Designing Magno
October 10, 2022, by Lucas Gini
The first letters I ever drew in a type design software, hoping that it would one day become a complete font, were based in a metal type I fell in love with in 2014. This type is called “Memphis Estreito”, it has a single display weight (Regular), a very limited character set and is part of the collection of a letterpress print shop and education center in São Paulo, Brazil, called Oficina Tipográfica São Paulo (OTSP).
Tracing vectors over scans of prints of “Memphis Estreito” was the basis for starting to learn and understand sizes, curves, spacing, contrast, optical adjustments and later on weights, widths, interpolation and so on. At some point I started working with type design as my main professional activity, got involved in several other projects, but those letters were kept in a drawer, never completely forgotten.
The Original Memphis
Memphis, the first one, was designed by the German type designer Rudolf Wolf to be produced in metal, and released by Stempel foundry in 1929. Just as a fun fact, Wolf is also the credited inventor of the letter sequence “hamburgefontsiv”, used to this day to analyse designing and spacing of typefaces.
The first slab serif or Egyptian typefaces emerged in the beginning of the 19th century as a typographic response to the Industrial Revolution’s zeitgeist. Modern industrial capitalist society was consolidating, promoting the exodus of large masses of people from the countryside to the urban centres. This brought new demands and possibilities of communication as books were gradually losing their privilege as main text’s platform, sharing the landscape with formats such as posters, hoardings and folders, with their use of type in larger sizes. This explains why — by a typographic point of view — this period was so creatively fertile. As examples of great slab serif references of this time, there’s Figgins Antique (Vincent Figgins, 1815) and Thorowgood’s Egyptian (Robert Thorne, 1821).
In the beginning of the 20th century there was a renewed interest in slab serifs, witch lead to several revivals and new categories, including experimentation with lighter weights, families for use in smaller sizes, and mixing visual features with sans serif designs (this article by Keith Tam has more information about this historical typographic moment and the course of slab serifs).
In this context, Memphis brought together two references in typography: the “Egyptian” typefaces that had been very popular in the nineteenth century, and the geometric monolinear sans that were in the spotlight with the recent releases of Futura, by Paul Renner, and Kabel, by Rudolf Koch, both in 1927.
It had a rational fresh look, big display serifs, and a few other features and flavors in some letters (look at the /g and /r, for instance) that helped it becoming a huge success, appearing all around graphic pieces and leading to a wave of similar fonts that other european foundries released as attempts of competing for sales. As examples of this influence, there are the also popular City (Berthold, 1930) or Rockwel (Monotype, 1934). In the U.S., Continental Type Founders Association used to buy and distribute popular fonts with their names changed, representing several European foundries; in the case of Memphis, the name used was Girder, and once again the design became influential in the region, stimulating similar releases. This name changing may seem irrelevant to this story by now, but we’ll soon see that it isn’t.
The commercial success also lead to the design of other weights and versions of Memphis, released by Stempel, still in metal type, such as: Halbfett (1929), Zarte (1930), Mager (1932), Licht (1932), Schmalfett (1932), Buchschrift (1932), Buchschrift Halbfett (1932), Fett (1933), Memphis Universal (condensed) Mager (1938), Memphis Universal Halbfett (1938), Memphis Luna (1938), and Memphis Universal Fett (1943). In the digital era, there are multiple versions of Memphis, including Linotype’s, URW’s, and “Geometric Slabserif 703” from Bitstream, one of the few with condensed weights.
The origin of OTSP’s “Memphis”
Considering the big influence that Stempel had in the stablishing of the Brazilian foundry and distributor Funtimod in the 20th century, and that this company used to purchase European matrices to cast type in Brazil, it is valid to quote versions commercialised in Brazil in the 1960’s: Memphis Luna, Memphis Magro (originally named Magere Memphis), Magro Grifo (Magere Kursiv), Meio Preto (Halbfette) and Meio Preto Grifo (Halbfette Kursiv). The type that got me interested in 2014 is called “Memphis Estreito”, and though OTSP’s collection includes some Funtimod’s fonts, the most complete research about the company and it’s catalogue — made by Isabella Aragão in her PhD thesis — did not identify this type as part of their portfolio. And to this day, OTSP itself has no further information about this type’s origin, foundry, date of release or designer.
Comparing “Memphis Estreito” with condensed versions of the original Memphis (Universal and Schmalfett) and with the Geometric Slabserif 703 Condensed, it isn’t hard to notice a big variation in distinctive letter designs and overall condensation, much more evident in the OTSP type. Using once again Isabella Aragão’s research and knowledge in conversations we had about this matter, everything indicates that this type is not part of Memphis family whatsoever. There’s a considerable chance that it was renamed like this in Brazil to facilitate everyday use of local typographers. It was common at that time for some matrices to arrive without complete information of origin — sometimes not even a proper name defined. Could very well be the case of “Memphis Estreito”, probably referred as Memphis so that typographers associates monolinearity and slab serifs, remarkable features of both types, with an added reference to the condensation (“estreito” means narrow in Portuguese).
