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ABOUT

Terminal Design [James Montalbano]

Terminal Design is the company of James Montalbano in Brooklyn, New York, est. 1990. He was the President of the Type Directors Club, 2002-2003. He teaches type design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Feature on him by John Berry. In 2019, he declared at Typedrawers: I'm so tired of type design, so we must assume that threw in the towel. James designed these fonts:

• In an earlier life as part of Fonthaus, ca. 1994-1995, I believe that Montalbano designed fonts like DidotDisplayAntiqueTdi, DidotDisplayRegularTdi, ProgressivePsychoOneTdi (through Six) and SenzaTDI (many weights).
• 718 (2010). A clean 24-style sans family influenced by as many typefaces as there are immigrants in Brooklyn. Named after the non-Manhattan area code.
• Alfon (2003). Montalbano calls it a muscular text typeface. It has chamfered corners and cupped serifs.
• Badinage. A connected retro script.
• Cappella (2013). It is a direct result of the work done on the Fordham Chapel custom font commission. A one weight, all caps design based on wood carved lettering from a Fordham University chapel honoring fallen alumni.
• Choice Sans, Choice Sans Compressed, Choice Sans Condensed (2014).
• ClearviewADA, ClearviewADA Condensed, ClearviewHwy, ClearviewText, ClearviewText Compressed, ClearviewText Condensed. The legible sans serif family ClearviewOne, designed for highway signs, and used for US highway signs starting in 2002. The highway sign font family is called ClearviewHwy), and is further explored here. ClearviewHwy is used for highways in the USA starting in 2004 (see the discussion here). The OpenType version of ClearviewOne is called ClearviewText (2007). ClearviewADA (2007) is a family of Clearview fonts that conform to the letterform specifications for signage outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act legislation. Free download. Clearview was discontinued in 2016 by the US Federal Highway Administration, in favor of the older Highway Gothic from the 1940s: Report by Citylab.
• Consul Caption, Consul Deck, Consul Display, Consul Text (2009). A 48-style text family. Optically sized, it emerged from a Gustave Mayeur design done by Montalbano for Mens Vogue. Consul has a hint of didone, but the brackets are rounded and the stems gently flared. In Montalbano's palette, this is one of the beauties.
• Enclave (2007): A sixteen font slab serif family.
• Fervent (2013). A sans version of Badinage.
• Giacomo 2.0. a well-balanced and interesting sans-serif family. Includes Cyrillics.
• Insouciant (2011). An upright connected script family..
• At ITC: ITC Orbon 2020, ITC Orbon (1995-1996: a strange experimental typeface), ITC Nora (1997), ITC Freddo (1996, a fat poster typeface).
• Kaboodle (2018). A wood type with extended Latin, Greek and Cyrillic.
• Kinney (2011). A type family for tables and information design. James's self-proclaimed attempt at creating a neutral serif.
• Latin 512, Latin 512 Compressed, Latin 512 Condensed, Latin 512 Expanded. An 80-style didone family with triangular or wedge serifs typical of the Latin style.
• Moraine (2009). A serif family with a wide generous feel. Stems are flexed and tapered and serifs are cupped.
• Notary (2017).
• Now Playing (2007): A digital revival of the naïve plastic lettering that was used on the marquee of the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
• Quotient (2015). An elegant sans typeface family without italics. Montalbano describes it as trajan Sans because of its classical roman proportions. many details such as the rhombic dots on the i's are inscriptional in nature.
• Rawlinson 2.0, Rawlinson 2.0 Condensed, Rawlinson Roadway (2003). A serif family, which includes a Condensed sub-family). NPS Rawlinson Roadway is an old style serif typeface currently used for the United States National Park Service's road signs. It was created to replace Clarendon and uses James Montalbano's wife's last name.
• Shenandoah. A display type based on the wood letters at Shenandoah National park.
• Social (2012). A rounded sans family for on-line use.
• Tangent (2007): A geometric sans in sixteen styles.
• Trilon, Trilon Compressed, Trilon Condensed, Trilon Expanded (2009): A sans typeface family. Montalbano calls it a 21st century gothic.
• VF Sans, VF Sans Condensed (2011). An avant-garde family with 32 styles. James explains its release: Back in the late 90s I designed a family of sans serif fonts for Vanity Fair magazine. I based them on various sans serif designs from the 1930s with nothing particular in mind. They have been compared to Intertype's Vogue, and I do see the connection, but it wasn't my intention of doing a Vogue revival. They have been kept out of circulation these last many years at Vanity Fair's request, but it appears that during the last few years Vanity Fair has lost interest in them. They no longer grace the front cover of the magazine, and they appear with less and less frequency inside the publication. I've also noticed several pirated uses of them as they have popped up on some book jacket designs. So with Vanity Fair's permission I felt it time to set them free.
• Yo Andy, Yo Frankie, Yo Lucy, Yo Sophie, Yo Zelda. The Yo series (2010) consists of 200 didone styles. It is subdivided into Yo Andy, Yo Frankie, Yo Lucy, Yo Sophie and Yo Zelda. This didone family has two axes (weight, extension) with 100 regular members finished in 2010 and 100 italics added in 2014. They reach in alphabetical order from condensed (Andy) to extended (Zelda).

Montalbano designed custom corporate fonts for Condé Nast Publications, Warner Music, The American Medical Association, the U.S. National Park Service, Vanity Fair, Brides, Gourmet, Mademoiselle, Sassy, Details, Glamour, Jane, Self and Book. The list of font names, with links:

• Collins Geometric.
• DM Marquee. A dot matrix all caps design created for Mother NY for their client, Daily Motion.
• Early Learning Sans. A family of 12 fonts designed for MeadWestvaco's Early Learning Products division for use in educational products teaching young students the basics of letter construction.
• Fordham Chapel. Based on wood carved lettering from a Fordham University chapel honoring fallen alumni.
• Fortune Titling. Based on the Fortune logo.
• Glamour Display, Glamour Script. The latter is a roundhand script. Both were done for Glamour magazine.
• JCP News Gothics. Created for DDB Chicago, for use in the It's all in there campaign for JC Penney. Should work with existing Monotype News Gothic fonts.
• Johan Gothic. A condensed sans serif designed for Conde Nast Sports for Women, which changed its name to Women's Sports, which then changed its name to Women's Sports and Fitness. The type was named for the art director who commissioned it.
• Lucky Gothic.
• Mens Vogue-Mayeur. Mayeur Display, an original design created in 2005 for Men's Vogue. Based on 19th Century French text types from the Parisian foundry of Gustave Mayeur.
• Now Playing. As part of the renovation of The Apollo Theatre, Now Playing was designed to reflect the plastic marquee lettering of the 1940s.
• NPS Roadway. Montalbano writes: Designed to replace the Clarendon road guide sign typeface that the U.S National Park Service used as part of their identity. NPS Roadway was tested by Pennsylvania Transportation Institute and was found to decrease legend length by 10-15% while increasing readability by 11%. Part of a total redesign of the Park Service identity (that included the Rawlinson series of fonts) the font has been approved by FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) for use on all Federal roads.
• Skinny Eric. A painfully thin version of Gill Sans, designed for Self Magazine.
• Social. Two weights of a rounded sans serif design to compliment the Living Social logo design.
• VF Didot, VF Sans, VF Sans Condensed, VF Script. All done for Vanity Fair. VF Didot is a slightly condensed design based on the many New York didot alphabets drawn during the 1940s and 50s. VF Sans is Vanity Fair's workhorse. VF Script is an original script created for Vanity Fair Magazine in 1999, loosely based on lettering found on a French Automobile Poster from the mid-1920s.
• Vogue AG, Vogue Didot Extended. Vogue AG is a nine-weight sans serif design mixing elements of Futura and Avant Garde Gothic. The Extra Light weight was designed for Vogue magazine in 2004 while the remaining weights were added in 2007 and updated in 2011.

Klingspor link. FontShop link. Linotype link. Behance link. View James Montalbano's typefaces done at ITC.

EXTERNAL LINKS
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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Readability & Legibility ⦿ Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Very thin (hairline sans) typefaces ⦿ Map/Travel dingbats ⦿ Experimental type ⦿ Type scene in New York ⦿ Fashion mag typefaces ⦿ Wood Type ⦿ Corporate typefaces ⦿ Avant Garde typefaces ⦿ Fashion mag typefaces ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Clarendon ⦿ Triangulated typefaces ⦿