Air Compressed

With Air, Neil tried to “unify the prevailing traits of German and English Grotesques in order to make something different yet familiar.” (He was not attempting to reinvent Helvetica.) His intentions were to create a “true workhorse that offers infinite options and flexibility for the user.”

When Neil talks about infinite options, he’s not kidding. For starters, he wanted to have more than one choice for a slanted complement. “I set out to produce both an oblique and italic to balance usage. That flexibility was central to my decision-making process. The oblique is immediate and aggressive and the italic was redrawn at a less severe angle with far more movement and, as a result, is far more congenial when paired with the uprights.”

He also produced a number of “light without being too light” options that work based on the size. Each weight includes ligatures, discretionary ligatures, stylistic alternates, fractions, lining and old-style figures, numerators, denominators, ordinals, superiors, inferiors, small caps, case-sensitive functionality, and extensive language support.

Also available: Air and Air Condensed.

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