I also searched for digital fonts that had a direct connection with “Memphis Estreito’s” design and its particular features, but haven’t succeeded. In the beginning, this type design project was based in redrawing this type with vectors as a revival, based in scans of prints I did myself. Throughout the process, I felt much more stimulated to making considerable changes in some glyphs, connections of shapes, widths, x-height, resolving conflicts of spacing and kerning, adding alternates for letters and numbers, updating character set to more contemporary demands, and even expanding the family to other weights. In a way, it became a whole new inspired design, following some features of a model but explicitly and intentionally involving creative process and with a very distinct result. Magno kept some visual features of “Memphis Estreito” like the the absence of contrast, similar condensation and slab serifs. The weight based in the prints of the metal type soon became one of the masters I worked with digitally — the Regular — but I also expanded the design space creating the extremes Thin and Black from scratch, resulting in a family with 8 weights.
I re-worked every glyph, defined shorter ascenders and descenders, gave special attention to the distances between serifs and consistency of shoulder’s connections and curves throughout all the weights. Some remarkable glyphs in the metal type were redrawn, to make spacing work better and also to control the awkwardness and strange look of the final result. Letters /f and /j, for example, had ascenders and descenders shaped like a hook with horizontal cuts, that were changed into vertical cuts targeting a better balance between shape and counter shape. The uppercase /Q, number /two, question mark and diacritics were also modified into more conventional shapes to fit the set. Nonetheless, one of the most remarkable letters in the font, the lowercase double storey /g — not present in the original Memphis — fascinated me and maintained its basic shape as a reference until the final cut.
Completing family — Magno Sans
By that point, distinctions of the project and the original inspiration were pretty clear, with redesigns, new weights, expanded character set, and even the inclusion of obliques with a 9º slant, enough to distinguish from romans, but not too much to cause a strange feeling in the condensed forms. But along the process I created versions of some glyphs without vertical serifs, and included as alternates, and after several tests, also concluded that an entire group with no serifs would work pretty well. The logical way to go forward was then to work in the Sans counterpart to include in the family, and though it may seem that just cutting out serifs would do the job, Magno Sans demanded some adaptations.
Without the mass of serifs, the descenders got unbalanced, and I changes their size, also making ascenders go a little further than uppercase height, to help its differentiation in texts. I adapted curved terminal and tails that only made sense together with the serifs, like in /a and /R, replacing with vertical straight stems, and also drew a new ear for the two storey /g, simpler and straighten. Overall, Magno Sans ended up with a very distant look from any Memphis, of course, and has a more clear and objective voice tone, but still working well with the Serif.
Magno has a large latin character set, covering over 200 languages (complete list in Blackletra’s website) with 1171 glyphs in Serif and 996 in Sans, and a considerable amount of OpenType Features: old style numbers, tabular and circled figures (positive and negative), fractions, currency symbols, small caps, superiors and inferiors, arrows and alternates. At first, still working only in the Serif, I included the alternates for one storey /g, /Z with a central stroke (to match the slab serifs), and more cursive forms of lowercase /l and ampersand (many times considered the italic shape, closer to a cursive /E design). As I worked in the family, I realized letters without vertical serifs would work well anyway in context with the slab serif, as I already said, and included this option for /C /G /S /a /c /s /? and /§, and, in the opposite way, versions with serifs for figures /2 /3 /6 and /9 that didn’t have them. I even tested using lowercase shapes in the uppercase context, with an interesting, and somewhat playful, result, so I added a unicase Stylistic Set, including lowercase /a /e /g and /u shapes in uppercase and small caps (also including the possibility of using one or two storey /g and /a with ou without vertical serifs in the Magno Serif). In the Sans, some alternates that had a direct relation to the design of serifs were cut out, but others (one storey /g, ampersand and unicases) are available in roman and oblique.
Magno is the first typeface family I design for the retail market, and it has been a long and amusing way from the first sketches in 2014 to the release, so I hope you too have fun using these fonts. Download trials, test and rent it through Fontstand, buy licenses of Magno Serif and Magno Sans through the website, and if you need anything else reach us out in info@blackletra.com
Bibliographic references:
• Visual History of Type
• http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-33549.html
• https://fontsinuse.com/uses/10166/erga-stahlmo-bel-ad
• https://fontsinuse.com/uses/36323/bob-marley-and-the-wailers-survival-album-art
• https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/geometric-slabserif-703/?refby=m
• https://web.archive.org/web/20151013185850if_/http://keithtam.net/documents/slabserif.pdf
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269163194_Notes_to_the_history_of_type_founding_in_20th_century_Brazil_the_case_of_Funtimod
• https://twitter.com/Letter_Library/status/842778474746183684/photo/1
• https://twitter.com/letter_library/status/1105176257791225859
• http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-40469.html
• https://www.academia.edu/40403963/Fundamentos_do_resgate_tipogr%C3%A1fico?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper
• https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/urw/memphis/
