Edgar

Frere-Jones Type is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the release of Edgar, an oldstyle text family. Designed as a sibling to Frere-Jones Type’s Mallory typeface, Edgar offers a lively rhythm for long-form reading, and also explores the intertwining of personal and public histories.

Edgar owes much to designer Tobias Frere-Jones’ British ancestry, as well as the British typographic tradition. It begins with his great-grandfather Edgar Wallace, a renowned author in early 20th century Britain. Wallace’s novels — mostly crime thrillers — were written with an easy conversational rhythm that Frere-Jones wanted to replicate in the shapes of the text itself. The letterforms touch on the types of William Caslon and Alexander Phemister, drawing on two different centuries of type history.

Swiss designer Nina Stössinger also played a leading role in developing Edgar, particularly its italics. Their different cultures, as well as their shared type history, has led to an organic typeface that is both comfortable and compelling.

Edgar’s roman and italic are drawn out of two different centuries of type history: eighteenth century for the roman, nineteenth century for the italic. Simplified a bit, the italic’s job is to *not be the roman*, so the design team of Frere-Jones and Stössinger wondered if evoking a wholly different period of history could be an effective solution. The result is not just a historical exercise, but a clearer semantic structure for the reader.

Honoring the text — as any typeface should do — means not only inviting the reader to visit and stay, but also recognizing the shifting needs of content. Edgar offers oldstyle figures as a default, being best suited to running text. Lining figures, the best companions for an all-caps setting, are available as alternate forms. Tabular figures are available for data in columns, as well as superior and inferior forms for footnotes and chemical formulas. All styles also include small capitals, for further refinements.

Edgar supports over 200 languages, covering all major languages in the Latin alphabet in North, Central, and South America; Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, and Vietnam.

More on Edgar here.