For several years, brands have favoured round, smooth typefaces based on simple geometric shapes. There are excellent reasons to do so, and the market offers plenty of valid alternatives, growing by the week. At the same time, many type designers are coming up with new explorations that aim to diversify an increasingly homogenized visual landscape. Organic shapes, super-contrasts, 70s vibe, de-constructed forms. Like never before, brands have a broad range of options to support their identity.
   In this picture, Fabbrica shows its technical engineered nature, sitting comfortably in a place where uniqueness and functionality found their balance. Geometry does not necessarily mean simplicity. And complexity does not necessarily affect usability. Trying not to compromise distinctiveness for neutrality, this is how the project brings up its own character.

Malden Sans is a typeface that had a very long genesis. It started as my Master degree project, in 2011, and I released it at the end of 2018 by Monotype. Seven years in the making, Malden Sans is a typeface designed with magazine usage in mind. A Grotesque with compact proportions and a certain amount of quirkiness. Utilitarian enough to be used in all printing conditions, it offers an essential typographic palette where the extreme weights in the spectrum have more character, and the core weights are more tone down.