Swiss Typefaces: Euclid-Typeface Mystery No1

posted by Emily Gosling February 19, 2021

Type design company Swiss Typefaces, which is based in—you guessed it, Switzerland (Vevey to be exact)—has really amped up what we think of as a type specimen with its new book Euclid-Typeface Mystery No. 1.

The book comes in the wake of the past few years’ gradual additions to the original Euclid Flex typeface family, which has been updated with a “finely graded palette” of new styles (Euclid Circular A, Euclid Circular B, Euclid Square, Euclid Triangle, Euclid Stencil). The breadth of possibilities for the typeface look to “allow designers to pick exactly the geometric typeface they need,” according to the foundry. Euclid is Swiss Typefaces’ all-time best selling font.

The book accompanies the launch of the new font style Euclid Mono Vanguard, which “aims to redefine what a geometric monospaced font can be.” Published at the end of March 2021, for a limited period, the book is sold on pre-order with a free licence for the new font Euclid Mono.

Swiss Typefaces collaborated with Jonas Voegli’s Hubertus Design and author Matthias Michel to create the book, and “Euclid – Typeface Mystery No. 1” pushes the boundaries of what we’d expect from a type specimen.

Its first section is billed as “mouth-watering glyph bacchanalia”; which is followed by a photo series by Matthieu Gafsou. This is where the “mystery “ bit comes in: his images of a cave, a playground, the Place de la Riponne in Lausanne and a highway intersection in Israel contain a lot of questions. Each site appears to be abandoned, but we’re not sure why. A “ghost layer” in the images contains handwritten notes.

These are all part of Matthias Michel’s spooky story about a forensic psychologist who investigated the ‘Typeface’ case, a series of cyberattacks involving data viruses hidden in corporate font suitcases. It’s up to the readers to decipher what the abandoned places and scraped notes have to do with the story’s protagonist, TAIA Agent Nathalie Louise Whitewater.

The book will be available in two versions: The Standard Edition and The Ultimate Edition, which is a limited-edition version with a different cover and with a gift card hidden within the book. “Once you’ve extracted it (surgical equipment required), it will allow you to download the complete Euclid Typeface (4 collections, 55 styles) for free,” says Swiss Typefaces. Both editions can be pre-ordered from Swiss Typefaces’ webshop.

Recent projects that have seen the Euclid type family in use include a collaboration between Swiss Typefaces and designers Simon Palmieri and Régis Tosetti for the jewellery brand STMNT, which opened its flagship boutique in Paris last October. “Starting with an initial design of the logotype set in Euclid Flex, our team reworked the mark into a unique design, fine-tuning it to fit all of the client’s needs and the designer’s vision,” Swiss Typefaces explains. “One thing leading to another, the distinctive M shape we found for the logotype became the starting point for our new Euclid Vanguard Mono.”