styles of SangBleu Empire. In IKANSEEYOUALL, there are less edges and straight lines, and more flowing and bulging shapes, with bulbous terminals. Stems have flared endings instead of lineal serifs. In letters like ‘n’ or ‘d’, they are angled and slightly concave. Dots are as big and round as can be.

The typeface obviously takes cues from the fat display Caslons drawn by designers like Tom Carnase or Ed Benguiat half a century ago. Additionally, Swiss Typefaces sampled a couple of their favorite moments from the history of lettering art, like the curvaceous ampersand, the flowery asterisk, or the spiraling ‘@’. The design is the opposite of retro, though. IKANSEEYOUALL is made for the present time. Its freshness is epitomized in the needle-like bars in ‘E’, ‘f’, or ‘t’ – it’s a safe bet you haven’t seen a ‘G’ or ‘M’ like these before. To the designers, these letterforms are the typographic equivalent of Koudlam’s “See You All”, a song that not only sparked the name, but has provided inspiration throughout the creative process.

Like all Lab typefaces, it comes in a single style: IKANSEEYOUALL – All of you. With more than 360 glyphs incl. many accented characters, it is ready to be used. Thanks to the extreme modulation, its letters combine into pulsative word images. Make sure to throw in some of the monolinear symbols like hashes, slashes, or dashes. Compose captivating patterns by stacking a few lines of caps. Get seduced by the numerals. Or find your very own ways to use it. IKANSEEYOUALL is an invitation to play.

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Alternate

Terminaisons

Ligature

Rythme

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ABOUT VOGY SMOG

Take the typographic Rorschach test

In the lowercase, Vogy Smog is a sans of wide proportions, with barred forms for i and l, yada yada yada. In the uppercase, Vogy Smog goes ape. The spaghetti pile M is my chewed mixtape. What’s in the Q? It’s the smoke ring you blew. T’s the tag we leave on the train. F is for their flashlights as we run in vain. Watch the powerline! X – the arc discharge. D’s a drip of blood. We walk at large.

When used in all caps, Vogy Smog resembles a typographic Rorschach test, a series of kinetic miniatures. For situations where the fuming capitals are too much, you can swap them for plainer forms (by activating small caps or Stylistic Set 1). With the unusual weight distribution, they’re not exactly conventional either, and weave a spellbinding pattern of thicks and thins.

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ABOUT KOPYME

A sneak peek at KOPYME was provided in Type Life #3. Readers of French specimen series La Perruque have seen it, too. Now we’re happy to announce that KOPYME is available from the Lab, our testing space for experimental fonts.

KOPYME is a brutalist typeface with monospaced characters of monolinear stroke width and extra wide proportions. With the emphasis on extended horizontals, it channels a specifically Swiss lettering tradition that harkens back to works by Walter Käch from the 1930s and 1940s, and also materialized in the Haas Horizontal typeface by Helvetica designer Max Miedinger. In a futuristic variation on this theme, we introduce disturbingly top-heavy shapes with angular terminals, see ‘C’ or ‘S’. KOPYME’s strongly horizontal nature is offset by diagonals that shoot across the glyph space like laser beams. In letters like ‘M’ or ‘Y’, they crash through the baseline, extending the underlying grid by a fourth underground level, and adding to the typeface’s kinetic energy.

You think this is fun? Wait till you’ve seen the OpenType extras. Switch on Stylistic Set 1 to pour a concrete base for your words: a fat underline that also creeps into the open counters. Activate Set 2, and all space above the cap height is filled up. Set 3 is a combination, with the characters locked between two solid rails. Change to Set 4: Here the center is filled and the letters are shown in negative. Only a few descenders manage to escape the dark mode. Last but not least, select Set 5 to see your words shredded by a stripe pattern – now you know how to typeset captchas in proper style.

The typeface has a full character set including upper- and lowercase, accented characters, punctuation, and arrows. The special features are available for basic letters (Aa–Zz) and numerals. For the time being, it comes in a single style – KOPYME, Again.

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ABOUT BRRR

With extra broad proportions and boxy capitals, BRRR makes words look like trains. Its angled terminals (a, g) have the immediacy of letters written with a chisel-tip marker. The stepped joins where diagonals meet (M, W) imply the same tool – used in a rush, as insinuated by the smeared i dot. BRRR has largely monolinear strokes, except for the pinched shoulders and bowls. It’s not monospaced, but with bars on I or J, BRRR adopts some of the aesthetics associated with fixed-width fonts, and indeed it has been used in stacked settings where vertical relationships are at play.

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