All eyes are on the very cool newly released Type Foundry Hard Type – and its trials to be available soon. The project, founded by the Spanish type designer Laura Garcia Mut, aims to create an organic connection between her typefaces and other designers.
The first typeface to kick off Hard Type will be called Microbic, and it holds a concept that revolves around a légère roman typeface with a scotch heritage that has an aseptic and passive-aggressive behavior. “I wanted it to be clean, neutral, classy but not cheesy, kind but a bit raw”, explains Laura.
The name might sound a bit different, but it makes sense once you explore Garcia’s story in a bit more detail – believe it or not, she found her passion for type design while graduating as a Biologist. “While attending biochemistry or genetics classes I started learning design software and reading about design. My first design works were congress posters for researchers in my faculty”, she tells us.
Laura finished her Biology degree and later started to study Graphic Design. “In my first year at Art School, I discovered my total love for typography, and through my final degree project, where I made a revival project of an early Grotesk typeface, I learned to use type design software and realized what I wanted to do forever.”
“I’m not sure, I guess my eyes always get caught by simple things, simple compositions, I’m obsessed with textures, and typography is a kind of it. What I’m sure of as a graphic designer is that in my practice typography is the most important component of a piece. I can refuse color, but type always vertebrates and sustain my work.”
Microbic is the first Hard Type typeface
The name comes from a way of viewing it as a lab Petri dish where many colonies of different genera/species of microorganisms are living and growing in the same environment. The upcoming release will have 4 styles (including an italic and a monospaced). “In the next launch, I’ll add new styles to the family”, explains Laura. It comes with 800+ glyphs and many stylistic sets, ligatures, and alternates.
When asked about the availability of typefaces, Garcia holds a very fair perspective, where she believes trials shouldn’t have a limited character set or a cost. “I want to make things easy. There’s piracy, we all know, so if you want to test my typefaces, I will try to provide them to you in the best way of quality and update, and come back to me to get a license when your work is going to be public and commercial for you or your client. I see it as more organic this way. I am also super in with a license model based on licensee size and not so use-based.”
“I’ve been a graphic designer before being a type designer, so I struggled with “the fonts thing” regarding licenses I know it can be overwhelming, so I just want to try to make it easy for designers to use my tools and just to be direct, honest, solid, useful. I think this is a dialogue between designers, they are going to design with my design, and I have them always in mind. The industry is evolving and while other technology such as blockchain may be coming, I think we can not continue anchored to a classic restrictive license model”.
The Hard Type Foundry is by Laura, who counts on the help of other designers, type designers, and friends with the beta tests and business consulting. The Project was released this summer and will have Microbic available soon. “Following that, the next coming up will be a couple more in progress too. I plan to launch other things such as specially printed specimens.”
The Hard Type trials will be available soon, and you can subscribe to receive the news firsthand in your inbox. Keep up with the Foundry on their Instagram and website. Follow Laura Garcia Mut’s work also on her personal Instagram page.
