Introducing Fraunces,  a new typeface family by Charles&Thorn.

In the early summer of 2018, Google Fonts approached us with the challenge of designing a display typeface. I spent some time perusing the catalog, and was struck by a pretty big hole in the typographic voices available, a hole normally occupied by Cooper Black, Windsor, Souvenir, Clearface, and other “wonky” typefaces made popular in the 1970's. 
	We've played with this style often in our lettering work. Even our logo is a not-so-subtle nod to Windsor's characteristic leaning n's.
	One of my favorite aspects of these typefaces is their ubiquitousness. They are used on menus, printed ephemera of all sorts, signs. The friendliness and warmth of these typefaces has made them enduring across not only industries, but time periods.
	Most of these typefaces trace their origins back to the Arts & Crafts experimentations of the late 1800's—early 1900's. As I was doing research on this era of type, I noticed a term pop up often: "Old Style". What quality makes them "Old Style" is a bit difficult to comprehend, since none of these typefaces share much in common besides a misunderstanding of what "old" typefaces looked like.
	I think an ideal example of this misinterpretation comes from comparing two interpretations of supposedly the same source; the type of renaissance printer Nicolas Jenson. William Morris' Golden Type (which may have single-handedly kicked off the craze) spoke much more to a desire to romanticize the effects of printing on letterforms, a nostalgia for a letterform that never truly existed. Bruce Rogers' Centaur serves as a stark counterpoint to this, instead interpreting Jenson's type through its calligraphic roots. 
	Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycroft Guild and a contemporary to Morris in the United States, exemplified this perspective. 
	Yes, there were rounded, soft letters, but there were also sharper, elegant forms, such as Richmond Old Style by Robert DeLittle. 
	Overall, my goal with Fraunces was to capture the spirit of this movement, not just a single font. I hope that the range of expression you find within Fraunces captures that.


## Key Features ##

Fraunces consists of a Roman and Italic. Within each are 4 axes: Weight, Goofy, Wonk, and Optical Size.
	Type designers in the past would provide fixed instances of an axis (such as Light, Regular, Bold, Black). Variable Fonts allow granular control of each of these axes, and allows the user to access all the calculations in between.
	The main axes intended for the end user to use are the Weight, Goofy, and Wonk. The Goofy axis controls the "wetness" or "goofiness" of the typeface, while the Wonk axis controls substitutions of all the leaning characters in the Roman, and the exaggerated flag characters in the italic. 
	The Optical Size axis makes automatic size specific adjustments to the type. At larger sizes (Optical Max), the contrast between thicks & thin increases (especially in the Goofy Min), the x-height reduces, the letter width compresses, and letter spacing decreases to a tighter fitting. In the smaller sizes (Optical Min), the x-height increases, contrast decreases, the letter width expands, and letter spacing increases. Additionally, at 18pt and below, the wonky characters are automatically substituted for the normalized characters.
	# specimen specific text
	On pages XX, XX, and XX, you'll find more detailed explanations and diagrams of these axes. 

## Weight ##

While the Black side of the typeface draws inspiration from Cooper Black, and high contrast transitional typefaces, the Light is more difficult to draw a historical comparison. Oswald Cooper drew a lighter version of Cooper, that seems to carry very little in common with its Black companion besides its overall shape. Kyle Wayne Benson's Gooper showcases a sensible skeleton for this letterform, sharing more in common with monolinear typewriter faces. Fraunces follows this model, albeit with a more buttoned up approach.


## Soft vs. Sharp ##

Although Fraunces is drawn entirely with rounded serifs, it achieves sharpness in the Goofy Min area of the design space with extremely high contrast. 


## Wonk ##

The leaning h/n/m is a major characteristic of Windsor, which isn't without historical precedent. Diagonal movement is often seen in the Uncial a/d. Windsor seems to take liberty with this idea and gratuitously applies it to the h/n/m.

Type designers introduced the horizontally squished lowercase f and j as a way to avoid the need for ligatures. This logic places an emphasis on economy. In the Italic, this logic is extended to the flagged characters of the d and l.


## Bibliography

William Morris - https://archive.org/details/natureofgothicch00rusk/page/n15

Bruce Rogers – On Printing, pg 154