Many type foundries claim to be offering innovative designs and flexible type systems. But few deliver on this promise like Swiss Typefaces does. Founded in 2005 in Lausanne by Maxime Büchi and Ian Party (first as B&P type foundry), who were later joined by Emmanuel Rey, the foundry approaches a lot of things differently. Where other foundries offer type families with a certain range of weights and styles, Swiss Typefaces provides designers with typeface collections that share similar foundational design elements but offer a wide range of visual variation, allowing for true flexibility.

Centerpiece of the library is Ian Party’s Suisse typeface that consists of 6 collections with a total of 55 styles, including the grotesque Suisse Int’l and its serif counterpart Suisse Works.

SangBleu follows the same conceptional approach but manages to take it even further to a point where it breaks with conventional typeface classifications like sans/serif/slab. The five collections of SangBleu are all romans, but their design characteristics, like contrast or serifs, become sometimes more, sometimes less pronounced. The result is an innovative, organic supercollection that offers a lot of flexibility.

Euclid, designed by Emmanuel Rey, is the geometric sans-serif in the library, With its variations Circular A, Circular B, Square, Triangle, and Flex, it is worth a closer look as well.

Another thing that sets Swiss Typefaces apart is their licensing model. If you buy one of their typefaces, the license will always include desktop as well as web fonts. For students, they even offer lifetime licenses of their typeface collections for only 50 CHF. They also have a Lab section on their site, where you can get early, experimental versions of upcoming type designs. And if you want to try the typefaces, you can always get free trial versions in desktop and web formats with a limited character set.

☞ https://www.swisstypefaces.com

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This post is part of the Independent Type Foundry Advent Calendar 2022

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