With five weights and a healthy set of ligatures, glyphs, swashes, stylistic flourishes, and more, versatile Superscript will elevate your designs from …
May 25, 2021 8:43 am
“This is great but make it more feminine.” When it comes to fonts, type designer Marie Boulanger says she has heard comments like this “countless times” from clients. “If you think about it from a design point of view, that word contains nothing that designers can use,” Boulanger says. “I think it’s important to examine your bias and ask why you’re saying masculine or feminine and the qualities you’re attaching to gender that you need to express.”
The stereotypes that people apply to typefaces – such as thin, ornamental details for ‘feminine’ fonts and blocky, thicker ones for ‘masculine’ ones – is the subject of Boulanger’s new book, XX, XY: Sex, Letters and Stereotypes, currently being funded via Kickstarter. The book, which started off as a thesis for her MA in type design, investigates the relationships between letters, gender stereotypes and how those impact the wider design industry.