Typeface Design for PP Palma
One family, two personalities: readable humanist and punchy geometric
PP Palma is a sans-serif family built around a dual geo-humanist concept, drawing loosely from Antique Olive, Johnston, and Avenir without directly replicating them. It splits into two subfamilies: a humanist branch with open shapes and balanced proportions suited to running text, and a geometric 'Fizzy' branch with tighter spacing and sharper details aimed at display and headline use. The family ships in 28 styles across seven weights with italics, available as both static and variable fonts, with broad Latin-language support and OpenType feature coverage.
Set in PP Palma
Insights
- The dual-subfamily structure externalises a tonal decision usually left to weight or size alone, giving designers a discrete mode switch rather than a gradient.
- Fizzy's tighter spacing and crisped details are optimised for large-size use, acknowledging that optical needs at display scale differ structurally from text.
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