FF Infra: An Interview
FF Infra™ is a fresh take on the robust sans serif typefaces of the early 20th century. Drawn by Gabriel Richter for Monotype, it’s a friendly, inviting, and multi-talented family. We sat down with Gabriel and interviewed him to learn more!
What inspired you to design this typeface? Were you designing for a specific use case or customer? Or were you more focused on a particular artistic vision? Or some combination of both?
My main goal was to create a strong but friendly grotesque that will work at large sizes, as well as in small text. I used clear letter shapes and linear strokes to build the basic characters. Open counters also make Infra warm and readable. The name “Infra” is also telling about the design. It’s rooted in “infrastructure” and the Latin word “infra,” which means behind or under. I wanted to create a typeface with a large suite of supporting typographic features. The design has small caps, superior lowercase, arrows, slashed zeros and many other glyphs.
Walk us through the process of designing this typeface. Was there anything different about it, compared to your usual process? Did it come along more easily than others, or were there unique challenges?
I was taught early in my career to sketch basic characters quickly and fine-tune them later. With this in mind, I tried many versions of the basic alphabet starting with x-height characters, ultimately creating over 20 styles. More detailed work was put into special glyphs like arrows and characters with ascenders and descenders. During these early test designs, I was able to finalize the basis of Infra and determine its ultimate character set. I also received excellent feedback from Andreas Frohloff and Bernd Volmer, which helped finalize the design.
Looking ahead, are there new projects you’re excited about? Anything you haven’t tried yet but are eager to explore?
I’m excited about drawing Cyrillic and Greek for Infra. It will make a great addition to the family. Because I spend a lot of time in Japan, I’m also keen to draw a Japanese version in the future and perhaps a serif style.
