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ABOUT

Re-Type [Ramiro Espinoza]

Argentinian designer Ramiro Espinoza (b. Santa Fe, 1969) studied at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Santa Fe. He dabbled in fonts at his gorgeous (but now defunct) Jazz Futurezone site. In 2007, he founded Re-type, where he heads a group of designers including Yomar Augusto, Leo Beukeboom and Ricardo Rousselot. Ramiro graduated from the Type and Media's KABK (Den Haag) in 2004. He taught typography at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Escola d'Art i Superior de Disseny in Valencia, Spain. At FontShop International, he was in a team that converted more than 50 font families to OpenType. He freelances occasionally for David Quay's studio. He joined Type Network in 2017. He is currently located in Amsterdam. His typefaces:

• Mabella (2001), a free font dedicated to the Argentinian feminist activist Mabel Bellucci. It was for some time available at Sudtipos but discontinued there. It is still at Dafont.
• Bellucci (2008), a commercial redesign of Mabella.
• The display font Mariabrug (2002). This too is no longer available--it was redesigned and marketed as Kurversbrug, one of the ReType's fonts. Kurversbrug (2007) is a revival of the famous letters appearing on Amsterdam's bridges: the letters were probably designed by Anton Kurvers (b. Den Haag, 23 July 1889; d. Amsterdam, 29 January 1940).
• At Union Fonts: Lula (2002-2003).
• Maitena (2003), a free font based on the hand of an Argentinian comic artist, Maitena Burundarena.
• Lavigne (2004-2010): Lavigne Display is the first release of a type-family aimed at publications such as interior design and women magazines-anywhere a touch of distinction is to be desired. Lavigne Display won an award at TDC2 2010. Lavigne Display and Lavigne Text (a modern serif family) were both winners at Tipos Latinos 2010.
• Tomate (2008) is a brush lettering / signage script font influenced by Goudy Heavyface Italic. It won an award at Tipos Latinos 2010.
• Barbieri (2009) is a signage face.
• Work on Severino (2004) has been abandoned.
• Smidswater Italics (2009): Smidswater is a Dutch graphic design studio with offices in The Hague and Breda. They had a corporate font (designed by Paulus Nabbe and Onno Bevoort) but wanted to expand the package adding italics and light weights. Ramiro Espinoza was commissioned for this and now Smidswater Font is a complete set extensively used in the studio's indentity.
• Bath (2010-2011) is a Dutch typeface developed with David Quay for the signage and orientation in the city of Bath.
• Winco (2012) is a glyphic (flared, incise) type family created from scratch. Espinoza mentions Arpke Antiqua and Globus Cursive as indirect influences on his new type family. It won an award at Tipos Latinos 2012.
• Krul (2012) is an interpretation of the Amsterdamse Krulletter style of calligraphic signage. This was presented at ATypI 2013 in Amsterdam. A book entitled Amsterdamse Krulletter by Rob Becker and Ramiro Espinoza was published by Lecturis.nl in 2014. The English edition, The Curly Letter of Amsterdam followed in 2015.
• Dulcinea (2012), a chancery / penmanship typeface. He writes: Dulcinea looks at Spanish Baroque calligraphy's most extreme tendencies, and especially at some of those produced by the writing masters Pedro Diaz Morante and Juan Claudio Aznar de Polanco. These 17th and 18th century alphabets with their plentiful calligraphic flourishes represented a marked break with the harmonic and angular Renaissance Cancellaresca style. It was Morante who first introduced and popularized the use of the pointed quill in Spain, and although his famous text entitled Arte Nueva de escribir(first volume published in 1616) contains alphabets that have much in common with traditional broad nib Cancellaresca calligraphy, most of the examples therein are outgrowths of the new models put forward by the Italian master Gianfrancesco Cresci. The swashes are complex and intricate, but at the same time they feature a profusion of defects. Many of them sometimes come close to ugliness. However, these pages contain an artistic essence that bears a relationship to the ironic and sometimes somber character of Spanish Baroque.
• Medusa (2013) is a delicate copperplate penmanship script based upon renowned master Ramón Stirling. Helped in the type production by Paula Mastrangelo, Ramiro looked very carefully at the original manner in which glyphs connected. This typeface will win awards. Well, I wrote the previous sentence on the day I first saw Medusa. Medusa won an award at TDC 2014. In March 2014, it won an award at Tipos Latinos 2014.
• Laski Slab, co-designed with Paula Mastrangelo, won an award at Tipos Latinos 2014. It is based on Paula's thesis work in 2012. Ramiro Espinoza kept on developing that typeface and published Laski Sans in 2016.

  In 2017, he published Guyot Headline (a revival of Françcois Guyot's types). Guyot Text followed later in 2017---it is very legible even at small print sizes and is a sturdy workhorse overall. Winner at Tipos Latinos 2018 of a type design award for Guyot. Guyot also won an award won an award at TDC Typeface Design 2018. In 2020, Guyot was selected as a typeface for Garcia Media's redesign of the major German finacial newspaper, Handelsblatt.

• Reiher Headline (2018). A typeface family inspired by two fonts displayed in the famous Ploos van Amstel specimen, first printed in Amsterdam in 1767. The Reiher Headline romans were based on the handsome N° 1 Groote Paragon Romein, a rather condensed typeface whose punchcutter has not yet been identified. Reiher Headline's italics were based on the Aszendonica types attributed to Nicholas Kis. Several of the ornaments included in the Reiher types have been ascribed to J.F. Rosart. Espinoza further expanded the possibilities of his new family with Reiher Headline Open, a decorative inline version of Reiher Headline Bold. Reiher Headline was designed for magazine and newspapers.
• Dejanire and Dejanire Headline (2019), a typeface family loosely inspired by an anonymous display typeface found in the type specimen of Claude Lamesle, published in Paris in 1742. It takes its name from Deianira, a Calydonian princess in Greek mythology and the wife of Heracles. Lamesle introduced it under the blah name of Gros canon deux points de gros romain. Ramiro Espinoza set out to improve Lamesle's typeface by fixing its flaws while preserving its freshness. It was followed in 2020 by Dejanire Sans and in 2022 by Dejanire Text and Dejanire Jewel (a baroque, profusely ornate set of capitals inspired by a set of titling capitals found in a religious decree printed in 1800 by Pedro Battle in Barcelona).
• Kranto (2021). A 144-style sans serif typeface inspired by British and German grotesque typefaces from the first half of the twentieth century. It features weights from thin to black, widths from regular to condensed, and x-heights from small to large (called text, normal and display).

MyFonts interview in 2012. Speaker at ATypI 2018 in Antwerp. Fontspace link. Dafont link. Behance link. Type Network link.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Re-Type
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Fontspring link [Buy fonts]
Dafont page
Fontspace page
Behance page
Klingspor Museum page
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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Sites with only a few free fonts ⦿ Type design in Argentina ⦿ Handwriting fonts ⦿ Dutch type design ⦿ Brush script typefaces ⦿ Signage typefaces ⦿ Calligraphic typefaces ⦿ Chancery hand, cancellaresca ⦿ Penmanship ⦿ Frederic William Goudy ⦿ Books on type design ⦿ Typefaces based on Nicolas Kis's work ⦿