Synthetic organisms look human, yet are made of artificial materials. Cardinal is the equivalent of the androïd characters called “synthetics”, which were developed in the movie series Alien. Synthetics entertain a close relationship with the living world and have a troubling resemblance with the models they imitate — humans. Synthetics do not emit heat, smell or pheromones, and their artificial origin is thus hard to detect. Cardinal is an exploration of that idea in type design. It navigates between the organicity of classic text typefaces and the plasticity of contemporary digital type. It has some traits of designs by Garamont and Granjon but bears its own dryness and rigidity. Reminiscent of an era of “old digital typefaces”, Cardinal evokes the early computing days. Synthetics do not die, they are just sometimes deactivated.

Cardinal is also the first type family which entirely originated from the womb of Production Type. It was drawn by Yoann Minet & Quentin Schmerber under Levée’s guidance and debuted as the core typeface in the Trax magazine redesign rollout. After two years of refinement and live-testing by a handful of design studios, the Cardinal collection is now available to a wider audience.

The Cardinal system is developed in three distinct directions. First, the core styles are Cardinal Classic Short, Mid, and Long, which have three x-heights that can be adjusted depending on body copy point size and line length. We recommend using Cardinal Classic Long for titles and subheads or brief paragraphs of text. Cardinal Classic Mid fits standard body text sizes, and Cardinal Classic Short works well at small sizes. Second, Cardinal Fruit is a very specific flavor of condensed, recalling early computer advertisements. Its Italics are particularly sharp and will convey a sense of liveliness and accuracy. Last, Cardinal Photo has much more stroke contrast, a tight-but-not-touching spacing, and a rather big x-height, making it a good companion to photographs when set at display sizes.

Design: Jean-Baptiste Levée, Yoann Minet, Quentin Schmerber.
Team: Dorine Sauzet, Hugues Gentile.
Picture by Florent Tanet with art direction by Anne-Dorothée Schulz.

Buy Cardinal from €60
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