Hasta La Ideas

Somewhere between the lands of slab, sans serif, and typewriter there lives Outsiders.

In the roman it appears an elegant, sartorial slab, somehow holding itself above all others of its kind, with a bit of typewriterly officiousness, like a crisp, upper-level spy in MI6. But under the cloak of propriety in all of its seven weights, is Outsider’s surprising décolletage: a flamboyant, beautiful italic. Quelle surprise – Outsiders is gay! … or perhaps, more insidiously: French. Yes, during the day Outsiders may be sipping tea and filing precise reports, but at night it takes the Eurostar to Paris to kick up its heels along the Champs-Élysées.

All this to say that Outsiders is versatile. In all seriousness, I have used this font and find that it sets well and creates a block of text that I find very pleasing. But the italic is so pretty, so delightfully charming, that it begs to be used extensively – perhaps as one of two parts in a Q&A, or integrated where both roman and italic play together in a bibliography!

Also, note, that Henrik Kubel makes the best ‘K’s, both upper- and lowercase, in all of his fonts, all weights and styles. Could he be biased?

Marian Bantjes is a designer, typographer, writer and illustrator working internationally from her base on a small island off the west coast of Canada, near Vancouver.