Commercial Type

Thanks to Caren @lither.land as always for her hard work on our newsletters!

New newsletter out today, wrapping up the year that was:
commercialtype.com/newsletters/...

Nice use of Darby Serif and Darby Sans!

The complete Delusse family, with the name of each style set in its respective typeface.

Read more about Delusse in the newsletter by @lither.land, with showings designed by Vance Wellenstein:
commercialtype.com/newsletters/...

Or have a look at the detailed PDF specimen:
commercialtype.com/uploads/1025...

Or download free trial fonts:
commercialtype.com/catalog/delu...

JE NE SAIS QUOI in Delusse Regular

A block of text in Delusse Regular and Regular Italic

A block of text in Delusse Black

"Prêt-à-Porter" in Delusse Regular Italic

New release by Sandrine Nugue: Delusse, a spiky-soft response to Vendôme, one of the most iconic French typefaces of the twentieth century.

commercialtype.com/catalog/delu...

Image of a scan of 3 books, with 2 yellow spines and 1 fore-edge visible

A tall cropped stack of books with yellow spines and red and blue cover wrap visible on the fore-edges

Spines for No Guts, No Glory: Celebrating Five Years of The David Prize, 2024
📚
Thank you to The David Prize, Erika Augustine, and Gina Fuchs 💛💛
Fonts by @commercialtype.bsky.social, printed and bound by Allied Printing

Happy 10th anniversary to @letterformarchive.org! Julien @boogypaper.bsky.social and I are proud to have contributed to this along with many colleagues and friends.

James Mosley's History of Letterforms - YouTube James Mosley’s lectures on the history of letterforms were delivered in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication over many years. They represent ...

James Mosely's series of lectures on the history of letterforms were delivered every year to students in the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. These were recorded in 2020-21, and are now available for everyone to watch:

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Toronto Life cover from August 2025. REVENGE OF THE COTTAGERS is the main headline.

Toronto Life cover from June 2025. Best New Restaurants 2025 is the main headline.

New work: a fresh new nameplate for @torontolifemag.bsky.social, drawn by Julien Priez @boogypaper.bsky.social for design director Colleen Nicholson.

commercialtype.com/custom/toron...

I am so sorry you never received your copy. Shipping this book has been a nightmare. At least 25% of the books we've sent out have disappeared. We'll ship a new copy out to you right away.

The inside cover and front page of Gun Magic Techno Pop. The inside cover reads "It's 1999 and time is speeding up," with the 'p' in arc being looped endlessly, getting skinnier and skinnier, as if the word were being squeezed into a high-pitch electronic note. The other page is a lengthy book introduction.

A later spread from Gun Magic Techno Pop. On the left-hand page is an overview of how characters work in the game, with a diagram of the character sheet itself. On the right-hand page is a character sheet for the Mundane Mage. The character description reads "Make the trains run on time."

I'm laying out Gun Magic Techno Pop in Focal and it's such a blast to work with. I wish phototypesetting had still been in use when I began my career, I would have eaten that shit up. Focal designed by @greggazdowicz.bsky.social, available from @commercialtype.bsky.social

This was a fun project to help out on. Miguel Reyes redrew the logotype, and Control is used throughout the identity, including an early version of Control Compressed.

Jim Parkinson was a kind and gentle soul, in addition to being unbelievably talented. He will be missed.

Please take this survey and help the Fontstand Cooperative figure out how font licensing needs have evolved.

Text in Royal Gothic Bold

Royal Gothic in Steven Shanks & Co Type Foundry specimen from the 1870s

See Royal Gothic here:
commercialtype.com/catalog/roya...

Read Paul Barnes's essay on the family here:
commercialtype.com/about/collec...

Text in Royal Gothic Black

Text in Royal Gothic Light

Full range of 14 styles in Royal Gothic family, in order of weight.

Interior spread from "Happy Gas", a monograph on artist Sarah Lucas, designed by Fraser Muggeridge.

