Designers: Keith
Bates,
Harold
CurwenCurwen Sans is a monoline sans-serif dating from the early twentieth century. Though modern with Johnston's Underground and Gill Sans, and emerging from the exact same creative scene, Curwen Sans was developed exclusively for in-house usage at the Curwen Press in London so never ever achieved a broad audience or recognition.
Harold Curwen studied lettering under Edward Johnston and Eric Gill at the Central School of Art and Crafts, and his typeface is described in Curwen Press promotion from the 1930s as a series "based on an alphabet developed back in 1912". His uppercase are noticeably modern-day, geometric monolines that share features with both Johnston's Underground of 1916 and Gill Sans of 1928. Curwen opted for an overlapping W which was likewise present in variations of Johnston's Underground until the late 1930s. He chose vertical terminals for his curved letters, even the uppercase S, which was a likewise consistent function of Gill Sans. Although the drawing of Curwen's capitals might predate the 2 style classics, Curwen Sans capitals and numerals were not cut in metal type until 1928, and just in a Medium weight.
A lowercase with some uncomfortably congested characters was quickly included a couple of years later and owes much to Rudolf Koch's Kabel of 1927 both in the style of some glyphs and in the very low x-height which was even smaller than another impact, Paul Renner's Futura of 1927.
.Curwen's lowercase g stems from, and possibly improves on, the distinctive g of Kabel. His swan-necked lowercase s has a wacky yet sophisticated art deco slant that motivates words to slide along gracefully. His unclosed lowercase e is daringly various, potentially motivated by a speculative kind Renner at first thought about for Futura, and reminiscent of the 'Town' adaptation of Berthold Wolpe's Albertus produced for the 1960s TELEVISION program, The Prisoner.
.Alterations and Alternates
.K-Type's Curwen Sans lavishes the lowercase with some long-overdue TLC. To much better match contemporary design requirements, little letters are redrawn larger and the stroke weight is made a little thinner relative to the capitals. Crucially, the x-height is increased, following the example of more current versions of Kabel, hence decreasing stroke congestion and permitting uncomfortably narrow letters to be widened to enhance compatibility and evenness of color; most notably, the bigger a, c, e, and g accomplish a better balance with other letters. Curwen's top-heavy lowercase f is narrowed and advantages from a higher crossbar, as does the lowercase t.
.The lowercase c has actually been become match the vertical terminals of Curwen's uppercase C and also adhere to the vertical endings on the e, a, s and S. The numerals 3, 5 and 7 are also given vertical terminals. These vertical terminals are likewise consistent in Gill Sans, whereas Johnson had actually thought about and declined them for his uppercase S even though his lowercase s featured vertical stroke endings. K-Type Curwen Sans makes vertical terminals the requirement for new characters such the euro sign and even in the design of diacritical marks; like all recent K-Type releases, Curwen Sans now has a complete repertoire of Latin Extended-An accentuated characters.
.The original lettering might have been drawn with sharp pointed pinnacles and vertices for the A, M, N, W, V, w, and v, however printed samples reveal rounded corners that bestow a softness and warmth. So, like the much heavier weights of spiky geometrics such as Kabel and Futura, K-Type Curwen Sans truncates such pointy overshoots to prevent evoking any 'sat-on-a-pin' discomfort.
.Curwen's initial zero was identical to the uppercase O, however the K-Type Curwen Sans zero is narrowed to much better match the width of other numerals.
.However, purists need not be alarmed by these modifications; where characters have actually been modified, possibly contentiously, versions more loyal to Curwen's originals are consisted of as alternates available with OpenType smart software. Alternates include the unchanged lowercase c, Curwen's more skewed number 5, the 3 and 7 with angled terminals, the wider circular zero, and the A, M, N, W, V, w and v with pointed apex and vertex overshoots.
.Curwen's stringent monolinearity has actually been very a little relaxed in the digital face to present a little degree of stroke contrast, so horizontal strokes are made a little thinner than verticals, and a modest constricting of strokes is introduced at overloaded intersections.
.K-Type Curwen Sans consists of 3 packages:
- The Fundamental Household of Regular and Bold, complete with brand-new optically corrected Oblique and Strong Oblique fonts.
- The initial Medium weight with a brand-new optically remedied Medium Oblique.
- A new Light weight with a new optically fixed Light Oblique.
Thanks to Birmingham designers An Endless Supply (Harry Blackett and Robin Kirkham) for their research study into Curwen Sans and the Curwen Press in their publication, 'Curwen Sans Type Specimen'. Also to Mikey Ashworth for his photos of Curwen Sans samples, and to Andrew Emmerson for suggesting the revival.
.Font Family:
