Letterforms first

Haldane came to me with a small library of typefaces and no way to show them. The brief was to build an identity that could sit next to any of their fonts without competing, and a specimen site that treated each family as the hero.

The system uses a single neutral grotesk for all interface text, leaving every headline and specimen to the foundry’s own letterforms. Colour is limited to paper and ink, with one warm grey for supporting text.

Outcome

The site launched alongside two new releases and doubled trial downloads in the first quarter. The identity has since extended into printed specimens and a series of posters.