Font Spectrum is making futuristic typefaces that shift to make new forms

The designers Daniël Maarleveld and Edgar Walthert first met over a decade ago, and, being the type specialists that they are, saw potential for some brilliant font-based collaborations in each other. Their first typeface emerged from a variable font challenge: 36 days of type, by Letterspace.amsterdam – a challenge that invites designers, illustrators and graphic artists alike to create original animated numbers and letters of the Latin alphabet to add to a wider, collaborative online library.

As one of the coordinators of the event, Edgar encouraged Daniel to design the number 9. Although they didn’t know it at the time, this small type experiment would later lay the groundwork for their collaborative typeface Purple Haze, a variable font with a “readable regular weight and decorative extremes” now available under their joint foundry Font Spectrum. Since launching in 2021, the experimental type foundry has released two other animated variable fonts alongside purple haze: electric blue – “inspired by the neon glow of the 80s”, and silver coil – “a typeface that can be looped into an infinite rotation”.

Their joint output intersects Daniel’s background in motion design and the vast array of animated letters that he shares on his Instagram, and Edgar’s expertise in designing variable fonts which started as early as “the late 90s, using the MultipleMaster format”, he says. The foundry’s work aims to continue to “explore the intersection of animation and the new possibilities of OpenType Font Variations,” shares Edgar. “There are many more colours in the rainbow and much more to come.”