Ehrie
RELEASED BY:
Blast Foundry via Future Fonts ☞
DESIGNERS:
Rafal Buchner
RELEASE DATE:
Week 15
DETAILS:
• Ehrie is a disappearing variable font with a personality drawn right from the age of speedball and photo lettering.
• Ehrie is available as a variable font covering two styles: Solid and Stencil.
LINKS:
From the Foundry:
“The design process started with the question: “what would happen if we use a variable font axis to make letters completely disappear?”. We started with a condensed, slightly chubby design, which dematerialized into a stencil version. The challenge was to get these intricate shapes, full of tiny details, to technically animate and perform well in a variable font environment.
Using Ehrie variable font, you can play with the experimental “Disappear” variation axis. It gives control over how much the text splits into pieces and ultimately fades away. See our animations and PDF specimen for more information about the variable font.
Of course, Ehrie can be used for non-animated projects, too. The stand-alone styles are Ehrie Solid (full letters) and Ehrie Faded (disintegrating letters). With their almost hand-drawn charm, these two styles will work well in packaging design and movie posters. Ehrie can be slightly childish, spooky, informal, or even comical. We’re excited to see how designers will use it.”
NOTES:
Another fun and original release for Future Fonts. Blast Foundry has been really good at finding opportunity in the areas of the type design map that have yet to be explored. This is especially true with Ehrie. I love the premise: design a typeface that disappears. It’s a typeface with a raison-de-etre that plays out so nicely. Of course it goes from solid to stencil to nothing. Perfect harmony between concept and execution.
Stylistically, the font is squishy and fun and friendly and chock full of cheeky personality that will certainly do well with the Future Fonts buyer, but should also do well for brands looking to break out of their corporate chains and do something unexpected. I love the stencil in particular; especially the way they didn’t just chop up the solid letterforms in standard places but leaned into the disappearing concept with areas that would dissolve away first. On the Interrogang Podcast, Josh describes it as if a container of water were draining away, and I think that’s such a good way to see it.
The other aspect of Ehrie that’s worth highlighting is how innovatively it uses the variable font technology. So many variable fonts use the technology in what has become an expected way: weight, width, italic angle…. It’s like getting a jeep but only going to the grocery store and back with it. Ehrie seems to have approached the idea of variable font from a different way, a more conceptual way, and that has delivered a refreshing and novel product. Designing with animation in mind is also a good way to carve out a niche in the market, seeing that brands are relying on motion more and more as a cornerstone of their expression.