In this blog post I present two fonts that I got to know in the course of re-designing Austria’s biggest transport magazine "Blickpunkt LKW + BUS". And now I am in absolute love with them. Let me tell you why ...
AKKO
Akko has a slightly technical feel, but comes with a likable, almost smiling and humanistic twist. Nevertheless, Akko is strong and present, has a dominant letter width. What caught my eye from the start was the capital letter K. That funky dash in the centre which holds together the left and right halves of the letter. That was something special and somehow reminded me of a truck’s axle. Perfect for a transport magazine, I thought. After thoroughly checking all elements of that font, I was totally convinced.
By the way, Akko was created by Akira Kobayashi in 2011, but got a great update and a rounded font in 2015. You can buy Akko at Fontshop.
MARBACH
As Akko would be used mainly for headers and captions (in the light cut), I of course needed to look out for a great font for the main copy too. The font would need to embody journalistic authority, but have a modern touch at the same time, that supports the magazine’s leading market position and carries it into an even more successful future. The big challenge here was also to put as much text as possible into as little space as necessary, because every page costs extra money in the print process and with regards to postage.
This turned out to be a little mammoth task, considering I wanted to introduce more white space into the layout in order to better steer the reading flow and to improve the overall reading experience. It took me several days to check out many different fonts and test them for readability (in print and on screens!), grey tone, x height, letter width and usage of space of course.
I kept going back to Marbach again and again and could not imagine a better font for the main copy for this project. Despite a beautiful letter width and x height, Marbach turned out to use up less space compared to many other fonts.
Marbach was created by Dieter Hofrichter in 2015 and is available on Fontshop.
FONT MIXING
Mixing the fonts turned out to be without complications. A -5 spacing of Akko was enough to include it into the Marbach text body nicely.
In this example: Header (Akko) in the main copy (Marbach). The blue line shows the same x height and the red square shows the letter width of "e".
I can’t wait for the readers to hold the newly designed magazine in their hands in autumn.