_(1000, 1000)_mono.svg)
Every shopkeeper knows that an eye-catching masterpiece in the window will draw the readers into the door. And even when after browsing the exciting wares, the eye settles on a more modest product, some of the glamour will have attached itself to the purchase. This typeface may very well be the thing.
Bifurcating the terminals puts a pleasing tension on the stem. Thorns, more incisions and a sprinkling of pips add grit and texture. LTR Very Bauble can present as a peaky, beaky sans, a sharp serif, and all varying degrees of baublicity in between. All this on a single, smooth, easy to animate, variable font axis named Serif.
Download: LTR Very Bauble Characterset and Specimen in PDF (553K)
Vacuous frippery! Indeed I will not talk about legibility, functionality, opening the counters, or bore you with Gaussian blurred text. I do question whether this whole typeface is really a Tuscan. In the excellent Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection (link) David Shields shows the term Tuscan was actually used for a wide range of styles. Not just designs with bifurcated stems. You will find that one of the styles in Very Bauble is named Tuscan. Not to make any historic claims, but in recognition of all the typefaces with lovely shapes that somehow ended up with awkward names.
LTR Very Bauble started as a skitchy sketchy headline for the newsletter. That was time well spent, though I had no idea that the drawing would grow to this typeface. The Bauble, as it is affectionately known in the LTR Drawing Room, is controlled by five separate designs. Each appears at its designated time, like frames in a film, so that the animation comes to life.
The stations along the Serif axis. Note how the different stylistic features do not appear all at once, but are revealed when needed.
A modest characterset, this Bauble. And the price has taken that into account. Bauble contains uppercase A-Z, numerals, some punctuation and dashes. A lovely ampersand and a fantastic asterisk. Numerals fit for monuments. Three stylistic sets give you some control over the details: the standard (with everything on), a solid with or without thorns or leaves, lined, pipped. Not all glyphs have pips or thorns or lines, but they're included in the stylistic sets. Try the testers here to see if the words will work. Try the Serif slider!
The glyphs in Very Bauble Variable are very similar to a theatre stage: there are parts and props waiting for the right time to appear. When you convert one of the Baubles to outlines, all those items are revealed. Suppose you want to cut the shapes from vinyl that can be an issue. Use Illustrator's Pathfinder to unite the outlines and everything will be cleared away. Alternatively, you can use one of the non-variable OpenTypes that do not need the extra props. The variable font contains these items to make the animations work.
Left the outlined W with all the moving parts still visible. Right the outlines have been united: everything is clean.
Technically: this is a variable font with 1 axis. If you know your way around in CSS: you can control the SERF axis and animate it. The variable TTF is not small, a bit under 500K. However, the WOFF 2 is only 88K. If you use Adobe Creative Cloud: all the apps offer support for variable fonts in some form.
LTR Very Bauble is available as a variable font that contains all styles from Sans to fully Bauble. Non-variable OpenTypes are also available. Pricing starts at €60 for the variable and €35 for any single. Collection with all styles and formats €60. All prices ex VAT.
