A Reverse-Contrast with Writing Influence

No. 43 is a display typeface suited for packaging, boards, signs and digital and analogue titling. It combines two major influences, one is writing with a broad nib pen and holding it at a very steep angle and the second is writing with a pointed nib pen.

The reverse-contrast type as we know it today came up in the period of the Mechanistics, think of Rockwell as a well known contemporary. The precise reasons for its inception are obscure to us, some argue that the shift happened as a thought exercise, as in why not thin out the stem instead of the serifs, like Didot did? Nevertheless, there is another way to arrive at a reverse-contrast typeface, that is to say in turning the nib vertically and following the skeleton of the letters.

In No. 43, for example, the terminal of the uppercase R mimics the gesture of making a bent stroke. The difference to an abstracted serif becomes more obvious when uppercase R and H meet, or lowercase e and i. No. 43 combines both approaches, the abstractionist and the manual, embracing a state of ambiguity.

Design
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