Auger Mono Regular

Signal Type Foundry

Auger Mono

Ballinger Mono Regular

Ballinger Mono

Ballinger Narrow Condensed Regular

Ballinger Narrow

Ballinger Standard Regular

Ballinger Standard

Dashiell Bright Regular

Dashiell Bright

Dashiell Fine Regular

Dashiell Fine

Dashiell Text Regular

Dashiell Text

Field Gothic No. 54 Compact Demi

Field Gothic

Jarlath Regular

Jarlath

Pressio No. 52

Pressio

New York-born Max Phillips is proprietor of the Dublin-based Signal Type Foundry &amp; Drawing Office, which specializes in type design, lettering, and branding. A former novelist and toy designer, he now makes useful, attractive things for clients like An Post, Bewley’s, Christie’s, Citi, Virgin Media, and Westinghouse, and collaborates with studios and agencies in Ireland and abroad

When two roads diverge in a wood, Auger Mono takes both. An array of alternates gives it unusual stylistic flexibility for a fixed-width typeface, ranging from plain and practical to aggressively geometric. Influences include old Leroy lettering templates, Fortunato Depero’s Bolted Book, and classic grotesk jobbing faces. But even at its quirkiest, Auger Mono’s open proportions and workmanlike construction keep it balanced and readable. Six weights ranging from a gossamer X-Light to a beefy Black provide additional versatility.

Signal Type

This monospaced version returns the Ballinger family to (some of) its roots: a 70s-era typewriter face called Candia, which Josef Müller-Brockmann designed for Olivetti. Ballinger Mono is designed on the same principles as its sister face Ballinger: plain, sturdy forms with large counters, open apertures, deep junctures, and a generous x-height. It matches Ballinger’s eight weights, which makes it unusually versatile for a fixed-width face, and has been carefully rebalanced for ease of reading, like the classic jobbing sanses that inspired it. Oldstyle, inferior, and superior figures are available, as well as old-fashioned nut fractions. Winner of an ICAD Gold Bell.

16 high-rise styles bring a touch of the vertical to our most popular superfamily. Their Ballinger DNA is visible in the generous counters and x-height, forthright forms, and air of cheery efficiency. And like their wider relatives, they have their roots in 19th Century jobbing faces. While the eight Condensed styles are designed for impact, we took care to balance them for continuous reading, making them ideal for applications where space is at a premium. In contrast, the radically smooshed X-Condensed weights are ideal for movie credits, legal disclaimers, and lists of side effects. Features include semi-oldstyle figures and case-sensitive punctuation and delimiters. Winner of an ICAD Gold Bell.

Ballinger began life as a proprietary single-weight face called baasic, designed for Dublin-based design office aad. baasic was intended as a plain, hardworking grotesque: a simple tool for clear communication. We’ve developed it into a fully-featured eight-weight workhorse family with matching italics, plus condensed and monospaced companions. Sources include early 20th century jobbing sanses like Morris Benton’s News Gothic and Candia, a 70s-era typewriter face that Josef Müller-Brockmann designed for Olivetti, which had unusually deep junctures that added energy to letters like m and n. Ballinger has large counters and a generous x-height. Letters like a, e, and s open out gradually as they move from Thin to Black to maintain ample apertures, even in the darkest weights. Semi-oldstyle figures are available, as are case-sensitive punctuation and delimiters. Italics incorporate subtle ogee curves to lend warmth and energy to the page or screen. Ballinger supports over 130 languages, including русский, български, Српски, and Tiếng Việt. Winner of an ICAD Gold Bell.

Dashiell Bright has more sparkle than Dashiell Text, with subtly finer hairlines and serifs, and is particularly suited to printed books and magazines, where its crisply drawn forms hold the page nicely without being overbearing. While a touch more literary than Dashiell Text, it shares the same six weights, ample counters and x-height, and unbracketed wedge serifs. Like its sister, Dashiell Bright supports over 140 languages and includes proportional and tabular lining and oldstyle figures, small caps, case-sensitive punctuation and delimiters, and a selection of borders and ornaments. Of course, it pairs well with its sister faces, Dashiell Text and Dashiell Fine.

