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ABOUT

Fontaste [Miguel Reyes]

Miguel Reyes (b. 1984) is a graphic and type designer from Puebla, Mexico, who studied at Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. He obtained a Masters in Type Design from Centro de Estudios Gestalt Veracruz. Since 2010, he cooperates with Typerepublic in Barcelona. Founder of Fontaste. Graduate of the TypeMedia program at KABK Den Haag in 2012.

His graduation project consisted of two display typefaces, Naila (a wedge serif) and Rocco (a fattish round sans face).

Typefaces at Fontaste, ca. 2013: Plastilina (+Display, +Deco: signpainter family), Sancho, Candela (signpainter script).

He joined Commercial Type in New York City in 2013. Miguel's grandest achievement to date is Duplicate (2013, Commercial Type: with Christian Schwartz), a typeface family that comes in three substyles, Slab, Sans and Ionic. Commercial Type writes: Christian Schwartz wanted to see what the result would be if he tried to draw Antique Olive from memory. He was curious whether this could be a route to something that felt contemporary and original, or if the result would be a pale imitation of the original. Most of all, he wanted to see what he would remember correctly and what he would get wrong, and what relationship this would create between the inspiration and the result. Though it shares some structural similarities with Antique Olive and a handful of details, like the shape of the lowercase a, Duplicate Sans is not a revival, but rather a thoroughly contemporary homage to Excoffon. Duplicate Sans was finally finished at the request of Florian Bachleda for his 2011 redesign of Fast Company. Bachleda wanted a slab companion for the sans, so Schwartz decided to take the most direct route: he simply added slabs to the sans in a straightforward manner, doing as little as he could to alter the proportions, contrast, and stylistic details in the process. The bracketed serifs and ball terminals that define the Clarendon genre (also known as Ionic) first emerged in Britain in the middle of the 19th century. While combining these structures with a contemporary interpretation of a mid-20th century French sans serif seems counterintutive, the final result feels suprisingly natural. The romans are a collaboration between Christian Schwartz and Miguel Reyes, but the italic is fully Reyes's creation, departing from the sloped romans seen in Duplicate Sans and Slab with a true cursive. Mark Porter and Simon Esterson were the first to use the family, in their 2013 redesign of the Neue Züricher Zeitung am Sonntag. Because the Ionic genre has long been a common choice for text in newspapers, Duplicate Ionic is a natural choice for long texts. Duplicate Ionic won an award at TDC 2014.

Early in 2014, Christian Schwartz, Paul Barnes and Miguel Reyes joined forces to create the manly didone typeface family Caponi, which is based on the early work of Bodoni, who was at that time greatly influenced by the roccoco style of Pierre Simon Fournier. It is named after Amid Capeci, who commissioned it in 2010 for his twentieth anniversary revamp of Entertainment Weekly. Caponi comes in Display, Slab and Text subfamilies.

Gabriello (2015) is a soccer shirt font designed by Paul Barnes and Miguel Reyes: Inspired by brush lettering, Gabriello was commissioned by Puma. First used by their sponsored teams at the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, it was later used at that year's World Cup, held in South Africa. It was used on the kits worn by Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ghana.

Marian Text (2014-2016) is a grand collection of ultra thin typefaces designed at Commercial Type by Miguel Reyes, Sandra Carrera, and Paul Barnes. Marian Text 1554 depicts the old style of Garamond & Granjon; John Baskerville's transitional form becomes Marian Text 1757; the modern of Bodoni, with swash capitals and all, becomes Marian Text 1800, and the early Moderns of the Scottish foundries of Alexander Wilson & Son of Glasgow, and William Miller of Edinburgh, become Marian Text 1812. And like the original, a black letter: Marian Text Black, referencing the forms of Hendrik van den Keere.

In 2015, Miguel Reyes designed the high-contrast sharp-edged yet curvy typeface family Canela at Commercial Type. It was followed in 2018 by Canela Condensed and Canela Text.

Ayer is an elegant condensed display typeface designed by Miguel Reyes between 2016 and 2019 for the fashion magazine W. Ayer (Commercial Type) was designed to be malleable and to assert a strong personality at a variety of scales. Commercial Type writes: Ayer Poster has the extremely high contrast that is typical of a fashion typeface and features four different italic styles: the workmanlike italic featured in all optical sizes, a chaotically beautiful Cursive with a full complement of swash capitals, a sharply stylish Angular, and Miguel's decidedly non-traditional interpretation of the staid Blackletter genre. In comparison, Ayer also has high contrast, though less so than the Poster. Finally, Ayer Deck is a low-contrast sans serif with gentle flaring.

Co-designer in 2019 with Paul Barnes of the fat face Isambard: The boldest moderns were given the name fat face and they pushed the serif letterform to its extremes. With exaggerated features of high contrast and inflated ball terminals, the fat face was the most radical example of putting as much ink on a page to make the greatest impact at the time. These over-the-top forms make the style not only emphatic, but also joyful with bulbous swash capitals and a wonderfully characterful italic.

In 2021, he designed the inky script typeface Candy Darling (with Christian Schwartz; commissioned by Richard Turley for Interview magazine) and Canela Blackletter (inspired by the long tradition of blacketter in Mexico) at Commercial Type.

In 2022, he designed the italic script typeface Eugenia at Commercial Type. Its four distinct fonts were derived from the 18th century work of Giambattista Bodoni. Eugenia was drawn to accompany Eugenio Serif, the design created for La Repubblica's weekly women's magazine D.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type design in Mexico ⦿ Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Signage typefaces ⦿ Type scene in New York ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Clarendon ⦿ Fournier ⦿ Soccer typefaces ⦿ Blackletter fonts ⦿