Typeface Atoxina. Pixels and Gothic Letters?

Atoxina
Sounds like Klingon.

Designed for Starships.

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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