Elvira Golubova

SB Phormic is a grunge typeface with hybrid DNA, spliced together from two other typefaces. Its genesis was the interpolation of SB Tokyo and SB Liquid, creating something new, yet strangely reminiscent of them both. The resulting letterforms have a distressed mechanical look, perhaps like something you might find on the output from a fax machine or some other text generating machine. There are pixel like forms in there, but they appear broken and distorted, giving the impression of damaged electronics or corroded machinery. SB Phormic works well in these contexts, as a distressed typeface to convey the feeling invoked by seeing the decaying remnants of heavy industry or the technological scrapheaps of abandoned technology.

SB Navigator was designed for screen use, as a legible text typeface for use in website navigation menus. It was intended to be used as part of static pixel graphics or as part of a Flash animated menu, in the days when the web was a low-resolution experience, before webfonts became possible and when web designers were trying to find ways to push the internet forward from a design and usability point of view. SB Navigator also performs well as a text font, retaining good legibility at small sizes, thanks to lessons learned in the production of SB Liquid. It is optimised for use at 10px but can also work well at 20px. As a typeface it acts as a versatile alternative to the industry standard LCD font that SB Liquid is based on and would work well as part of an electronic display thanks to its clear letterforms. The family also features a rounded pixel version, opening it up for use as a headline typeface for high-DPI displays.

SB Modem’s curved, bubble-like aesthetic is infused with retro-futurism and evokes the space age dreams of what life might be like for humanity in the far future of the year 2000. Although SB Modem has its origins in the 1990s, it owes something to the designers and artists of the 1960s, who developed a visual style that embodied the optimistic hopes people had for the potential of technology to improve peoples’ lives. While it could be categorised as a rounded pixel font, the process that created it wasn’t the usual method. The first versions were created in an early version of Photoshop, with each letter being drawn pixel by pixel at a very low resolution. Then these letters were processed by repeatedly applying blur and increasing the contrast to bring the edges back into focus, before being completely redrawn in Fontographer. The final typeface was named after a device that was cutting edge technology at the time, but which is now also comfortably retro. However, SB Modem’s retro future curves still work nicely for communication and digitally themed projects, even if none of us are living on the moon, yet.

SB Message is a typeface inspired by the font used on the old Nokia cellphone displays. Although it later found use as a pixel font, during the early days of web design when designers were experimenting with pixel based graphics, it was originally designed for use in print. This was pre-smartphone era and Nokia phones were ubiquitous. Nokia featured the best design the mobile phone industry had to offer and it dominated the market in the years before Apple launched its game-changing iPhone. At this time, marketeers were taking their first tentative steps in attempting to engage consumers using the relatively new technologies of the web and SMS messaging and at that time few typefaces existed that were suited for these uses. SB Message takes its cues from the Nokia font, but critically it is taller and narrower, improving its impact as a display typeface for use in headlines. Initially only two styles were produced, Solid and Open, aimed at creating a screen-like headline, but later dot matrix, VDU line and rounded pixelfont versions were added, giving the designer more flexibility in using this typeface. SB Message still performs as a very legible pixelfont and is optimised for use at 10px height.

SB Liquid is a digitisation of the typeface used on many Liquid Crystal Display panels. It was originally referenced from the display of a Kawai K-1 synthesizer, a musical instrument that used one of these LCD strip displays to display information about the sound to the musician playing it. The original intention was to use it in instruction manuals for an early mobile phone company, during the era when mobile phones used standard digital displays and needed an instruction manual, but it was so common in the world of electronic musical instruments that it also fitted well for projects based around electronic music. Initially only two styles were produced, Open and Solid, aimed at allowing the designer to emulate the look of the original LCD screens, but it also found a use as text pixelfont during the early days of web graphics, thanks to the high legibility of the letterforms. Later, dot matrix and rounded pixelfont styles were added to give designers more options when using the typeface, with the rounded version being intended for display and headline use. To this day the original styles still have a secondary use in the electronics manufacturing world, where this kind of display is still in use, boosted by the emergence of cheap, accessible computing devices. SB Liquid also works as a legible pixelfont and is optimised for use at 10px.

SB Grip is a pixelfont from the revival of bitmapped lettering that occurred during the early 2000s, as designers grappled with ways to tackle the slow loading and low-resolution internet of the day. Many pixelfonts at the time were designed for more practical text use, but there were also display pixel fonts. SB Grip is one of this type of pixel font and was designed to be layered over imagery and photography, and so has a semi-transparent treatment, at least in bitmap terms. Compared with other pixel fonts, which are often optimised to be used at 10-12px, SB Grip is a large typeface, being designed to be used at a size of 40px and multiples of 40px. It works well layered over other elements and has a pattern-like quality due to its repeating segmented design. SB Grip takes its name from its similarity to the type of gripped flooring that also features a repeating pattern.

Heartwarming is a bouncy handwritten script font!

This font is perfect for quotes, shirt designs, websites, branding, children's designs,  blogs, logos, invitations and more!

This purchase includes a TTF & OTF font file. 
Most accent characters included.

Thank you!