Typeface design and typography by David Jonathan Ross.
I’ve always been unsure of what to do about my typeface Fern . It’s a texty Venetian serif that I designed early in my career with screens in mind. (Not that it should be limited to screens…I’ve seen it put to great use in print as well!) I know why I drew the thing, but I’m not sure I ever totally wrapped my head around what the typeface is all about or why I think it succeeds in text. I’ve…
Here is an incredible use of Slight Chance for the recent PDD tour of the Indonesian alt-rock band Perunggu , designed by Under The Table . It is such an unexpected joy to have a font inspired by something very specific (the early digital readouts of a cable TV weather channel ) and to see it travel across the world and get used so successfully in an entirely new context. See more at Fonts in Use…
Last month I sent you Megawarp , a sci-fi sans serif centered around the idea of fragmentation. But slicing letters into pieces doubtlessly impacts legibility, and I’ve watched a few people struggle to read the font. So I asked myself…what would happen if I stripped away that central idea, and tried to work from what was left? The answer is Gigawarp . It’s bold, it’s wide, it’s modular, and in my…
See some BIG Job Clarendon on Book of Paul , a 2026 album by Texan country artist Paul Cauthen . The album was designed by Mitchell McCleary , with photography from Tyler Ellison . See more at Fonts in Use >
Part two of my two-part foundry launch happened 10 years ago today, when I launched Bungee from the bus as I was on my way to NYC for Typographics . The website you see on my screen was designed with Nick Sherman and Chris Lewis. On this bungiversary I want to express my gratitude to them, and to the folks at Font Bureau and Google Fonts for helping to bring this typeface to life!
So, today marks 10 years since I launched my type foundry, which coincided with the release of my font Gimlet . I’m not great commemorating things like this (or introspection about my process in general 😅), but it did feel worth mentioning. It’s difficult to overstate how grateful I am to the folks at Font Bureau who encouraged and supported me as I took the leap back in 2016, and to the…
Hot on the heels of the release of Fit Arabic , I am incredibly happy to announce Fit Kannada , designed by Taresh Vohra and released today by Mota Italic . I am not a speaker of Kannada or a reader of the Kannada script , but it doesn’t take an expert to see that the writing system usually involves a lot of curved forms. In Fit, blockiness is king—so when Taresh proposed Fit Kannada to me in…
I haven’t been on top of my game this month. I know I had mentioned the italics I was working on for Lithographer Text , but I couldn’t bring myself to go through the focus-demanding, detail-oriented work of finishing them. I will send those fonts to you someday, but today is not that day. Instead, I desperately needed a reset. I wanted to start something new, where I could lower the stakes, move…
Stop whatever you are doing right now and go check out Fit Arabic , designed by Sahar Afshar and released this past week by Dogray Type Foundry . Fit is a typeface that is primarily focused on filling space, a quality it shares with the Square Kufi style of Arabic calligraphy. In her interpretation, Sahar was able to build on this rich calligraphic tradition, without being constrained by it. The…
So…I know I said I was going to send you more Lithographer Text this month, but the universe had other plans. (In other words, I boneheadedly overwrote a bunch of my work on it earlier this week, without backing it up.) I debated sending you what I do have, but it’s just not quite ready for primetime. I always struggle with how “beta” club releases should be. My goal is to send you a slightly…