The dramatic contrast and wiry hairlines of Dashiell Fine are best at large sizes, where its bladelike serifs and Caslon-derived forms give it a hard-edged, Didonesque elegance. Its seven weights include an additional Light style for especially delicate work; its Black weight provides a touch of swagger. Dashiell Fine supports over 140 languages and includes lining and oldstyle figures, small caps, case-sensitive punctuation and delimiters, and a selection of borders and ornaments. It’s a natural choice for headlines to complement Dashiell Text or Bright, but equally striking on its own.

Dashiell was made to be read. Designed by a devoted reader with lousy eyesight, it’s an attempt to combine the warmth and frankness of Caslon with the lucid elegance of Garamond. Counters and x-height are ample but not large. Apertures are moderately open, and unbracketed wedge serifs add crispness. The collection includes three families: Dashiell Text, Dashiell Bright, and Dashiell Fine, for a total of 31 styles. Dashiell Text is the anchor: an all-around workhorse with quiet detailing and modest contrast, carefully balanced to work both onscreen and on paper. It’s available in in six weights with matching italics. Regular weights are clear and open, but sturdy enough to perform at small sizes. The Black weights are unusually dark for a classic serif, with a hint of Cooper Black. Named for Dashiell Hammett, whose succinct grace helped modernize twentieth-century American fiction, Dashiell Text supports over 140 languages and includes proportional and tabular lining and oldstyle figures, small caps, case-sensitive punctuation and delimiters, and a selection of borders and ornaments. Of course, it pairs well with its sister faces, Dashiell Bright and Dashiell Fine.

Field Gothic is an eight-weight, eight-width, possibly-too-personal journey through the history of American and European sanses that may or may not parallel our own journey from New York City to Dublin.Overall, the look is crisp and on the cool side, with slightly superelliptical curves. The lightest weights are almost monoline. The eight Compact styles of the Standard Range are economical, but not too narrow for text settings; above that, arches and bowls have sharply contrasting junctures and a snug fit. The eight normal-width styles, inspired by old Unimark subway signs, are clear, sturdy, and pleasant to read as either text or titling.The Narrow Range draws inspiration from midcentury Geigy promotions, old Westinghouse lightbulb packs, sheets of Letraset Compacta, and yellowing copies of Twen.The broad, expansive forms of the Wide Range were drawn from memories of our dad’s Columbia and Blue Note jazz albums, of signage at Eero Saarinen&#x27;s old TWA terminal, and of midcentury auto-parts packaging at our local garage.

Though it had only a limited release as dry transfer type in 1974, Jarlath Hayes’s Tuam Uncial became an icon of Irish Modernism. Its design was based on hacked Helvetica Bold; Hayes sliced off the tops and bottoms of the letters to produce forms reminiscent of the wide, pen-formed scripts of old Insular texts.This digital revival, designed by Max Phillips under the supervision of Hayes’s daughter, supports over 150 languages and features ligatures, directional arrows, and a fuller range of punctuation. To improve readability, we’ve tempered the extreme squarishness of the original forms, reduced their contrast, and provided more generous letterspacing.Early drafts of the original Tuam Uncial lacked the published version’s semiserifs, so we’ve added a sans version, as well as italic and sans italic styles.

Pressio is a study in doing things backwards. We began with the weight that’s usually drawn last: the ultra-compressed black. This was squashed down vertically in increments to make the compressed, condensed, and regular widths, then hollowed like a dugout canoe to produce the lighter weights. The narrower bold cuts are inspired by the great mid-century skyline sanses. The widest cuts are stark, idiosyncratic, and intense. In between, 20 styles in five weights and four widths provide a broad range of expression. Forms are strict and modular. The x-height is high. Curves are subtly superelliptical, and square counters add crispness. For those who prefer it, a set of stylistic alternates is available to round some of the unexpectedly sharp corners of letters like S, s, and a. Case-sensitive punctuation and delimiters are included, and a full range of diacritics provides support for over 130 languages. Naturally, it goes well with its sister Pressio Stencil.