Vol. I · Issue 0001 · May MMXXVI · The Cotswolds · Folio VII · Goblin in residence since 626 A.D.

ShopGoblin · A note on the type

A note on the type.

A short walking tour of the three typefaces used in this volume, with a specimen of each and a word about their authors.

The display face: Fraunces.

Most of what reads here as “serif” is set in Fraunces, a variable typeface by Phaedra Charles and Undercase Type. Its three axes — opsz (optical size), SOFT (softness of curves), and WONK (a touch of pre-modern eccentricity) — do nearly all the work of this brand’s identity. Italic SOFT 90 WONK 1 at opsz 144 is the Goblin’s voice in print.

— Specimen · Fraunces, italic, SOFT 90, WONK 1, opsz 144

Your store, audited.

opsz 144 · SOFT 90 · WONK 1 · weight 400 italic

The body face: Inter.

For long paragraphs and small running text we use Inter, designed by Rasmus Andersson. It does its work invisibly — which is the highest praise one can offer a body face — and contains a small handful of stylistic alternates we have not turned on, for reasons of restraint.

— Specimen · Inter, light, no stylistic alternates

Eight pages. Forty findings. One signature.

Inter · weight 300 · 17px / 1.55 line-height for body

The mono face: IBM Plex Mono.

The small monospaced labels, the page numbers, the colophon bar, and the stamps are all set in IBM Plex Mono. We use it at 10–12px, uppercase, with letter-spacing of around 0.13em, almost always preceded by an em-dash.

— Specimen · IBM Plex Mono, uppercase, +130 tracking

— Audited by the Goblin · Vol. I

11px · letter-spacing 0.13em · weight 400

Trademarks of the house.

The following are not phrases; they are trademarks, used with reverence and (mostly) consistency: Mild grumble™, Considerable grumble™, The Goblin is incensed™, Goblin-approved™. Found-by-the-Goblin is a signing phrase, not a mark.

Acknowledgement.

Both Fraunces and Inter are distributed under the SIL Open Font License. IBM Plex Mono is distributed under the same license. We are grateful to their authors; small brands like this one would look identical to one another without them.

— A note compiled by the Goblin, who has strong views on em-dashes.