Eliptico
RELEASED BY:
Typeji via Future Fonts ☞
DESIGNERS:
Tien-Min Liao
RELEASE DATE:
Week 23
DETAILS:
• A high-contrast serif with intense diagonal stress and big, round elliptical counters.
• Available in two weights: Bold and Black.
• This is a V.01 release on Future Fonts.
LINKS:
From the Foundry:
“Eliptico is a contemporary high-contrast serif typeface with diagonal stress and angled oval-shaped counters. The ovals are also integrated in letterforms like B, D, G, P, R and etc, which create a playful pattern throughout the text.
The extreme thick-and-thin contrast, sharp cuts and triangle serifs gives the typeface an elegant look with a strong and unique personality.”
Foundry Images:
NOTES:
Eliptico is “an excellent offering to the Display Serif gods” is how I put it in the Week 23 episode fo the Interrogang Podcast. Eliptico is seemingly unafraid to do things a little differently, without straying too far from the familiarity you'd expect in something useful. There’s something brave and adventurous about this design. Perhaps emboldened by the iterative format of Future Fonts, Eliptico benefits from the lowered pressure to have everything pixel perfect on first-look.
This idea is present in spades with Eliptico, namely in the fantastically bulbous counters that would otherwise be thrown out by a more scrupulous or conservative designer. There are the blade-like design features in the serifs that carry over to unconventional places like the dots of the i’s, the tail of the Q, and the kicking leg of the y. And there’s the deft way that curves are handled in contrast to those blades like in the s’s, the cap R, the L, and the 3. Ultimately for me, Eliptico is a study in commitment to an idea, and the commitment displayed here is applaudable. Starting with the drastic oval counters and high contrast construction, Eliptico doesn’t waver from this stance, and creates great solutions where this commitment meets friction. Now that’s type design!