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Guglielmo Socialista
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Eisenberg L’Inocente
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Buonavita Giovenone
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Alternativi Nostalghia
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Dolce Vita Constantio
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Veneziano Praetorian
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Sansovino Mila Schön
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Dolcenera Rambaldo

About Beatrice

Beatrice is a new kind of typeface. The family is an exploration of contrast methodologies, combining various aspects from the canon expansionist systems, inverted contrast, and the contrast behavior of grotesks. These methodologies were dissected and used as cornerstones in creating our own system. When it was first released in 2018, Beatrice landed in largely unexplored territory, and the bar it set remains today. Built upon the foundation of the American Gothic and utilizing tight-not-touching spacing, the Beatrice superfamily features a robust set of weights across four optical sizes. Our iconic Display cut offers the highest head-turning contrast; use the Standard cut for all high-function-low-contrast needs; our newest additions, Headline and Deck, smoothly click into place between the original two sizes, offering a more complete spectrum of applications.

8 weights, 16 total fonts.

Beatrice Construction

Contrast methodology is the system that determines how the thick and thin strokes of a letterform are applied to the skeleton. In this case, contrast is not determined purely for the purpose of mitigating the darkening effects of stroke intersections, nor is it simply based on an implied stroke ductus. With Beatrice, the contrast methodology is something of a novelty, a system we refer to as “Internal Contrast.”

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The idea is simple. Every letter has an inside and an outside. With the Internal Contrast system, stroke emphasis is determined by the location of the stroke in relation to the centerpoint of the letter-shape: outer strokes maintain the heavy stroke weight and the “internal” strokes take on the hairline function, while the intersections of strokes and bowls are pinched in classic sans-serif fashion. Functionally, the combined effect creates a texture of thicks and thins that behave somewhere in between a high-contrast expansionist sans and a reverse-contrast typeface. The aesthetic result is unique, to say the least.

Inner Contrast
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In 2018, we released Beatrice Display and Standard with the goal of eventually offering a fuller family. With invaluable assistance from Inga Plönnigs and Kia Tasbihgou, Lucas and Connor Davenport have been quietly plugging away at the Headline and Deck styles ever since. Now, in the summer of 2022, they’re finally ready for release. Taken as a whole, the Beatrice superfamily makes full use of the wide spectrum of optical sizes defined by the extrema of Display and Standard. All four styles share a common framework and contrast logic, with point sizes broadly determining each subfamily’s application.

Optical Sizes

Beatrice Display is the flagship of the family. It's a visual oddity, instantly indelible, and a striking example of the Internal Contrast methodology. In addition to its notably high contrast, the extremely cozy spacing, finely wrought apertures, and dramatic hairlines lend the Display an exuberance that almost lifts it off the page. Because the details demand to be seen, we don’t recommend using Beatrice Display at point sizes below 60pt.

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Beatrice Display’s incredibly fine hairlines start to hit legibility issues around the 60pt range, so we developed two complementary optical sizes to create a seamless superfamily of styles. Their function, Lucas jokes, is to bridge the “chasm of utility” left by the extremes of the Display and Standard styles. Beatrice Headline and Deck fill the void in situations where the hairlines of the Display would disappear without a stroke and a contrast higher than the Standard is desired. Headline is best utilized between 60-40pt, while Deck works well in caption and subheader settings in the 40-24pt range. If the Display is billboard and masthead size, think of Headline and Deck as your choices for smaller storefront signage, magazine captions, pull quotes, and smaller breakpoints.

Billboard

Stylistically, Beatrice Standard is comparatively restrained and could be mistaken for a standard grotesk even though it maintains its novel Internal Contrast. While the Beatrice Standard family is built from the same framework as Beatrice Display’s roman, it has a much lower contrast, which provides the superfamily with both a small optical size, as well as a more stylistically restrained sans serif that has a wide range of applications.

Italics

Beatrice’s italics are also notable. When Lucas first began drawing the roman forms of Beatrice Display, he set out to create a new set of rules. With the italics, these rules were bent in new directions and sometimes broken altogether by unconventionally processing the translation and rotation of the stroke ductus. The Display and Headline’s true italics are distinguished by their unique swash capitals and expressive lowercases, reminiscent of cursive lettering. Throughout, the calligrapher's hand is ever-present, even though the tools and techniques remain deliberately abstracted and obscured. Deck and Standard’s italics are designed as straightforward corrected slants of their Roman counterparts due to their lower contrast and point size application. Finally, in order to maintain a consistent production logic within the superfamily, Display and Headline also contain alternate lowercase and uppercase forms that adhere to the construction style of the slanted roman and are accessible via a stylistic set. This was done not just for the sake of completeness, but also in anticipation of a future variable Beatrice font.

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Todos Sueñan

For the initial release of Beatrice in 2018, Justin Sloane designed a run of screen-printed shirts. He was inspired by his time staying with us at our former offices in the historic Albaicín neighborhood in Granada, Spain, which overlooks the palace of Alhambra. We’ve made a new black version for the Beatrice Superfamily release. The graphic includes a quote from British philosopher T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia. Buy here.

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Michaela Front

The typeface is dedicated to its designer Lucas Sharp’s mother, Beatrice Benjamin, who continues to seek beauty, embrace originality, and has never let convention hold her back.

Initially released 2018; updated version released 2022. Designed by Lucas Sharp with Connor Davenport, Inga Plönnigs, & Kia Tasbihgou.

Version History

V.1 June 2018, V.2 August 2022


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