These are OpenType (PostScript) fonts for both Macintosh and Windows.
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Trilogy Sans Compressed
Trilogy Sans Condensed
Trilogy Sans Normal
Trilogy Sans Wide
Trilogy Sans Expanded
Trilogy Egyptian Normal
Trilogy Egyptian Wide
Trilogy Egyptian Expanded
Trilogy Fatface
About the Trilogy collection
The printed ephemera of the early to mid-nineteenth century is visually rich and mixes together a range of diverse type styles. In an article on ‘Type mixtures’ [Typography 3, Shenval Press, 1937], Jan Tschichold advocates the mixing of type styles as a means of enhancing typographic layout. I could see parallels with the printed ephemera of 100 years earlier, but now through the skilled eyes of Tschichold as a modernist. The early nineteenth century saw the emergence of the Fatface, Egyptian and Sans serif type styles. These three styles formed the base of the Trilogy type designs and allow me to explore what a trilogy in type could mean.
Example from 1820 remade using the Trilogy fonts [open/close]
Example from 1859 remade using the Trilogy fonts [open/close]
At the start of the design process I focused on what I wanted the basic type variants to be. Three contrasting type families which could be used individually or, by sharing some general proportions and details, work together to produce a wide choice of typographic styles.
Example from 1957 remade using the Trilogy fonts [open/close]
Trilogy Sans
I’d worked on sans serif type families before. But this time I wanted to work with a sans in a different way. Work on Shaker had already allowed me some scope to explore the sans serif structure across a range of proportions in a modulated humanist style. Now I wanted to further explore this structural range, but this time, to get away from the humanist forms and work within the grotesque idiom.
Trilogy Sans drawings [open/close]
From early on I knew the typeface was going to be a big family. It was also going to be monoline in emphasis, with only subtle modulation. Experience here helps a good deal. I’ve seen my fonts used in many ways; some designers use a light weight, some only the heavy weights, some just the regular and bold. Some ask for new weights to be created. So I decided that the range of weights would be from Thin to Heavy, offering a much wider range to choose from than my other types.
Trilogy Egyptian
With the Egyptian type I wanted to capture the fullness and vitality of the original forms from the nineteenth century. There was a wave of Egyptian revivals in the 1930s but I find these too rigid and monotonously geometric. Having observed though, the many idiosyncrasies typical of the nineteenth century examples, I was aware that I needed to introduce some modernity to my designs. I kept the strong colour and evenness of line found in the best original specimens, but used deep cuts at junction points to brighten forms and alleviate some of their inherent heavy awkwardness.
Trilogy Egyptian drawings [open/close]
Playing with the idea of the later nineteenth century slab serif Clarendon types being used as accompanying bolds for regular romans, I decided to make the Egyptian type a bold face only. The weights are Bold, ExtraBold and Heavy and these are played out in three widths; Normal, Wide and Expanded.
Trilogy Fatface
Influenced by much of the printed ephemera I had been looking at and by Tschichold’s own type mixing I began, not by working on an accompanying Fatface, but an English Roundhand script. Over the following year I tried to make the script work, but never felt fully comfortable with the much steeper angle of the script compared to the sans and egyptian italics. As much as I was looking for contrast, the script just wasn’t gelling with the other type styles. I bit the bullet and binned the script. However, the work towards the Roundhand fuelled development of a Fatface italic. This type has one weight (Heavy) and five widths (Normal, Wide, Expanded, ExtraExpanded and UltraExpanded). Aspects of the Roundhand capitals are incorporated within a set of accompanying swash caps – the high contrast and fine detailing of these introduce an ornamental flavour of Fraktur to the face. Both the Egyptian and the Fatface plug into the grid structure of the Sans, harmonising with various weights and widths.
Fatface development [open/close]
Though how the font will be used and to what effect is very much open for exploration. The aim of the project was not to dictate how the types should be used, and certainly not which types should be mixed together. Rather the Trilogy collection exists to show that types can be used and mixed together in unexpected ways and in so doing very different levels of visual interest can be achieved.
Fonts
Live sample
Sample
Information about this typeface
The PDF files show the character set together with a variety of language settings. Trilogy Sans and Trilogy Egyptian are style-linked as follows; the italics are style-linked to their romans. Trilogy Fatface is an italic font only.
Fonts from the Trilogy collection can be licensed as individual packs. Each pack of Trilogy Sans and Trilogy Egyptian includes the associated italic font. Fonts can also be licenced in family packs and special Type Mix packs.
Trilogy Sans™, Trilogy Egyptian™, and Trilogy Fatface™ are trademarks of Jeremy Tankard.