Revolver turns its sights to Type Network

Don’t let Revolver Type’s youthful good looks fool you: founded in the summer of 2017 in Frankfurt am Main, Lukas Schneider’s studio already has four substantial families under its belt, two of which are available in Text and Display optical sizes. And Schneider has been an active participant in the global type community for roughly a decade, having released his first typefaces in 2008.

Although he originally studied graphic design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main, Schneider went back to school in 2012, enrolling at the Type and Media postgraduate course at the KABK in The Hague.

His 2013 graduation project represents the original incarnation of Damien, a serif type family for editorial use in two optical sizes. Instead of relying on interpolation to produce the two variants, Schneider drew the Display and Text styles simultaneously. Developing them side by side allowed him to create two distinctly different interpretations that beautifully complement each other. Schneider’s penchant for a straightforward aesthetic with a high contrast and sharp details led him to design dynamic letterforms with typical triangular serifs; they display an economy of means that belies the typeface’s sophisticated appearance. Stylistic alternates with diamond-shaped tittles and punctuation ramp up the sharpness even more.

Dinamit has its roots in DIN Breitschrift, the lesser-known and often overlooked third member of the DIN 1451 lettering system. Schneider completely rethought the character shapes, turning the alphabet into a family of attractive fonts by veering away from the rigid, often awkward letters drawn by engineers. The typeface has generous proportions, imbuing the lighter weights with a breezy air and the heavier ones with a pronounced gravitas. The five Stylistic Sets include a version with square tittles and punctuation for a more technical look, and a single- and double-storey a and g, which modulate Dinamit’s wide geometric appearance to make it look more like an American Gothic. Schneider also offers the original, constructed lowercase a as a nod to Dinamit’s engineered origins.

Newson is a brand-new addition to the Revolver catalog. The low-contrast sans serif balances technical and humanist characteristics to produce outstanding legibility. The design originated from a custom single-weight typeface for small text on supermarket price tags; it was later completely revised and expanded into a family of seven weights with matching italics. Schneider adapted the proportions to make the typeface useful for display applications, too. Its functional, unobtrusive appearance lends Newson a self-assured personality that inspires confidence, making it an ideal choice for branding and corporate design. The character set includes pictograms and other symbols that, together with wide apertures, open counters, and a wide range of finely tuned weights, make Newson a perfect candidate for wayfinding projects. Users can shift Newson’s appearance from restrained to casual with alternate forms for the lowercase a, e, and g in both roman and italic weights.

Mondial is Schneider’s contemporary interpretation of the Didone of the same name by German graphic artist, type designer, typographer, and teacher Hans Bohn, originally released by the Stempel foundry between 1936 and 1939. Schneider has radically rationalized the neobaroque letterforms, adding a daring contrast between thick and thin and decisive transitions from curves to straight lines and back. These unconventional formal properties make the type sparkle on the page in authentic art deco fashion. Mondial Display’s narrow shapes and high contrast make it an economic, stylish headline face for memorable, catchy titles and short texts. Mondial Text has a more moderate contrast and wider letterforms to optimize the typeface for body copy. True to the original design’s rationalist roots, the italics for both Headline and Text cuts are carefully redrawn obliques. Schneider’s unique view on historical and contemporary letterforms, along with his careful attention to design detail and technical quality, make Revolver a welcome addition to the typographic landscape. Beyond his innovative type designs, Schneider’s spirit and readiness to share with the community give every indication he will make many valuable contributions in the years to come. “I met Lukas at TYPO Labs in Berlin and we immediately hit it off,” said Type Network General Manager Paley Dreier. “Based on his friendly, collaborative nature, his experience with tools, and his fresh perspective on type design, I could tell he would be a great addition to Type Network. His typefaces are perfect for a wide range of applications, and I’m eager to see how our customers use them.” All Revolver fonts are available for print, web, applications, and ePub licensing. Webfonts may be tested free for thirty days. To stay current on all things Revolver, subscribe to Type Network News, our occasional email newsletter featuring font releases, foundry happenings, type and design events, and more.