Established by Svet Simov in 2008, Fontfabric is an independent type foundry and studio in Bulgaria. Fontfabric releases quality type designs that are highly versatile and adaptable to multiple media types. A notable characteristic of the studio’s work can be found in their extensive multilingual support, including Cyrillic script, and their OpenType features.
Svet is self-taught in the art of typography, a field he gained interest in while working as a graphic designer. Much of his inspiration stems from classic type designs with a strong geometric architecture, like Avant Garde and Futura, because geometry and drawing have always been among his strongest skills. Svet tends to favor the geometric designs of the 1960s and 1970s, in large part due to that era being such a strong period for typography in Bulgaria.
Fontfabric releases fonts that are created by designers, for designers. With a strong background in graphic design, Svet and his team have a thorough understanding of design trends and the changing needs of graphic designers around the world.
The studio often works with other graphic designers and typographers, including Svetlin Balezdrov, a doctor of History of Art and Fine Arts. Svetlin works in typography, animation, and graphic design, and works as a lecturer in advertising design a the National Academy of Art in Sofia.
Svet and Svetlin worked together to create one of Fontfabric’s more recent releases through YouWorkForThem, Squad. “A humanist sans serif with semi-condensed proportions,” Squad was actually inspired by Adrian Frutiger’s work, the Swiss-born type designer whose work influenced the second half of 20th century typography, releasing fonts that included Avenir and Univers.
Frutiger’s perfectionism is mirrored in Squad, a cleanly-designed contemporary sans serif that is warmed by its humanist touches. Maintaining balance was key in the development of Squad, ensuring that the lettering carries a very clear and legible silhouette while also striking a visually intriguing posture. The result is a beautiful and multipurpose family of typefaces that work well in applications of all kinds.
Messages conveyed through Squad are strong without feeling aggressive or overly-authoritative. This makes it well suited to everything from bold displays and signage, to headlines, editorials, body copy, logos, corporate letterhead and communications, white papers, presentations, infographics, product packaging and product specs, website designs, and mobile applications.
Squad is available in Thin, ExtraLight, Light, Regular, SemiBold, Bold, ExtraBold, Heavy, and Black, with corresponding italics for each. This range of weights makes it ideal for identity and branding projects that require design cohesion across various media types.
As with most of Fontfabric’s other releases, Squad is loaded with OpenType features that include case sensitive forms, discretionary ligatures, numerators, denominators, fractions, subscript, superscript, tabular figures, oldstyle figures, contextual alternates, and stylistic alternates for greater versatility. Its multilingual support is extensive, too, providing support for Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romanian, Pan African Latin, Dutch, Afrikaans, Basic Greek, and Basic Cyrillic for international design projects.
Fontfabric currently offers 44 products through YouWorkForThem, a varied range of sans serifs, serifs, scripts, and display fonts that will work beautifully in design projects of all kinds. Visit their portfolio to view the rest of their work and if you love what you see, bookmark it so you won’t miss out on any of their upcoming releases!