Cathexis
Cathexis is an OpenType font from the Jukebox library and was inspired by hand lettered posters done by a sign lettering artist named Mike Stevens. Back in 2010, I created a small set of fonts based on his work for posters drawn in the 1960s and 1970s. “Cathexis” was the second of these fonts after “Raceway”. It was followed by “Vanilla Shake” and “Sunset Strip”.
Cathexis was one of the earlier fonts created for Jukebox that was designed natively as an OpenType face right from the start (the rest of the library has since been converted). I added a full set of “Display Caps” as well as Small Caps and alternates for some of the letters including a, e, g, m, n, s and y. The typeface has full Eastern European language support.
I love the sleek, thin design of this typeface. The letters are tightly spaced which reflects their somewhat thin and compressed design. Mixing and matching the alternate letters gives an interest interplay of upper and lowercase forms. That gives the font a somewhat more organic feel than sans-serif designs like these would normally have.
This is also enhanced by some subtle design features on the ending strokes of the letters where they curve and flare out slightly. Such as on the legs of the R, K, m and n. These attributes may not be obvious, but they add some life to the letterforms and prevent type set in the font from feeling too rigid.
The name comes from a psychology term meaning a focus of one’s mental energy on a single idea or person. Such as me and fonts! As with the design of the forms, the name suggests something that is tightly focused.
Cathexis is part of the Jukebox library and is available from Veer.
No comments:
Post a Comment