Playing favourites! I’m often asked, “What is your favourite font?”. It’s an impossible question—I like too many typefaces to answer with any brevity. So here is a list—in alphabetical order—of a few typefaces I like, accompanied by specimens and short explanations. Continue reading

Sentimental Journey at the Silo6 Exhibition in Auckland, New Zealand. Continue reading

Bula, a custom typeface designed for Fiji Airways commissioned by FutureBrand in Sydney. Continue reading

In late 2011 I was approached by DesignWorks to work on a new logotype for Air New Zealand. I was contracted to draw new letterforms to complement the iconic koru logo. This post details the design process we undertook. Continue reading

Darling in use for the award winning The Darling Hotel design by Moon Group in Sydney, Australia. Continue reading

Pitch is a love letter to the typewriter. Continue reading

Stylistically Darling is a wide, light, airy slab serif. It was drawn to set comfortably as text and confidently for headlines. It strikes a quiet balance between a plain skeleton and fanciful flourishes. The details are drawn largely from the Ionic genre, whereas the skeleton and structure tends towards geometric slab serifs. Continue reading

“Typewriter Underwood New Model Silk” from the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type specimen, 1925 Continue reading

Antiqua-Zierschriften from the Bauer’sche Giesserei specimen book Continue reading

Relief-Zierschrift from the Bauer’sche Giesserei specimen book Continue reading

“New Model Remington Typewriter” from the American Type Founders Co. type specimen, c.1910. Continue reading

“Double Bifur” from the Spécimen Général, Deberny & Peignot, Paris, 1926. Continue reading

“Caractères Maigres” from the Egyptiennes section of the Spécimen Général, Deberny & Peignot, Paris, 1926 Continue reading

“Machine a Écrire” from the Spécimen Général, Deberny & Peignot, Paris, 1926 Continue reading

Newzald is a hardworking text typeface designed for the international editorial environment. Continue reading

Karbon is an open, geometric sans serif with a contemporary spartan finish. It is an exploration of Paul Renner’s reductionist Futura concept channelled through the proportions of Eric Gill’s eponymous sans, with a slight nod towards Jan Tschichold's Uhertype sans-serif. Continue reading

The custom typeface Hokotohu in use by Charlie Ward from DNA Design in Wellington, New Zealand. Continue reading

Tiempos was initiated as an optimisation of Galaxie Copernicus for a Spanish newspaper redesign. Although it began as an offshoot of Galaxie Copernicus, Tiempos evolved far enough that it became its own standalone family. Copernicus is based on Plantin, its broad proportions are designed to harmonise with Chester Jenkins’ Galaxie system. Over the last century, Plantin has influenced many typefaces, the most notable example is Stanley Morison’s Times New Roman. Continue reading

Metric & Calibre are a pair of typefaces that share a fundamental geometry yet differ in the finish of key letterforms. Metric is a geometric humanist, sired by West Berlin street signs. Calibre is a geometric neo-grotesque, inspired by the rationality of Aldo Novarese's seldom seen Recta. They were conceived as a pair but function independently of each other. Continue reading

“Schreibmaschinenschrift” from the Bauer’sche Giesserei specimen book Continue reading