Thursday, June 25, 2015

Font of the Week #43: Frolic

   Hello again! This week, for the Font of the Week feature, we have a typface from the Jukebox library called “Frolic”.

Frolic JF

   My Frolic font is a fun and lighthearted typeface that is whimsical, playful and is meant to evoke a sense of childhood exuberance and joy.

   It is the perfect font for any design or document that needs that touch of carefree fun.


   This font was inspired by the lettering often seen in 1950s and 1960s advertisements, especially for kid related items. I wanted the font to bring the viewer back to that long ago time.

   This carefree feel is acheived through the large x-height, modulated baseline and the off-vertical stems and ascenders. 

   Fonts like Frolic are really fun to design because they allow me as a creative, to put more of my personality into the end result. 


   Frolic was created in 2009 and is part of the Jukebox library available through Veer. The font now comes in OpenType format. 


Friday, June 19, 2015

Font of the Week #42: Friki Tiki

   Hello again! I am finally back with another Font of the Week and this time we’ll take a closer look at another popular seller from Jukebox:

Friki Tiki

   Naturally this Polynesian themed typeface brings to mind visions of Hawaii, tropical beaches, warm sunsets and piƱa coladas. Based on a hand-lettered logoptype for a Polynesian-themed restaurant, I took away what I liked from that lettering sample and developed it into the Friki Tiki typeface.





   I love the blocky, yet fun feeling to the letters that invites you in…much like the welcome of a luau and the “Aloha” spirit of Hawaii. 

   

   As part of the design, I added in several ligatures and alternative lowercase letters that are raised off the baseline with blocks underneath. This helps add that hand tooled look to the font, reminiscent of retro tiki design. I wanted to capture that sensibility in the forms of this typeface.

   Friki Tiki has been a relatively good seller for Jukebox over the years, and I am proud to share that it has been used on a number of different commercial products and applications that were related to Hawaii and a Polynesian theme.

    Two of my favorite examples are shown below. The first is a set of Tiki drink recipe cards designed by the famed artist Shag. His work is amazingly cool and to have my font paired with something he helped create is a real honor! 

   The second displays Friki Tiki being used on the show titles and graphics for a series on HGTV called “Hawaii Life”. The show features the stories of people looking to buy real estate in Hawaii.




   Friki Tiki was a great typeface to design and I had a lot of fun with it! It is available in OpenType format from Veer and is part of the Jukebox collection.