Font blog

Introducing Archer. The new typeface by Hoefler & Frere-Jones

Sweet but not saccharine, earnest but not grave, Archer is designed to hit just the right notes of forthrightness, credibility, and charm.

Slab serifs have been evolving for two hundred years, yet the category continues to be dominated by two basic styles: Antiques and Geometrics. Antiques arise out of the same nineteenth-century tradition that produced the Modern and Scotch styles: at heart, they’re text faces, and they feature all of the qualities needed to thrive at small sizes. (Antiques customarily have the traditional ‘two-storey’ forms of a and g, and a capital R that ends in a flourish.) Our Ziggurat typeface is an example of the Antique style in full flower, capturing the best of what the style has to offer: it’s warm, comforting, and persuasive. But this coziness comes at the expense of modernity, and in the wrong context even the best Antique can feel old-fashioned, musty, and irrelevant. Read more

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