Ferryman - Pimp my Type

My thoughts on Ferryman

The blackletter inspired typeface Ferryman sets a traditional, historic, and expressive vibe, while being made for everyday use. The typeface is wild in the stronger weights, giving you a more obvious blackletter connection. The light weights are de-light-ful – I know, I’m the best writer 🤪 – with an unusual monolinear elegance, something you don’t know from traditional broken fonts.

Expressive & Wild Delighting and Delicate With a strong character Ferryman can be loud and attention grabbing, while it is still surprisingly readably in smaller sizes, even for body text. The Capitals are compact, legible and elegant — Extra Bold is extra wild, is Light so elegant – *Ferryman’s* mood dramatically shifts, depending on the weight.

But Ferryman also works surprisingly well when used for a fair amount of copy, retaining its readability. The secret behind this, is that Ferryman replaces unfamiliar characters from traditional blackletter typefaces, with letter shapes that are common to modern readers. Also the reduced contrast and large x-height contribute to better readability.

Traditional Blackletter or Fraktur typefaces are challenging to read. This is because some letter shapes are unusual to modern readers. And the contrast makes it even harder. Ferryman replaced unusual characters with modern, familiar shapes. The reduced contrast makes the typeface easier to read, while it still sets an expressive and historic mood. — When comparing *UnifrakturMaguntia* with *Ferryman*, you see how much more legible it is for nowadays readers.

The goal of Ferryman was never to accurately reproduce a historic style, so it surprises with italics, something you would not find in traditional in blackletter fonts. These are my highlight – energetic, snappy and contrasting!

My highlight are the narrow, sharp italics! Great in light, even better in bold! — I’d follow these italics everywhere!

Ferryman is a wonderful mix of traditional and modern, unusual and familiar. Making it ideal for larger display text, strong headlines, logotypes or poster design. A counterpoint to blunt and slick geometric sans-serif typefaces.