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Type Design

Type is the voice a brand speaks in before anyone reads a word. A custom typeface or a set of drawn letters gives a company a shape no one else has, in every headline, label and logo. Getting it right takes hundreds of small decisions about stems, curves, cuts and the space between letters. Here are three I made with Jeremy Mickel, Darrin Crescenzi and Jessica Hische.

Summit

Flow · Bold · 109 glyphs · Stencil capitals · 2019–2020

As CEO of Flow, I led the design of Summit, the typeface Jeremy Mickel drew for us from September 2019 to March 2020. It grew out of the Flow wordmark: heavy strokes split by stencil cuts. It has one weight and only capitals, plus two small extras: a hyphen and a bracket set an arrow, and the asterisk is the Flow heart.

One weight, five sizes

240 pxSelect the line to edit it
120 pxSelect the line to edit it
72 px · Hyphen and bracket set an arrowSelect the line to edit it
40 px · The test line from January 2020Select the line to edit it
24 px · FiguresSelect the line to edit it

All glyphs

Hover, focus or tap to enlarge
73 shown · 109 glyphs

Outlier Block

Outlier Academy · 14 styles · 3 widths × 4 weights · Inline + MonoStencil · 2022

I art directed and co-designed Outlier Block with Darrin Crescenzi for my podcast, Outlier Academy, as part of its brand refresh. Twelve styles sit on one grid: three widths and four weights, all capitals, in one variable font. Two display cuts sit beside them. Inline traces each letter twice, and MonoStencil cuts every letter three ways so repeats never look the same.

Plus Inline and MonoStencil · One variable font covers the 12 · Capitals only

One word per style

Select a style to load it into the pad

Two axes, one word

Weight × width · Arrow keys step 50
wght 700 · wdth 300Between named styles
Outlier
Nearest: Condensed Regular, Condensed BlackDouble-click a dot to snap to a named style

All glyphs

Hover, focus or tap to enlarge
61 shown · 75 glyphs

Inline Capitals

Lettering · 26 capitals · Double line · 2014

I made these capitals with Jessica Hische in 2014. Every stroke is two parallel lines, and where a stroke meets a stem the inner line breaks, so one passes behind the other. They were drawn as lettering, not a font, so each letter is its own small drawing. Set side by side, they spell words they were never drawn for.

Every letter sits on three bands

Bands · line + gap + line · 118.7 unitsCap line · baselineOvershoot 9.5Advance width
26 capitals

Where one line passes behind another

Pick a letter to inspect · 18 / 28
R · 74 points
  • Line weight38.7 units · 2.2 pt
  • Gap between lines42.3 units · 2.4 pt
  • Band118.7 units, the width of I
  • Overshoot9.5 units
  • TerminalsSquare, 10.7 radius
Line 38.7 · Gap 42.3 · Band 118.7 · 74 points

The gap is almost exactly the line weight, 1 to 1.09. That is what lets the inner line vanish behind a stem and still read as one stroke.

Set any word

26 capitals · No figures or marks

7 letters · 3,758 units wide · No kerning pairsSelect a letter to inspect it
Empty slots for undrawn characters

The set has no figures. Anything without a drawing gets an empty slot.

Kerning off · on

In SALT, the L and T close up by 90 units.

Collaborators
  • Jeremy Mickel
  • Darrin Crescenzi
  • Jessica Hische
Elsewhere