Noort

Designed by Juan Bruce . Released 2017.

Juan Bruce’s mature serif family, Noort, is an information architect’s dream. The designer’s complex job of layering information and stylistic design choices can be balanced by Noort’s easily-read nature and analogue details.

 

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Solo Sailing Circumnavigation

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Visiting 75 countries in 75 months by sailing boat would make a grand and exhilarating plan.

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For centuries the early explorers did not care how long they took to sail around the world. Simply, they were glad to get home with crew large enough to handle their ships. Usually it took couple of years to make their voyages, full of adventure and danger. The reason for the first voyages was to find a way to the Rich East and to make profit, then to establish fortified bases in distant countries to secure the trade. Stopping to plunder the lands and the natives along the way and claiming the remains for king and queen were normal procedures during that time.

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Colonization and exploitation became the rule – India for cotton, Indonesia for spices, China for tea and china, and of course Australia, first for disposal of criminals, rebels and anyone else who stood in the way of the Establishment and then for grain and wool. With financial gain to be made through swift passages, the shippers started building fast ships and demanded speedy voyages. At their best, these ships could dash to Australia in nearly 60 days, spent about a month off and on loading, then speed home in about 70 days, thereby going around the world in almost 160 days.

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The Backstory

Noort

A functional and fascinating serif with a look that withstands complexity of information and style.

Juan Bruce’s Noort is not a type family for wayfinding or mapmaking alone, but for clarifying information and engaging readers along their own journey. The information designer’s role is to bring clarity and style to overwhelming amounts of information, which fortunately is Noort’s purpose as well. Hierarchies submit to its will and layering colour only adds more presence to its active posture.

 
Noort’s design uses the proven editorial text features of a large x-height, ample spacing, and low contrast to check all the boxes for paragraph text use. But it’s the long serifs, wide characters, and overall typographic presence that make it resilient and ease the task of reading in small point sizes. These details mean Noort is able to demonstrate importance not only with its five pitch-perfect weights, but with its brindled colour within a layout.
 
Noort’s roman and italic styles play off each other by transplanting their design features. The roman style’s serifs are transferred in substance but expectedly increased in speed in the italic styles. And the italic’s inktraps and separated strokes are echoed amidst the roman’s upright structure. Where digitisation could have removed the influence of the hand, Noort retains the analogue nature of its creation. This antiphonal seeding of details creates a cohesive family that is as fascinating as it is functional.
 
Noort’s axis and serifs have a slightly varying ductus — the directional flow that aids reading and character clarity. Its latent obviousness in text sizes immediately becomes its signature style when bumped up to subhead sizes. And since Noort’s counters are so wide and welcoming, its heavier weights can expand more within themselves than along their exterior edges.
 
Noort’s ten total fonts cover the Latin A Extended glyph set to bring its unbordered, globetrotting sensibilities to your projects. Pair it with its Bengali counterpart and this multiscript family will serve an additional 270+ million people. OpenType features include ligatures, fractions, and several figure styles, along with mature-rather-than-overbearing swashes. Aligned with TypeTogether’s commitment to produce high-quality type for the global market, the complete Noort family can set digital and printed works with ease, capitalising on the dual needs of clear information and fascinating textual artistry.

CREDITS

Lead design and concept
Engineering
Quality assurance
Graphic design
Copywriting

About Us

TypeTogether is an indie type foundry committed to excellence in type design with a focus on editorial use. Additionally, TypeTogether creates custom type design for corporate use. We invite you to browse our library of retail fonts or contact us to discuss custom type design projects.