Industry: Design

Simplon

Road-sign lettering, made fit for graphic designers

Simplon is Swiss Typefaces' contemporary reworking of the industrial sans-serif tradition rooted in European road-sign lettering, particularly the standardized grotesks codified by bodies such as DIN and the Swiss SNV. The family comprises two collections: the proportionally spaced Simplon Norm and the monospaced Simplon Mono, each in eight styles across four weights with accompanying oblique italics. Designed by Emmanuel Rey with font engineering by Christoph Koeberlin, Simplon refines the utilitarian source material for graphic-design use through smoother letterforms, larger counters, and straight-sided rounds that enable tight display spacing.

Set in Simplon Norm, Simplon Mono

Insights

Straight-sided rounds in glyphs such as 'e' and 'o' allow tight display spacing while preserving the utilitarian character of signage grotesks.
Simplon Mono differentiates itself from Norm through diagonal cuts on numerals, diagonally cut terminals, a full-counter Q bar, and a slashed zero.
Engineer-like monolinearity is enforced by minimising stroke-join thinning, maintaining a deliberately technical flavour.
Alternate stylistic sets—a monocular 'a' and a tailless 'l'—are provided to increase immediacy when needed.