R-Typography is a type foundry based in Lisbon Portugal, founded by Rui Abreu in 2008 and now run together with Catarina Vaz.

Rui drew his first type designs while still working as a designer in advertising agencies. One day, he decided to send a design to to Peter Bruhn of the Swedish foundry Fountain. Peter not only recognized that this young designer from Portugal could draw letters, but he would also become his mentor as they collaborated for a few projects, including the TDC award-winning Orbe. From Peter, Rui not only learned how much hard work and dedication it takes to produce a typeface, but he also realized that a foundry is more than the sum of its collective typefaces. As he says, “What makes a foundry is the whole body of knowledge.”

And so, when you look at the growing catalogue of R-Typography, it seems that what is driving Rui today is not only the desire to cover a wide range of styles and curate a collection of useful and beautiful typefaces. Just as important is that the foundry’s ‘body of knowledge’ is growing artistically but also regarding methods, production techniques, and tooling.

The library of R-Typography now contains a range of great sans-serifs, like the geometric but pleasantly warm Azo Sans in all its variations, the constructed Sul Sans, sort of a Portuguese version of DIN, and Rui’s recent reinterpretation of Futura: Atica. Staff is a sturdy, contemporary neo-grotesk sans family for wide range of applications and a more recent, text-oriented version in Staff Grotesk.

The serif families are where you can see that Rui really knows how to balance contrast and shape. Like in Grifo and Gliko Modern, two serif designs for editorial use with high stroke contrast, or Flecha, a sharp, sturdy, yet delicate and “Fleischmann-y” old-style typeface. The latest release of the foundry is Rizoma, a contemporary typographic interpretation of Roman inscription letters, elegant and slightly constructivist.

As it is the standard nowadays, you can get free test fonts with a limited character set. And I also encourage you to read a few of the interesting post in the stories section, where Rui writes about the design ideas behind the typefaces.

☞ https://www.r-typography.com

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

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