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I LOVE TYPOGRAPHY

Steven Heller’s Font of the Month: Vibro

If you have never imbibed any hallucinogenic substance, you can still fully groove and even trip out with this optically nuanced typeface, Vibro, designed by Max Philips. Guaranteed to blow your mind, sending you into paroxysms of ‘typodelic’ joy — just take a small dose and see.

Max Phillips’s Vibro typeface in action.

Since fonts are, in most cases, non-addictive, Vibro can be consumed in large or small quantities without worry. And the contemporary possibilities for titling large and small, logo design, and even trippy text blocks are limitless (although I wouldn’t recommend it for captions).

Vibro may be too narrowly confined to novelty-face status that references the psychedelic optical lunacy of the Sixties. But believe me, it is so much cooler than that. Yes, it builds upon a druggy, vibrating aesthetic (best illustrated by Chermayeff & Geismar’s Electric Circus poster). But Vibro is a disciplined, no-nonsense font. Bauhaus it is not, but its strict employment of five lines reminds me of the cables holding a suspension bridge — the typeface is held in by a flexible tension of these in tandem lines. The “O” is a perfect bullseye; the P curves with cartographic precision. And the other letters are just as well constructed. The real gift of the font is that it comes in caps and lower case, which allows for various typographic options.

Max Phillips’s Vibro typeface in action.

If you love surprise, Vibro will satisfy the urge for mind expansion. Pairing any of the letters will allow options for optical experiences that are missing from much typography today. However, Vibro is not raw, ragged, or expressionistic — every straight or curved line is carefully created with vector care.

If you’re looking for groovy 60s nostalgia, Vibro will suffice. But there’s more than meets the glassy eye. If your preference is for typographic brio and bravado with distinctive pictorial energy, Vibro has good vibes that are just waiting to be turned on by an enterprising designer/typographer.

Font of the Month: Vibro
Designer: Max Phillips Foundry: Signal Type

Steven Heller is nothing short of a legend in the design community. Award-winning graphic designer, author and editor of hundreds of books (yes, 100s!) and one of the world’s foremost authorities on graphic design history; and arguably its best design commentator. Follow Steven on the must-read The Daily Heller and read his latest book, Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York.



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