My favourite typefaces of 2008
The Best of Type
This year has been a great year for type, with many new releases. Some of them are exceptional. Following is a list of my personal favourites of the past year. This is by no means an exhaustive list; there are, in fact, many others deserving of accolades.
Compendium
Difficult to imagine a best-of list with no showing from Ale Paul. This one is no exception. Ale released several great faces in 2008, but my favourite has to be Compendium. A fluid, beautifully crafted script, made all the more wonderful with a large helping of OpenType wizardry:
I wonder what Ale Paul has in store for 2009. I’ll be sure keep you up to date.
Newzald
by Kris Sowersby, a TDC winner for his sans National, his serif Newzald is already one of my favourite serifs. Has everything you could ever want from a text face. I’m still waiting for it to be taken up by a newspaper.
Marat
A TDC 2008 winner, and one of my all-time favourite a’s from Ludwig Übele:
MEgalopolis Extra
from the very talented Frenchman, Jack Usine. And it’s free:
Skolar
Although it hasn’t been released yet, David Březina’s text face Skolar is already looking pretty exceptional.
Skolar is slated for release in 2009 (probably March/April) through Type Together as a family of six weights (regular, semibold, bold, and their respective italics); and will support most of the Euro-American languages, and come replete with numerous typographhic niceties (five numeral sets, ligatures, superiors, inferiors, fractions, arrows, …). A working beta version — minus semibold and bold italics — will be available by the end of January. Contact Type Together for further information.
Museo
The hugely successful Museo, from Jos Buivenga. Available in 5 weights, three of which are free:
Blaktur
Ken Barber’s simple yet in your face letterforms, wrapped up in some really smart OpenType features. If you’re looking for a ‘blackletter’ display face that won’t be lost in the crowd, then look no further:
Facebuster
A very bold slab serif with minuscule slit counters — from Silas Dilworth:
Tomate
Voluptuous, fun, and very sexy — from Ramiro Espinoza:
Soho
from Seb Lester, very talented illustrator and type designer who is finally starting to get some of the recognition he deserves. Both Soho and Soho Gothic are exceptional typefaces. Be sure to take a look at the Soho PDF specimen.
FF Utility
Lukas Schneider’s sans, FF Utility is one of the best you’re likely to see. A sans with real warmth and personality. I love it:
I’d love to know your favourites of 2008. Please share them in the comments below.
I’d also like to wish you all a great Christmas, and I hope that 2009 will be the best year ever.
Up next …
A review of the font manager app, FontCase.
