Fonts I Like. Swiss-made trial fonts.

Geometrico
Round without Compromises.

# Geometric

# Reinvented
Typefaces
Reflections
Trials Pack
Order

How coura­geous and inno­v­a­tive were Paul Ren­ner and Herb Lubalin with their font designs! In com­par­i­son, today’s Swiss font design scene can be described as flat­ten­ing out. More or less “accu­rate” vari­ants of the Hel­vetica font are being “warmed up” more and more. We do not appre­ci­ate this devel­op­ment and are offer­ing here con­sciously type­faces that you wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily expect under the term “Swiss Design”.

For the 90th anniver­sary of the type­face “Futura”, Geometrico was designed: a new inter­pre­ta­tion of the Bauhaus clas­sic and a trib­ute to Paul Ren­ner. “How many cir­cu­lar ele­ments can be used in a type­face?”, asked him­self the author. “Futura” con­tains already 13 cir­cu­lar ele­ments in the minus­cules only, the new font fam­ily Geometrico 15. Does the read­abil­ity suf­fer?

Beyond Type: Thoughts on Typography, Design and Our Philosophy

What Remains of Calligraphy in the Digital Age? A Tribute to Katharine Wolff

The death of Katharine Wolff deeply affected many of us. She was a teacher in the CAS Type Design pro­gram, whose pas­sion for cal­lig­ra­phy was always evi­dent. As an Amer­i­can, she brought a spe­cial fas­ci­na­tion for his­tor­i­cal let­ter­forms.

In class, cal­lig­ra­phy played a cen­tral role. Work­ing with pen and ink was for her not a prepara­tory detour, but the core of learn­ing. Her goal was to under­stand his­tor­i­cal forms as pre­cisely as pos­si­ble and to remain faith­ful to them. The exer­cises were pre­cise, demand­ing, and marked by great respect for the mod­els.


«Precision is not nostalgia.»

Her fas­ci­na­tion with old man­u­scripts, with pro­por­tions and move­ment sequences, was con­ta­gious. His­tory was for her not loose ref­er­ence mate­r­ial, but a stan­dard.


«History is a tool, not a destination.»

In the end, how­ever, a fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence remained between us. While for Katharine the close­ness to his­tor­i­cal mod­els could hardly be great enough, I believed that type­faces must be con­ceived more strongly from the demands of the present. And that is impor­tant. Cal­lig­ra­phy can be a source of inspi­ra­tion in this, but it does not have to be. I have always found this not entirely resolv­able ten­sion enrich­ing.

A con­crete exam­ple of this is the type­face fam­ily Mimix, which was devel­oped in the CAS Type Design pro­gram through process and dia­logue with Katharine Wolff. The start­ing point was a neo­clas­si­cal cur­sive. The design shows a mod­u­lar struc­ture, repeat­ing ele­ments, order, and rhythm. Qual­i­ties that arise less from his­tor­i­cal fidelity than from sys­tem­atic think­ing and anchor the type­face in the present.

Fur­ther thoughts on typog­ra­phy and design:

Is Times New Roman better than Calibri?

You might have won­dered why the Trump admin­is­tra­tion recently decided to revert to Times New Roman for offi­cial documents—replacing the sans-serif Cal­ibri used under the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. The trig­ger may have been admin­is­tra­tive, but the impact is cul­tural.
Read more

What if readability is not the primary goal of typography?

Some­times we won­der if read­abil­ity really has to be the cen­ter of every­thing… We are con­tin­u­ally amazed at how tire­lessly the topic of “read­abil­ity” is debated within pro­fes­sional cir­cles. This fix­a­tion often leaves us feel­ing puz­zled. We would – fol­low­ing Erik Spiek­er­mann – rather say: “The dif­fer­ences in read­abil­ity between the most com­mon type­faces are min­i­mal” – the rest feels like typo­graphic white noise.
Read more

How can you save money with fonts?

Some­times it feels as though many com­pa­nies under­es­ti­mate how much a sin­gle well-cho­sen type­face can actu­ally accom­plish… We keep encoun­ter­ing the same, almost coun­ter­in­tu­itive insight: a com­mer­cial type­face is one of the most afford­able and at the same time most effec­tive tools for devel­op­ing an inde­pen­dent cor­po­rate design. It cre­ates two cen­tral pil­lars of a visual sys­tem: the brand’s design auton­omy through a con­sis­tent type fam­ily — and a logo design that derives directly from the let­ter­forms them­selves.
Read more

Which typeface is best for readability?

I keep ask­ing myself whether it even makes sense to search for the “best” type­face for read­abil­ity. In expert cir­cles, peo­ple love to debate “bet­ter” or “worse” read­abil­ity, but with­out solid empir­i­cal evi­dence most claims remain spec­u­la­tive. Seri­ous stud­ies? Hardly any. And among widely used type­faces – espe­cially sans ser­ifs – the dif­fer­ences in real-world read­ing com­fort are min­i­mal.
Read more

Where can I find beautiful fonts?

There are count­less font offers on the inter­net — rang­ing from high-qual­ity to rather ques­tion­able ones. We gen­er­ally advise against using free fonts, as there’s a risk that they’re also being used by count­less oth­ers — per­haps even by the kebab shop around the cor­ner — which can harm a brand’s image.
Read more

How Do I Avoid a “Wall of Text”?

Is an image really always needed to build ten­sion? This ques­tion repeat­edly comes to mind when a neatly set block of text is hastily labeled as “too dense”—as if typo­graphic design could not exist with­out visual props. Visual relief is not cre­ated solely through dec­o­ra­tion, but pri­mar­ily through pre­cise han­dling of white space, con­trast ratios, and tar­geted asym­me­try within the design grid.
Read more