New typeface: Bella from Face37
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British designer Rick Banks of Face37 has just released his latest typeface, Bella, designed, he tells us, in the classical French Didot style, but based on letterforms by Herb Lubalin, John Pistilli and Jan Tschichold. Featuring extremely thin hairlines, Bella is best suited for use at large display sizes. Here’s a closer look…
“I’ve always loved the ridiculous thin hairlines that featured a lot in New York in the 60s and 70s,” explains Banks of his inspiration for Bella. “Herb Lubalin and Louis Dorfsman were masters at hand drawing thin hairlines,” he continues. “There aren’t that many digital fonts that deal with these extreme hairlines. Possibly due to the complexity of creating them in Font Lab.”
In terms of reference points for Bella, Banks cites Jan Tschichold’s Saskia font…
…and also John Pistilli’s Roman face:
Here is an early sketch by Banks for the S of Bella, and some images of some of the typeface’s completed letterforms:
Bella is available through hypefortype.com
Rick Banks is also the designer of Type Trumps card game which we blogged about back in 2007 here and also when he released Type Trumps 2 in early 2010, here.
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