TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Wed Jan 29 16:46:45 EST 2025

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ABOUT

Ralph Oliver du Carrois

Berlin-based designer at Primetype of these typefaces:

• The simple sans family PTL Maurea (2004).
• The free sans/techno fonts Share and Share-TechMono (2005) and the large Pro family Share, which was designed as a corporate type family for Typo3.
• The techno family PTL Highbus (2006).
• The quirky serif family PTL Sadgirl (2006).
• With Jenny Horn, he designed the pixel typefaces PiPaA35, PiPaB35, PiPaC35, PiPaD35 (2002).
• Colaborate (2003) is free.
• Axel (2009): developed jointly with Erik Spiekermann and Erik van Blokland, it is a system font with these features:
  • Similar letters and numbers are clearly distinguishable (l, i, I, 1, 7; 0, O; e, c #).
  • Increased contrast between regular and bold.
  • High legibility on the monitor via Clear Type support.
  • Seems to outperform Courier New, Verdana, Lucida Sans, Georgia, Arial and Calibri, according to their tests (although I would rank Calibri at or above Axel for many criteria).
• In 2012-2013, Ralph du Carrois and Erik Spiekermann co-designed Fira Sans and Fira Mono for Firefox / Mozilla. Google Web Font link. This typeface is free for everyone. Open Font Library link. Dedicated web page. CTAN download page. Mozilla download page. It is specially designed for small screens, and seems to do a good job at that. I am not a particular fan of a g with an aerodynamic wing and the bipolar l of Fira Mono, though. Google web Fonts published Fira Sans Condensed and Fira Sans Extra Condensed (2012-2016) in 2017.
• Real Text Regular is a corporate font designed in 2014 by Ralph du Carrois in close cooperation with Erik Spiekermann, for the monograph by Gestalten Hello I am Erik. In 2015, Fontfont finally published the full family FF Real, in 13 weights each for FF Real Head and FF Real Text. The typeface family is influenced by the German grotesques from ca. 1900 by foundries such as Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG. In 2017-2018, that family was extended to 52 styles in all thanks to a new set of italics. The designers are listed as Erik Spiekermann, Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners. They write: The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries---among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG---released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real's regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is "the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face", thus giving his new typeface the name Real (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story g and an 8 with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, f and t are wider, the capital I is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase l. What's more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.
• Quist (2015).
• Belbo (2016). A sans family. Belbo Two is perhaps one of the thinnest hairline sans fonts ever made.
• In 2022, Erik Spiekermann, Anja Meiners, and Ralph du Carrois published the neo-grotesque superfamily Case at Fontwerk. It includes Micro and Text subfamilies.

Around 2011-2012, he set up Carrois Type Design in Berlin. He also co-founded bBox Type with Anja Meiners some time between 2016 and 2018.

Old Dafont link. FontShop link. Klingspor link. Abstract Fonts link.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Ralph Oliver du Carrois
 [Buy fonts]
 [Designer info]
Dafont page
Klingspor Museum page
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Monospaced fonts ⦿ Sites with only a few free fonts ⦿ German type scene ⦿ Corporate typefaces ⦿ Very thin (hairline sans) typefaces ⦿