In February of this year, our team flew into Marin County for a two-week retreat. Since the pandemic, Sharp Type has operated as a remote foundry. We now have studios in Marin & New York City, with other core members based in Los Angeles, Madrid, Nantes, and Hong Kong. This marked the first time we’d been together IRL since 2019. While we made the most of working together in the same room, the most memorable moments occurred outside the studio. In Marin, we prepared meals for each other, participated in a stone-carving workshop led by our own My-Lan Thuong, squeezed in a team photoshoot with our friend Ryan Young, and explored the region’s coastal beauty. We also spent time in the city to visit our friends at Letterform Archive and attended the Antiquarian Book Fair, where we found an incredible 15th century writing book by Palatino. Oh, and we played many games of Catan.

New Releases

THE BEATRICE COLLECTION

We grew our iconic display type into a superfamily. When we first released Beatrice in 2018, Lucas Sharp’s design landed in largely unexplored territory. Since then, Lucas and Connor Davenport—with invaluable assistance from Inga Plönnigs and Kia Tasbihgou—have been closing the gap left in-between the iconic Display and its more staid counterpart, Beatrice Standard. With the addition of Headline and Deck, the Beatrice Collection offers a complete spectrum of applications, filling what Lucas jokingly calls “the chasm of utility.” This smooth, interpolatable range of weights finally codifies the visual grammar that gives Beatrice such an exuberant presence. Read more.

A perfect end-of-summer soundtrack. In keeping with Beatrice’s theme, here’s one of our favorite mixes in recent memory: from the nostalgic Neapolitan standard “O Sole Mio” to obscure Italo disco, it’s full of cinematic discursions, perfect for soundtracking daydreams of the Italian coast: listen here.

GHOST DISPLAY

A new standard within the Humanist sans. Ghost is a back-to-the-roots take on the Humanist sans genre and a meditation on the ephemeral nature of normalcy. From its early stages of development, we honed in on the idea that the act of designing is also an act of criticism and foregrounded that throughout the process. Ghost is about adaptability and about a deeply nuanced and historically informed approach to design, stripped of the dogma. Read more.

Coming Soon

OCTAVE

Octave, Josh Finklea’s newest typeface release with Sharp Type, is a reconsideration of the modern sans serif typeface. Octave doesn’t indulge in typographic flourishes, nor does it cling to steadfast rules that hold other typographic standbys and contemporary revivals in the past. Instead, Octave embraces the overall design ideology of the modern sans serif while reasonably allowing for design structures and aesthetics to be logically reexamined and refined. There have been many expertly drawn revivals of classic typefaces in the last decade, but this isn’t an attempt to revive a classic, nor a comparison with these revivals. Octave is a typeface that harkens to the reliability and sensibility of the mid 1900's and comfortably displays its contemporary improvements.

GHOST TEXT

Ghost Text is a utilitarian Humanist sans like its Display counterpart, but it's designed for a different scale and has been developed for specific applications like UI and on-screen optimization. As its namesake denotes, Ghost Text is designed for maximum readability while retaining the warmth and quirkiness of its sibling. Designed by My-Lan Thuong. Look for it in the first quarter of 2023.

Sharp Type Collaborators

An update from Marc Rouault; introducing Emma Piercy and Lucile Billot. We’re lucky to have a growing roster of talented collaborators spread across the world. We checked in with a few of them to see what they’ve been up to this summer.

MARC ROUAULT

Marc Rouault is a long-time collaborator, having designed both Trois Mille and Tarnac. He’s based in Zürich but has been busy moving around the continent this summer. He rejoined the team at Type@Paris earlier in July, where he has been an instructor for a few years. Marc also found himself in Burgundy, where he volunteered at a music festival: “I went there partly by bike and came across this amazing sign. This Slab has usually some contrast, but here it looks like they added a contour, which makes it look like Tarnac.”

Doss is Marc’s latest family-in-the-works. Inspired by the logotypes of construction and hi-fi audio brands, the family also references the aesthetics of 90s rave culture. Here’s a sneak peek at the first two in the family, tentatively-named Acid and Exaflop.

PYRAMID

EXAFLOP

EMMA PIERCY

Emma Piercy is a Korean-British designer currently based in Amsterdam. She has been working on her debut typeface, Ceraph, which will be published through Sharp Type. Emma has been making trips to the city’s only poetry bookstore, Perdu: “If you like old book covers, it’s an absolute goldmine.” She has also been learning the art of stone carving this summer under the tutelage of Céline Hurka. Ceraph is an elegant flared serif that is already in-demand; notably, it was used for a collaborative t-shirt with Ghostly this past spring. Read more.

LUCILE BILLOT

Introducing our newest collaborator, Lucile Billot. She is a French graphic & type designer currently based in Münich. She is working on a couple typefaces with us,  and we wanted to share one with the working name Schlegel. From Lucile: “I am looking for the right texture, rhythm but accidents. Working with the contrasts. Some shadows. Something with a haptic dimension. A thick material. Quite sculptural, but I hope it stays humble and useful: no blockbuster. No monument.”

At a Glance

Some of our favorite in-use cases from 2022.

ACTUAL SOURCE: SHOPLIFTERS 10

Our friends at Actual Source featured three of our typefaces–Carta Nueva, Trois Mille, and Greenstone–in their latest edition of Shoplifters. It’s another beautiful specimen, and we’re proud to be a part of it. Read more.

MCM X CROCS

Our own Connor Davenport was approached by MCM to refresh their iconic logomark and laurel. We’ve come across a few applications of the updated logo system since then, but none quite as impressive–nor as funny–as the luxury leather brand’s collaboration with Crocs. Read more.

KENDRICK LAMAR BIG STEPPERS TOUR

Kendrick Lamar is that rare global superstar who eschews the typical trappings of brand-sponsored internet celebrity and instead has dominated hip hop with his virtuosity, intelligence, and magnetism. We couldn’t be happier that his latest tour merch prominently features Respira, our ode to the rotunda blackletter; since its release in 2017, we’ve donated 100% of its sales to the NRDC.

DISCOVERY REBRAND

Sharp Sans was chosen as the main font used throughout Discovery’s new branding system. The typeface's characteristics--boldness, cleanliness, neutrality, and balance--were ideally suited to communicate across Discovery's expanding platforms as the company stays current within our digital world. Read more.

2022 Malee Scholarship Recipients

Each year, The Malee Scholarship recognizes a group of promising women from underrepresented backgrounds who are devoted to type design. Founded by Sharp Type CEO Chantra Malee in 2020, this year, the top scholarship was awarded to Daniela López Hernández, a type designer and graphic designer from Mexico City. Through her love of type design, Daniela hopes to support other burgeoning designers living with disabilities to enrich the type design community and make it more inclusive. | Read more about Daniela here.

We are also honored to recognize three women as Scholarship Finalists and are excited to see how they flourish and enrich our community: Fernanda Cozzi, Tamara Segura, Krutika Shah| Read more about them here.

Finally, the Malee Scholarship recognises four women for their achievements and contributions to the type design industry: Lina Paola Garzón Gallardo, Norma Elzoghbi, Quỳnh Hương Nguyễn Đức, Lana Soufeh| Read more about them here.

Read about our other scholarship recipients at The Malee Scholarship here. Next year’s scholarship submissions will open sooner than you think–if you’re interested in supporting or applying for The Malee Scholarship, visit our website for more information.