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

Exact Regular

Exact

Field Gothic No. 62

Field Gothic

Kōsetsu Incised

Kōsetsu

Tenon Regular

Tenon

Reckham No. 1 Regular

Reckham No. 1

Reckham No. 2 Regular

Reckham No. 2

Reckham No. 3 Regular

Reckham No. 3

Reckham No. 4 Regular

Reckham No. 4

Reckham Variable

Reckham

Vibro Regular

Vibro

Pressio No. 52

Pressio

Pressio Stencil No. 52

Pressio Stencil

Sinter Regular

Sinter

Mortise Regular

Mortise

Signal_TNIcon_01

Signal is a New York–born, Dublin-based type foundry and design office. We specialize in typefaces, logotypes, and typographic branding, drawing upon three decades of branding and print design experience. In addition to our retail library, we offer custom type design and branding services, working either independently or in collaboration with other studios, and are available to bring existing designs to a higher level of craft. Our work has been recognized by the Type Directors Club, Communication Arts, Graphis, the ISTD, ICAD, and the 100 Archive.

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

Signal Type

MaxPhillips_HeadShot

Max Phillips

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.

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.

When we were a teenager putting together our first design portfolio, back in the days of rubber cement and X-Acto knives, we were obsessed with Times New Roman. We knew it was prissy and joyless, but we didn’t mind. We were prissy and joyless ourselves. We loved its air of strict, unbending neutrality, and we bought sheet upon Letraset sheet of it and used it for everything we could.In recent years typographers have come to find something heroic about TNR’s reticence, its dowdy elegance, its calm, inflexible unwillingness to please, and reconsiderations of TNR have become a genre unto themselves, and why shouldn&#x27;t Signal have a go, especially with a little added 70s funk in the bolder weights? In honor of the old days of kerning with an X-Acto knife, we’ve named our new face Exact.

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.

Kōsetsu is an exercise in restraint, a grid-based all-caps modular typeface assembled from a single isosceles right triangle. Its blocky, angular forms reference both broad-nibbed calligraphy and 8-bit video games. Letters vary in height, creating a syncopated rhythm which users can control with a set of alternates. It was originally made for a checkers-style board game in which triangles represent mountains and players dodge avalanches; Kōsetsu is Japanese for ‘snowfall.’ Available in four styles—Solid, Outline, Incised, and Grid—each of them derived from the letterforms’ underlying grid structure.