Responses by Marc Droz, typeface designer, Nouvelle Noire.
Background: Colroy’s regular weight was created as a project work at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (“Zurich University of the Arts” in German). The task was to develop a text font; however, I also wanted the typeface to work well in larger sizes as reading text. I decided to develop a slab serif, a font intended to attract attention as a display typeface. In any case, Colroy’s numerals have already been used by architects for house numbers with a type size of about 90 cm (about 35 inches), which looks great.
Design thinking: To make Colroy more readable and contemporary, I designed it to be less squiggly and more geometric than the usual Clarendon typefaces. This resulted in a pleasantly calm typeface for body text. The relatively wide characters help in small point sizes.
For Colroy Italic, the geometrization is less pronounced; otherwise, it would look too stiff. To maintain a constructivist impression, some of the characters in Italic—such as the v, w and y—are slanted.
Challenges: The first version of Colroy came out in 2014 with three weights: regular, medium and bold. Some customers asked for bolder cuts. I also wanted to make a thin weight to gauge how thin Colroy could be and still pass as a slab serif. The most difficult thing was to define the gradation of the weights so that the new weights would be as fat or as thin as possible while fitting harmoniously in with the existing weights. I had to adjust some details across all the cuts, such as the ball terminals, serifs and accents.
Favorite details: Definitely the ball terminals, which are distinctive enough without being too hard on the eye in small sizes. Also, the O, which is almost a circle—I fine-tuned the counter for quite a while to avoid a bone effect.
New lessons: Besides a few modular title fonts, Colroy was my first typeface. The design and technical learning curves were steep. The most important lesson I learned was to trust my eye.
Visual influences: During the development of the regular weight, I was more oriented toward geometric grotesque fonts like DIN Mittelschrift or T-Star than toward slab serifs. I didn’t consciously research it, but I remembered advertising art and record covers from the ’50s and ’60s that were often set with Clarendon. Also, the work of artist Robert Indiana certainly had an influence on the design. The mix of minimalism and the expansive forms of Clarendon make Colroy a versatile typeface.
Specific project demands: The decision to release the expanded Colroy family as a variable font did cause some headaches on the technical side. I had to redraw some of the curves so that the font would interpolate smoothly.
Alternative paths: I would have included condensed and extended styles from the beginning of the project. But for now, Colroy is finished for me, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.
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