The latest FontFont release features five original typeface families: FF Absara™ and the FF Nexus™ system in Sans, Mix, Serif, and Typewriter styles. FF Nexus is unique in its integrated design — four harmonious fonts built on the same skeleton.
FF Nexus and FF Absara are among the first FontFonts to be available in OpenType®, a new typographically advanced font format. OpenType has become increasingly popular due to its multi-platform ease of use (the same font file works on Macintosh, Windows, Sun, Unix, and other systems), and its ability to support widely expanded character sets and layout features. FF Absara and FF Nexus are released as OpenType Standard FontFonts, which denotes a Western character set, but typographic layout features — such as automatic substitution of alternate glyphs and discretionary ligatures — are included. Each weight provides, in one file, small caps, lining figures, and characters that in traditional formats would be included in expert font files. More information about OpenType and font specific features is available from FontShop.
Existing FontFont families are extended by this release with the addition of FF Hydra™ Text, FF Max™ Demi Serif and Demi Serif Italic, and an oft-requested italic companion to the popular FF Bau™. Also new is FF District™, Albert Boton’s expansion of his District Bold face which was released in 2002 as part of FF Bastille™ Display.
Along with these new designs, FF Bau, FF Scala®, and FF Signa™ receive character set additions for setting Baltic, Central European, and Turkish languages.
Background Info: New FontFonts
FF Absara™ – Xavier Dupré’s FF Absara is a typeface of French proportions, but its shapes take their cues from the Dutch style: less polished, more direct. The casual forms refer to humanist handwriting. Absara’s rough cut makes it an interesting display typeface, but thanks to its generous proportions and firm serifs, FF Absara works equally well at text sizes. The idiosyncratic italic builds a strong contrast with the roman. FF Absara is functional and expressive, and lends a humanistic colour to both editorial and advertising design.
FF Max™ Demi Serif – Morten Olsen designed this addition to his FF Max family as a personal wish to create a “less technical looking” version of the popular sans. In this cut he adds friendly tails (see ‘a’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘l’, ‘m’, and ‘n’) and a subtle bend to some of the stems to soften the forms. The typeface’s expert fonts add a bundle of useful and decorative ligatures.
FF Nexus™ — Between 1988 and 1994 Martin Majoor designed FF Scala® and FF Scala Sans. The idea behind FF Scala was to design a serif, humanistic typeface from which a sans serif version would be derived. Majoor called it: two typefaces, one form principle, and it would become the basis of his type design philosophy. Since FF Scala’s release, the combination of a serifed and sans version has proven to be highly successful in corporate, book, and newspaper design. Now, ten years later, Majoor has expanded his idea of two typefaces, one form principle into three typefaces, one form principle, with a new family of typefaces as a result. FF Nexus borrows some of its structure from FF Scala, but adds the slab-like FF Nexus Mix and monospaced FF Nexus Typewriter to the set. Its OpenType features, such as built-in small caps, alternate glyphs, and optional swash glyphs make it an extremely versatile type system.
Available Online
The entire FontFont collection is available at www.fontfont.com, www.fontshopping.com and from local distributors. OpenType FontFonts will be available online very soon.
About FontFonts
The FontFont library of digital typefaces was launched in 1990 by Erik Spiekermann and Neville Brody with the goal of producing cutting-edge typefaces by designers for designers. Now representing the work of over 100 designers, the FontFont Library contains over 3000 contemporary fonts (many of the most popular typefaces in use today) including FF Meta®, FF DIN®, FF Scala®, FF Eureka® Sans, FF Kievit™, and FF Fago™.
This article was last modified on March 5, 2025
This article was first published on January 15, 2005
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