The design of an alphabet, like any visual design - fashion, architecture, product - is appreciated on the grounds of taste, association and functionality. There is everyday typography, loved for its utility and simplicity, which you will find in the body text of any print. Then there are your display types, which are intended to entice the reader closer. This typography is bolder and establishes the groundwork of what is expected from the adjoining text. This is the lettering that is chosen for attention-grabbing headlines, book covers & brand names. Movers, a new typeface launched in 2015, is one such beast. It is unabashedly bold and, like any impactful design, is likely to leave designers and mere mortals alike in a state of love or loathing.
Movers was designed in Paris through a collaboration between graphic designer Paul Gacon and design studio My Name Is. If display lettering is created in order to set a scene, lay down a mood, or set up expectation, then this typeface fulfils its brief with gusto. The design was inspired by a photo that Gacon spotted of a New York truck’s handwritten signage, where, as he explained to design blog It’s Nice That,
"...each letter was unevenly drawn and it almost seemed that two typefaces were used."
Building on the context that influenced Gacon, Movers was created for a hypothetical New York haulage company. It is a typeface drawn in capital letters, which undulate in thickness along the page and ooze personality. Movers at once evokes the brash rush of 24/7 metropolitan living and the humble, folksy charm of a mom and pop town in economic decline. It includes inspired touches, such as the rising climb of the lettering in ‘and’. This detail, so human in its creative flourish, captures the essence of Movers: it is a typeface that appears fresh & fallible as if still wet with paint from the hand that drew it.
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