Eight years after the initial release of Brandon Grotesque (2010), the typeface has grown into a font family of 48 styles, including a version for small sizes and the newly released condensed version. Today, Brandon Grotesque supports at least 116 languages, from Latin based languages to Greek and Cyrillic.
TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
Involves careful observation 25
THE PERSONAL JUKEBOX
Powerful scientific theories 87
MINIMALIST INTERFACE
Some prominent philosophers
EMERGED INDEPENDENTLY
Ein Reisetagebuch aus Amerika 3
DISCOVER THEIR CAUSES
Physics & chemistry laboratories
PRECISE OBSERVATIONS
Acquired without mathematics
Creating the condensed version for the original Brandon Grotesque was a special project for us where we had to put all our knowledge in. The first original sketches of Brandon Grotesque were made in 2008 and we started to work on the condesed version eight years later. A lot has changed in these years, including the fact that we worked totally different than in 2008 — with different applications and a different mind set. There is no doubt that Brandon Grotesque has a certain magic which we wanted to preserve. A condensed typeface is not just a squeezed version of the original. We drew the complete version from scratch, keeping the characteristics of the design approach of Brandon – and this also includes the little special, maybe "weird" moments of the original Brandon. The goal was to create something that feels like it has always been there, but which expands scope of use and gives new opportunities to designers.
Before we started with the first sketches we studied the original Brandon in detail again – what did we do eight years ago? What are the strong elements and why does it feel “Brandon”? On the other hand we looked at condensed typefaces to evaluate what needs to be there to be a good working condensed family. The main difference are the basic shapes. Brandon Grotesque is a geometric typefamily it is based on a circle and the other characters are referring to that shape. A condensed typeface is based on an ellipsis and this a totally different basis. So what did we do to preserve the Brandon feeling, when not having circles as a design element?
There are other strong character giving elements in Brandon that we could refer to in the new design. While drawing the condensed we always crosschecked with the original Brandon as a reference to check if we are still on track. One of the most difficult parts was to find the balance of the pointed letters like ‘A’ or ‘N’ — especially in the bolder weights. The forms are narrow in a condensed typeface and the area around the pointed edges tend to look too dark. The challenge was to find the angle and the radius that feels like Brandon and visually balances the weight. Another point has been that each weight has some unique details – little special details which we wanted to keep to create a family that consistently works with the original.
The width of Brandon Grotesque Condensed is about 83% of the original Brandon. We chose the width because it still works for texts without feeling too compressed and it is still easy to read. We also felt that the aestetic of this condensed factor is a perfect match with the original circle based width.
A font of today’s needs has to include more than just the alphabet and some punctuation. Besides a big number of accented letters, making sure that the typeface has a good language support, a font should include several features for excellent typographic work joining forces with the layout applications of the time and of course the user. Here is a selection of what this font family has to offer under the hood.
Leaflets
If two letters have the nature to collide when used in combination a ligature is needed to solve this unwanted event. Ligatures are especially designed solutions for such letter combinations. This font contains a set of ligatures which are automatically substituted as soon as these letter combinations are typed in.
Various airlines have free access.
Besides the standard letters a font sometimes contains several versions of a letter called alternates. You can exchange the alternate with the standard letter by selecting it through the OpenType feature panel and every letter of the stylistic set will be exchanged. Often this results in a totally different optical appearance of the typeface.
1.401,39€
3.547,21€
In addition to the standard lining figures, the fonts contain a set of tabular figures. This means that all numbers have the same width, which is useful for setting up invoices, tables or every other task where the figures should have a structured appearance among themselves.
5 2/3 pieces of cake
If fractions are needed anywhere an OpenType code makes sure that if you type any numbers combined with a slash between a fraction will automatically be substituted.
C2H5O12
A subscript is a character that is set slightly below the normal line of type. They are used in formulas, mathematical expressions, and specifications of chemical compounds and isotopes, but can have many other uses as well. These characters are not simply ordinary characters reduced in size – to keep them visually consistent with the rest of the font, they are slightly heavier than a reduced-size character would be.
Just read the small text2
A superscript is a character that is set slightly above the line of type. It has the same weight and size like a subscript character. They are used in formulas, mathematical expressions and text references, but can have many other uses as well.
Brandon Grotesque Condensed has an extended character set that supports more than a hundred languages. Part of the language coverage is the support for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic script.
Brandon Grotesque and Brandon Text can be used together to solve all typographic challenges. While Brandon Grotesque can be used to give character to the brand, Brandon Text is with its higher x-heigt the perfect choice for longer text blocks in reading sizes. Both now have a condensed counterpart which can be used for space saving tasks, but also work individually with its own aestetics. → Check out Brandon Grotesque.
Latin: Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Belarusian, Bislama, Bosnian, Breton, Catalan, Chamorro, Chichewa, Comorian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino/Tagalog, Finnish, Flemish, French, Gaelic, Gagauz, German, Gikuyu, Gilbertese/Kiribati, Haitian-Creole, Hawaiian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Kashubian, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luba/Ciluba/Kasai, Luxembourgish, Malagasy, Malay, Maltese, Maori, Marquesan, Moldovan/Romanian, Montenegrin, Nauruan, Ndebele, Norwegian, Oromo, Palauan/Belauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Samoan, Sango, Serbian, Sesotho, Setswana, Seychellois-Creole, Swazi, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tahitian, Tetum, Tok-Pisin, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvaluan, Uzbek, Wallisian, Walloon, Welsh, Xhosa, Zulu. Cyrillic: Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Macedonian, Ossetic, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Uzbek. Greek: Greek.
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