I released
Lindau about three years ago. A single-font product so far, I have been repeatedly asked about an Italic and more styles, since then.
Well, I take the pleasure to announce that ‘family members’ are in the making. The new package will comprise three weights and the corresponding Italics. Also tabular and oldstyle figures as well as an extended set of ligatures will be part of the new version.
Comments
The purposeful spottiness that results from the tapers has some charm and distinctiveness. I would lend a little more weight to the baseline serifs in the bold. I also feel the /e/ crossbar in bold may be too heavy.
Hard for me to see the top left serif on /y/ as anything besides a mistake in the two lighter weights, esp. the lightest. Somewhat related, that thin "drip" from the top terminal of /c/ feels too slight in those lighter weights.
It'd be easier to judge in a mixed setting, but the spiky, narrow italic seems like an apt complement to the roman.
The Italic is still in an initial state. The contrasting slenderness is definitely wanted; however, maybe it is just a little to slim by now.
That /a is just gloriously shameless.
By the way, your other typeface Andron is really lovely.
@Christian Thalmann: The matter of vertical weight balance in the Bold is certainly worth revisiting. The ‘comical’ association may be evoked by looking at an isolated sample (?).
I think in shorter texts and things like stationery Lindau works quite well.
Oldřich Menhart’s Manuscript (original shown below, the revival by Alex White shown above, another revival exists by Ralph M. Unger) and Figural (as revived by Michael Gills) also come to mind. Menhart and Kapr collaborated, and the contacts between the East German Typoart foundry and the Czechoslovakian Grafotechna foundry were common. Menhart’s trademark feature was the brush-induced top-heaviness, a feature that also appeared in some GDR typefaces from the 20th century, but was uncommon elsewhere. Lindau seems to be a cousin of the “Czech style” (see Veronika’s Burian dissertation on Menhart), and it’s not a bad thing at all
Menhart is definitely counting among the 20th century type heros, for my sense.
However, I’m not sure about my inspirations in that case. Maybe some subconcious streams are at work here … ?
That Belgian poster lettering is – a killer!!
I suppose it’s gotta be through the association between Grafotechna and Typoart. The East German designers and the Czechoslovakian designers were quite close in the 1950s and 1960s, and I think they influenced each other a lot. I’d even call it a "Central European style". Poland was largely absent from type design in the period.