A sample of the typeface I’m going to be scrapping and starting from scratch. I hate this. I’ve redesigned this masthead 10 times using better fonts, but part of this experiment is about embracing discomfort.

A) Learning in Public

Yesterday was the first day of forty in which I am designing a typeface. That might not sound particularly groundbreaking, except for the following information:

1. I am bad at finishing side projects, and I want to improve
2. I have been “designing” this typeface for about 2 years already, and I’m going to scrap it and start from scratch
3. I’m going to document my learnings as best I can, which will force me to write more [see item 1]
4. I’m going to do it in public
5. When I’m done, I’m going to release it for free

All the background you need on the font is this: a couple of years ago, a friend of mine found a vintage restaurant menu and wanted my help identifying the typeface used in it. After a good bit of research, we couldn’t identify it and guessed that it most likely was a pre-digital typeface that didn’t make the transition.

The specimen is gorgeous. I think it’s a geometric sans serif with a couple of humanist flourishes—right at home in the late 1950s. It looks a lot like a few of my favorite fonts. It has Futura’s steady hand and workmanship, with splash of Neutraface’s fashionability. I love it. So I decided to use it as the seed of my first font.

I’m going to make huge, time-sucking, embarrassing mistakes.

It’s possible that the moment I publish this, someone will call me out. They’ll say “Hey doofus, that’s clearly [some brilliant typeface that everyone except I have heard about somehow].” I’d love to know what this specimen is, and its potential identification will not invalidate this project.

I’ll post a lot more about it over the next forty days, and I’ll be blabbing on Twitter with the hashtag #font40.

The fear for me comes from this very post, and in its future siblings. I am not formally trained in typography. I guarantee you I’m going to make huge, time-sucking, embarrassing mistakes. People I don’t know might skewer me.

I am armed only with an intense passion for type and a sincere desire to learn something new. The best case scenario is that I finish, and that the lessons I learn help someone else. Maybe they would never have learned something useful if they hadn’t stumbled accidentally across one of my posts, and if I had not been stubborn and thick-skinned and in love with the shape of words.