New Typeface No. 2: Wyndham Roman & Wyndham Compressed

This font was based on the idea of the golden ratio.
There is a lot of talk about how harmonious and downright pretty the ratio is so here’s my go at making a typeface from the ratio as a grid.

All other elements were kept to a minimum; one curve (apart from the number 2) and on set width, see the segments on top of the typeface. With round letterforms the typographer usual makes them a little bigger so that the eye see them as the same size as the straight letters – I thought it would be intresting and stubborn to not do this and keep to the grid. Some letterforms were happier than others to be squashed into the format and like real life compromises had to be made on the M, W and @ sign.

At times this typeface erred on the side of Dinn Mittleshrift (German motorway signage fonts) but I fought back and feel it has a touch of the lettering found on the side of WWII British fighter planes.

The colouring of the font shows off the construction method and  harks back a little to the ‘Confusion’ 12” by New Order.

It’s called Wyndam after the Vorticist Tyro Percy Wyndam Lewis. Compressed sounded better than Condensed. I’d like to do a Very Compressed if I have some time.

I now have typefaces called Gertler, Ezra P & Wyndham; only a matter of time before there’s a H G-Brzeska, Bomberg, J Epstein, Wadsworth, J Dismorr & W Roberts…