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RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Lab
Where ideas start before they have anywhere to go. The Lab is where we explore new technology, test type concepts, and push into territory that doesn’t fit neatly into a brief. Interactive glyphs, color font experiments, generative tools, variable font applications.
New techniques from the Lab often find their way into client work. Some of it becomes a font, a tool, or a way of working we didn’t know we needed.
Toolbar Key
- Rollover
- Edit Text
- Change Colors
- Adjust Axes
- Size/Columns
- Just Look
- Click
Logo Mono-ism: An Archive of Modernist Marks You Can Add To
07/26
An experimental workshop and book created with Prixel Press exploring how five simple geometric shapes became the foundation of modernist logo design. Using reusable printing elements and CMY inks, participants recreate, remix, and invent marks while discovering how the International Style, post-war manufacturing, and the practical limitations of printing shaped a generation of iconic identities.
“Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements of equal weight, each partaking of the other.”
—Armin Hoffman
Variable Sans to Serif Exploration
04/26
An in-development variable type system exploring the space between sans serif to different serif forms. Still evolving, but already showing interesting shifts in tone and personality.
OpenType Label System
04/26
Testing an experimental OpenType label system where typed text dynamically assembles into solid and outline pill labels. Originally prototyped in a typeface project that’s been shelved, the feature is could be carried into our new release Mark 1 (working title) currently in development.
Font Relay Beta
01/26
November 2025, working on an app to bring brand typography into decks by turning variable fonts into 16:9 GIFs that can drag into PowerPoint, Keynote and Google Slides.
As of 01.26 Now testing! Click here to learn more and give it a try.
New Apps on the Site
06/25
Some legit late 90s midi files found with the help of web archive are on the radio app. Open the radio with the tab on the left side of any page and shuffle through or let it keep going and shuffle itself.
The Maker is an experimental design app made using fabric.js. You can access that with the tab on this page – draw, collage, type, deliberately limited, just for fun. Save an image to your desktop, or pin it to the fridge gallery.
On the Radio
Meet the Maker
Interactive Glyphs
07/24
The next OC font release—Emblème—features an icon set that uses variable axes to create interactive animations. Each of the icons is a glyph in the font. Coming soon!!!
Now finished, see how this was incorporated into Emblème here.
Click Bounce
Click On/Off
Adventures in Creative Code
04/24
An initial experiment playing with some p5.js code… drag the cursor around the canvas, have a scribble. Hit reset, start again. Hit save, and keep the image for yourself or share it with a color loving friend.
Test One
Using ai to code 3D letters: “can you write a p5.js script that makes a 3 dimensional letter ‘A’ on the canvas that can be explored using the mouse?”
(repeat for “B” and “C”)
This didn’t take long and only required one tweak to the “B”. I’d love to have the patience to build out the whole alphabet. There’s something exciting about the naivety and consistent style.
And yes these are screen recordings it was quicker than getting the live sketches on the page.
3D ABCs
Subtitles: Outlined and in Color
04/24
Subtitle fonts have a dark outline or an outer glow to make sure the text is readable on the moving picture. Is that an effect they have to apply to a regular font? No one knows, but it could be achieved in one pass with color font technology.
Here’s a proof of concept test with a two layer color font—one color for the outline one for the fill—using Mikola Outline Bold 100 as a base.
This could be handy when specifying text on image in brand guidelines…
Readability
Readable headline
And some 16pt lorem ipsum dummy to test readability of smaller text for extended body copy.
[Indistinct chatter]
Colors
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
3D Scan Test
02/24
Technology is moving fast and it’s exciting to explore new applications at an early stage and see potential uses for brands and products in the near future. I was going to take a still photo of this for a new web page but it’s almost easier to make an actual 3D version of it instead. I have no history in 3D at all and creating this (albeit rough model) a year ago wouldn’t have been something I even considered.
More and more new technologies are empowering individuals to create things out of their traditional skill set and technical abilities. And if you don’t mind having a logo in the corner, this can be done almost entirely for free.
Kiri / Blender / Spline
Interactive Everything
Isometric Color Font Exploration
11/23
Left: Using the combination of 7(!) variable axes on a layered color font with a rollover control to emulate viewing a 3D object from multiple angles.
Right: Non-interactive animation of a single axis font – text says Bloom.
NB these tiles appear blank in Safari (BOOO) on desktop until v17.2 is released.
Rollover
Animated
When is a font not a font? When it’s a bunch of random blocks…
Experimenting with a single axis variable font to increase apparent volume of 2D layers drawn on an isometric grid (2D3D). Finding beauty in limitations, and opportunity for potential brand applications.
The shapes aren’t representative of specific letters and colors and are randomly assigned. Side-bearings and position of blocks relative to the baseline is random to give a sense of them being naturally scattered. The result is playful with an architectural sophistication.
ss01 reveals the relevant letter of the alphabet assigned to each shape.
Type Tester
Dynamic Static Multicolor Mono
10/23
This started as a daydream of being able to cycle through shape and color as if a sprite was repeatedly hitting a block in an 8bit video game.
This has graduated and is
NOW LIVE HERE
POLY MONO Daydream
An evolution of PRIXEL Mono this is an experiment in interaction, and giving choice with limitation—taking out a level of logic to encourage play and discovery. Just hit some keys and see what comes out. In terms of potential application it illustrates how a brand can be more than a single signature color as the consistent combination of many colors creates a recognizable cohesion.
POLYcolor
MONOspace
Keep hitting the same key to reveal color and orientation variations of the same glyph.
Hypen, comma, and period freeze a block in space.
Space is a space.
Shift + Return to drop a line.
Only alphabet and numbers have assigned shapes.
.notdef def not working in browser for some reason.
POLY MONO Type Tester
MMOOOOOOONNNNNNNNOOO
Dynamic Symbols
11/23
In updating Format Sans to be a variable font, the extensive symbol set seemed suddenly passive. This presented an opportunity to explore how the axis can be used to animate and make things more engaging.
Animated
The set is an exhaustive study of how interpolation between two shapes can be used in different ways and to varied effect. This is all a font file.
Rollover Overview
Potential application could be for animating logos, adding dimension to symbols or telling a story. The benefit being they can be baked into a brand font and altered and implemented by the user (size / color) in the same way they do text.
Logo
o
Dimension
i
Story
k
Cursor Follow
09/23
This, and many other websites, use a rollover control to activate variable font axes. This was an experiment to see how this function could be used (with two axes) outside of the alphabet to do something playful—in this case to follow the cursor around.
Rollover
Sound-Reactive Variable Font Experiment Using Microphone Input
05/21
A prototype exploring sound-controlled variable typography. Using live microphone input, a custom dotted variable font responds to volume by scattering letterforms across the screen in real time. This experiment tests how sound, motion, and interaction can become part of a typographic system — turning a simple breath into a playful interface gesture.
Perfectly Average
05/21
A very mechanical study into what makes a great sans serif by analyzing 3 favorites; Helvetica, Univers, and Trade Gothic.
The font got as far as upper and lower case but worked stopped there due to time. There’s no kerning but spacing looks pretty good!
Average Sans
The idea was to create a book, you can see the rough development and documentation of process on the right.
Stylistic Alternates
ss01 = G
ss02 = J
ss03= K k
ss04 = Q1
ss05 = Q2
ss06 = R
ss07 = a
ss08 = g
ss09 = y
WIP Tester
Sans
Glyphs and Study