How can typefaces be imbued with a sense of place? Brunswick Grotesque responds to the challenge of designing a typeface for a place, and is the product of a research project undertaken for a Master of Communication Design at RMIT University in 2017. The typeface was inspired by a casual typographic sensibility observed in Melbourne's inner north suburbs.
The grotesque comprises 5 distinct widths combined randomly by means of the Contextual Alternates feature. The result is a text setting which embraces hiccups, inconsistency, irreverence and naive charm. It’s a quality typical of Melbourne’s inner north – and suburban ‘featurism’ (Robin Boyd, 1960) more broadly. Further randomness is introduced via an ‘oops’ class of alternates, which appear at rare intervals to swap some letters for their similar inverted counterparts (eg. upside-down S, swapped M and W) – referencing the work of well-intentioned shopkeepers who take sign-making into their own hands.
Brunswick Grotesque is one of my first typefaces – a student project. As such its character set is quite limited.
Started: June 2017
Last Update: November 2017
You can download and use this typeface for testing purposes, student work, or explicitly non-commercial, local-scale community organising work. For commercial applications, licenses can be arranged via email.
▤ License Pricing ⤓ Download v1.0The basis of the Australian ugliness is an unwillingess to be committed on the level of ideas
In all the arts of living, in the shaping of all her artefacts, as in politics, Australia shuffles about vigorously in the middle—as she estimates the middle—of the road, picking up disconnected ideas wherever she finds them.
Featurism
The chief characteristic is inconsistency; good and bad muddled together
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TRIMMING, VENEER & FLOURISH
Localism is often seen as too minor to discuss. And yet it resurrects regularly as a fundamental element of design consciousness.
The Coburg Plan
Noise Reduction Rating: 12 DECIBELS
Coastal areas and Lagoons
that’s vaguely plausible
miniature gauge railway
The anti-global
76mm
2:34pm, Friday
Face Cleanser
(bounded uncorrelated jitter)
Accidents happen!
Post Scarcity
precursor
Becoming class-conscious
FSC C074568 Paper from responsible sources
Sari
unadvisable
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.
Outside the little oval window the grey void is gradually smudged across the middle with deep tan like a nicotine stain. The smudge grows lighter, becomes an appalling orange, then lemon. Streaks of pink break free from it and float into the grey above. Having thus set for itself a suitably pompous background, the sun now rises. Its golden light strikes the underside of the plane, which for a few minutes longer remains the only other solid object in the colour-streaked void. The interior of the plane rustles and stumbles into life, and pink eyes stare out for the first glimpse of Australia. The sun has used only the top half of the universe for its performance. The bowl below the horizon is still filled with an even, empty greyness. Then a broke n line appears near the rim of the bowl, as if drawn hesitantly in pencil, and below this line the grey is lighter. The travellers from the north perceive that the pencil line is sketching the junction between a quiet ocean and a silent continent—that above the line up to the horizon is land andn that this land is for all practical purposes as flat as the water. Soon the plane begins to descend and some details grow clear. Darwin appears as a little peninsula witha splatter of white roofs, and the predominant colouring of the land emerges from the grey. It is a dusty combination of ochres and puces.