NEW RELEASE! Royal Gothic by @paul-barnes.bsky.social, with help from Luke Charsley and Tim Ripper, comes out of the Vault with a full range of seven weights. Starting from a single bold weight, and folding in influences from the US and Germany, it preserves the quirks of early squarish sans serifs.

Anna will give a talk about the project at ATypI in Copenhagen on Saturday, definitely worth seeing if you're there!

atypi.org/presentation...

AFTONBLADET nameplate in yellow with a black shadow on a red background

Two variations on the SPORTBLADET logotype in yellow with a black shadow on a pink background

New work: Greg Gazdowicz and Christian Schwartz drew a new nameplate for Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet, directed by Anna Thurfjell.

Read our case study here:
commercialtype.com/custom/namep...

More about the thinking here:
annathurfjell.com/work/brand-r...

All Together Now with Rolf Harris album art An extensive use of Pinto Inline on this re-issue of All Together Now with Rolf Harris by Music For Pleasure with a photograph by Brian Ward (the same photographer who took David Bowie's iconic Hunky ...

It turns out this was a typeface after all, Pinto Inline by Roy Sprong for Rapitype in 1972. The R turns out to be one of the tamer forms...

fontsinuse.com/uses/25916/a...

1975 poster for A Chorus Line

This was the reference. The R is really something.

New work for New York Magazine's annual Yesteryear issue.
commercialtype.com/news/ny_mag_...

We recreated the lettering on the 1975 poster for A Chorus Line for design director Tom Alberty and his team.

We have some case studies from the Commercial Type Design Studio here, with more to come:

commercialtype.com/design

Though Commercial Studio didn't survive 2020, we regrouped and have rebuilt our corporate identity studio within Commercial Type, under the direction of Dino Sanchez. This has quietly been going on alongside our other work for the past couple of years, and now we're taking a moment to talk about it.

Pullquote from an interview with Shiva Nallaperumal: "I've always oscillated between type and graphic design. I love the rigor and craft of the former and the conceptual side of the latter." Typeset in Delegate Bold

New in our news section, Caren @lither.land interviewed Shiva Nallaperumal about Delegate, how he came to type design, and the studio November that he runs jointly with Juhi Vishani: commercialtype.com/news/shiva_n...

Caslon Ionic Rounded (Bold)

There are certain visual motifs we keep coming back to. Stencils are great. We never get tired of swashes. And we love soft letterforms. (Caslon Ionic Rounded Light)

Softness adds warmth and charm. (Caslon Ionic Rounded Extrabold)

Greg Gazdowicz has spent the last few years exploring various aspects of softness in type: in contrast with sharpness, in Terza; as an artefact of production processes, in Focal; and now the transformative properties of softness when applied to a historical genre — the Ionic — known for its solidity. (Caslon Ionic Rounded Medium Italic)

New in the Vault: Caslon Ionic Rounded, adapted from Caslon Ionic by @greggazdowicz.bsky.social

vault.commercialtype.com

Lovely use of Orleans ↓

Jargon in Jargon Black

Jargon is a gently flared headline typeface by Thomas Bouillet, with newsy proportions and an elegant finish. in Jargon Thin

The uprights have some Dutch influence—not surprising, since Jargon started as a small part of Thomas’s degree project at the Type]Media program in the Hague—while the italics reference Roger Excoffon & François Ganeau’s stylish sloped romans for Vendôme. in Jargon Bold and Bold Italic

Its extreme x-height is well-suited to Posters and Book Covers. in Jargon Ultra

New in the Vault: Jargon, a condensed headline typeface with a giant x-height by Thomas Bouillet.

vault.commercialtype.com

Erik van Blokland: “Drawing is thinking”

Type Today also recently published an excellent interview with @letterror.bsky.social by Ilya Ruderman:

type.today/en/journal/e...

Julien Priez: “Legibility is a spectrum”

Great interview with @boogypaper.bsky.social by Adelina Shaidullina for Type Today: type.today/en/journal/j...

Congratulations to Lisa Huang and the whole team behind @wordsoftype.com on today's beta launch! This is already a great resource and is going to keep getting better.

wiki.wordsoftype.com/