Nice grotesque bro. Psych.
The designers here at Ohno enjoy taking a well-trodden genre, and amplifying what we love about it. Retail is the result of focussing our energy on the not-too-trendy world of humanist sans. What makes a humanist sans human-like? I think it comes down to seeing some evidence of the hand, some evidence of a pen, and little bit of warmth mixed in. A good humanist sans should be as reliable as your most trusted workhorse, while avoiding the pitfalls of Helvetica-ish-seen-it-a-thousand-times typography.
Text and Display. All day.
We noticed that designers often are looking for something restrained at small sizes. Even if a more expressive design could be drawn to excel in small paragraphs, folks don’t necessarily have any time for it. So the Display styles bring the warmth and expression you’d expect from Ohno. But for the Text styles, everything is toned down to a palatable, simplified form. Straight stems, low contrast. It’s the typographic equivalent of a light-bodied red. Goes down easy, and pairs well with pork.
Why would you call it Retail?
Let’s face it. Fonts are often a cog in the wheel of Capitalism. Why fight it? Retail lives in the real world, embracing the restraints of designers who need something straight forward, and matches the client’s brief, which sounds a lot like the client’s brief from the last ten projects. Optimistic? You bet! Bold? Absolutely. Edgy? Well we’re still not sure what that means.
48 styles. All of them useful.
If we’ll die on any hill, it will be the hill of optical sizes. Have you ever wondered why old specimens, printed letterpress, tend to look so perfect? We think it has to do with using type at actual size. When each glyph is designed to excel at the exact size in which it is cast, things tend to just look… right. Sure, digital type can be scaled and stretched to any size at will. And if you wanna fark things up, let ’er rip! But if you’re looking to set a proper paragraph, reach for the Text. If you’re looking for a headline that packs a wallop, go Display. In between? That’s what the middle sub-family is for. Like a pair of cargo pants that zip off at the knee, Retail is willing and able for anything. But it hopefully looks better.
Direct, while
Playful—yet
→Sober, also
Casual (but)
Boring. Still