Fur Extra-Rounded
1994, typeface design
self-initiated
1 of 1
This typeface started with a poster I designed with my friend David Plunkert for Fells Point Corner Theatre. The poster was for a play called A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard (regret 1: we misspelled his name). We manipulated the typeface Futura on a stat camera by throwing the camera out of focus. This resulted in rounded letterforms in varying degrees. I really liked the effect and set about designing a typeface using Fontographer. I was originally interested in the idea that you could take a well known typeface like Futura and could develope a new set of variations (Futura rounded, extra rounded, extra, extra rounded) to augment the existing typestyles (bold, light, extended, ital, etc...) I had large plans, but when I got down to the actual task of drawing and refining each character, I realized I didn’t have the gene nessesary for that type of attention to detail. I ended up combining much of the studies I had done up to that point into a single typeface.
I got a great piece of advice when I was trying to settle on a name for this typeface. “It’s your first typeface right?, then whatever you name it, don’t name it after yourself, you will probubaly end up regreting it if you do.”
Sahre Extra-Rounded
Thus an ‘experimental typeface’ was born. I sold it to the T-26 typefoundry and began receiving a check each year for a few hundred dollars. I have also watched, in suprise (and often horror) as others have employed my typeface to sell everything from books to potato chips. Fur Extra Rounded wandering around the world with no purpose, an experiment, lost.
I can happily report that Fur has found it’s reason for being. It has been used (quite appropriately) over the last few years by Dr. Scholls. “Are You Gellin’?”
http://www.drscholls.com/drscholls/massaginggel.jsp
My only regret now is that they have opened up the counter on the lowercase ‘e.’
