Recent Products
Commercial Type: Marion
January 13th 2012
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Commericial Type (featured in Edition Four) have just publicly released the typeface Marion! While it was first show in the Thieves Like Us exhibition in October 2011 (see above image), here is the official press release:
"Commercial Type is pleased to announce the release of Marian, a new typeface family in 19 styles designed by Paul Barnes. Marian is a series of faithful revivals of some of the classics from the typographic canon: Austin, Baskerville, Bodoni, Fournier, Fleischman, Garamont, Granjon, Kis and van den Keere. The twist is that they have all been rendered as a hairline of near uniform weight, revealing the basic structure at the heart of the letterforms. Together they represent a concept: to recreate the past both for and in the present.
Stretching over a period of nearly two and a half centuries from the mid sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century, they represent a period when the serif typeface as used in book typography was the dominant style. From the high Renaissance of Granjon and Garamont through to the Scotch roman; all the styles are represented: old style, transitional, and finally the modern. Meretriciously researched from original sources, together they represent a concept album of cover versions of the standards of type design.
Faithful to the originals, Marian comes with small capitals in all nine roman styles, with lining and non-lining figures, with swash capitals (1554, 1740, 1800 & 1820), alternate and terminal characters (1554 & 1571). And like the hidden track so beloved of the concept album, Marian is completed by a Blackletter based on the work of Henrik van den Keere.
Marian was first introduced in the temporary exhibition "Thieves Like Us", a collaboration between Commercial Type and designer and artist Dino Sanchez in New York in October 2011. The show explored the possibilities offered by these single stroke forms in a variety of media, including neon, nails, and pure light on a mirrored surface."
