Industry: Design

Typeface Design for Epitaph

Drawn from an ATF specimen discovery

Epitaph is a typeface by Tobias Frere-Jones drawn after he encountered it in an old American Type Founders specimen. Working from an interest in nineteenth-century typography, he explored a design that holds opposing qualities in tension—precious and loud, harsh and soft—simultaneously.

Set in Epitaph

Insights

The design originated from finding an existing American Type Founders specimen, rather than from independent ideation.
Frere-Jones set himself the challenge of reconciling two pairs of opposing qualities—precious/loud and harsh/soft—within one design.