The Gourmand celebrates Monotype font collaboration with recipe book

The most recent issue of The Gourmand magazine was staggeringly good; a title that’s always been impressive maturing into something very special indeed. There was so much to admire in fact that the two new typefaces – produced in collaboration with Monotype – used in Issue 05 went slightly under the radar.

Designer Gunnar Vilhjálmsson worked closely with Gourmand creative director David Lane on Grotesque 777 and Grotesque 888, which combine references to no fewer than seven of Monotype’s unused Grotesque typefaces. 

The new faces are used throughout the magazine and on The Gourmand’s website, and to mark their debut there’s also a typeface sampler/recipe book (with dishes ranging from blue negroni to oatmeal flummery). In the introduction the designers explain: “The two new Grotesques also offer a reinterpretation of the inherent oddities of the older designs—especially visible in the exaggerated and unconventional ampersand—whilst also unifying and updating the overall forms. The end result is a completely new editorial Grotesque that blends elements of its historic predecessors into an idiosyncratic, contemporary design.”

For a design aficionado like David, the chance to root around in the Monotype archives was a dream come true. “It was very exciting! It just doesn’t exist digitally so it was an amazing privilege to see the evolution of a typeface and the decisions that had been made in the past to get to the digital version that exists today. There was so much unused content.”

He’s thrilled with the new typefaces, which he believes “retain the quirks and imperfections of the existing Monotype Grotesques but iron out some of the usage issues.” He adds: “They are a great balance of neutrality and personality and depending on the size and cut used these can be toned down or amplified.”