Industry: Design

Typeface Family for Headlines

A student revival with a nearly century-old source

Nobel revives Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos's 1929 Typefoundry Amsterdam typeface, itself an adaptation of Berthold Grotesk toward geometric forms. Tobias Frere-Jones undertook the revival in 1992 while at RISD. New weights were later added by Cyrus Highsmith and Dyana Weissman, with additional contributions from Davy Dai.

Set in Nobel

Insights

The 1929 original negotiated between an existing grotesque model (Berthold Grotesk) and geometric construction principles rather than originating independently.
Frere-Jones began the revival as a student project at RISD in 1992.
Weight expansion involved multiple collaborators after the initial revival.