New F37 typeface launches with “deadpan” posters celebrating Manchester
Type foundry F37 has launched a new typeface inspired by one of Manchester’s last wooden street signs. And they worked with designer Craig Oldham and copywriter Ellen Ling to bring it to life on a series of billboards celebrating the city’s particular brand of pride.
F37 Mancunio is based on the typeface on the sign underneath the railway in St Michael’s Place. F37 founder Rick Banks was drawn to the uneven stroke endings on the ‘C’ and the ‘S’ and designer Rodrigo Fuenzalida worked it into a full typeface with nine weights and “a width axis for flexibility.”
Mancunio is named after the Roman fort that once stood in present-day Castlefield.
“Rick found the reference ages ago and always wanted to turn it into a font,” says F37’s Keelin Wright. “We wanted to take something from the city, and create a font that represents the history of Manchester, but still feels quite modern as well.”
The sign in St Michael’s Place that inspired F37’s Mancunio typeface
Wright explains that although there are a lot grotesque sans serif fonts in the F37 library, the “quirky” letter endings and old-style numerals create “ a more human type of grotesque.”
When it came to launching the typeface, Wright says they wanted to celebrate its connection to Manchester – where F37 is based – in the right way.
“We thought because we’ve taken something physical from the city in terms of the sign, we want to give something physical back,” she explains. “We felt that the billboards would give something typographic to the city, especially around springtime, when Manchester is coming out of the gloom.”
F37’s Mancunio typeface
Banks and Oldham had worked together on several previous projects and bought in Ling to develop the copy-led campaign.
She admits it was a daunting brief in some ways, given some high-profile misfires with localised campaigns in Manchester in recent years.
In 2022, locals ridiculed a Magnum advert which misrepresented one of the city’s more insalubrious squares, while a recent Adidas billboard for Manchester United proclaiming that “Manneh is Red” was equally derided.
Writing on LinkedIn, designer and United fan Andrew Whitehead said he had never once heard the club referred to as Manneh. “It’s not a nickname. It’s not Manchester United. It’s just… off,” he wrote. “This is what fake authenticity looks like.”
“There is all this localised stuff that just bombs,” Ling says. “The pressure is on not to do something that feels tired and out of touch.”
F37’s Mancunio typeface
The team all felt it was important to steer away from many of the well-worn Manchester motifs, which many people feel have been co-opted by commercial interests looking to exploit the city’s creative soul.
“When we were putting the brief together, we found pages and pages of reference for things that we didn’t want,” Wright says. “It was much harder to find things that showed what we actually wanted.”
“A lot of this stuff feels like it was made by outsiders,” Oldham says. “History didn’t start here in the 1980s – there’s a wealth of culture and community spirit.” It was exciting, he says, to avoid cliches around Tony Wilson, the Hacienda stripes, and the city’s bee symbol and try and capture “the stoicism, the acerbic wit and the self-deprecating pride.”
Some of the posters do take familiar topics – like the city’s famously bad weather or Ian Brown’s quote that Manchester has “Everything but a beach” – but Ling says they worked hard to find “a sting in the tail” and “reclaim” these tropes.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Other references are extremely local and deliberately perplexing to outsiders, such as the celebration of Boombox Barry, an iconic local personality.
“He’s part of our everyday experience of being in Manchester,” Ling says. “It was nice to give him his flowers in terms of the joy that he brings, and the enigma that he is.”
One poster even references the Magnum-advert debacle, celebrating “alfresco tinnies on a piss-soaked Piccadilly G.”
For the design, they tried several approaches, including using acid colours, but Oldham says he and Banks realised at one point they were “trying too hard.” The stark white text on black background was the perfect way to showcase the typeface, Oldham says, and stands out in the cityscape.
“This dense spot of black cuts through this ocean of visual clutter,” he explains. “It confronts people, and forces them to read the words.”
Ling adds that the design works perfectly to communicate the deadpan tone of her copy lines.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Manchester’s creative scene has been struggling with the changes wrought by the city’s rapid growth and development in recent years. Designers have even taken to remixing the city’s famous visual language to protest against “incessant gentrification.”
Oldham recognises the tension, although he thinks it’s happening in many cities.
“I think as cities grow and change rapidly, you get to a crossroads,” he says. “What are we going to change into? What are we going to take with us? And what have we got to leave behind?
“I think that’s a universal worry, but Manchester’s very much at that point in its life cycle right now.”
Ling agrees. “It’s not that the city’s independent spirit is being crushed, it’s more like it’s being Last Of Us fungi-d,” she says, in reference to the hit HBO show. “It does feel that everything that you know in your bones makes Manchester great is being commoditised.”
F37’s Mancunio typeface
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
#new #f37 #typeface #launches #withNew F37 typeface launches with “deadpan” posters celebrating Manchester
Type foundry F37 has launched a new typeface inspired by one of Manchester’s last wooden street signs. And they worked with designer Craig Oldham and copywriter Ellen Ling to bring it to life on a series of billboards celebrating the city’s particular brand of pride.
F37 Mancunio is based on the typeface on the sign underneath the railway in St Michael’s Place. F37 founder Rick Banks was drawn to the uneven stroke endings on the ‘C’ and the ‘S’ and designer Rodrigo Fuenzalida worked it into a full typeface with nine weights and “a width axis for flexibility.”
Mancunio is named after the Roman fort that once stood in present-day Castlefield.
“Rick found the reference ages ago and always wanted to turn it into a font,” says F37’s Keelin Wright. “We wanted to take something from the city, and create a font that represents the history of Manchester, but still feels quite modern as well.”
The sign in St Michael’s Place that inspired F37’s Mancunio typeface
Wright explains that although there are a lot grotesque sans serif fonts in the F37 library, the “quirky” letter endings and old-style numerals create “ a more human type of grotesque.”
When it came to launching the typeface, Wright says they wanted to celebrate its connection to Manchester – where F37 is based – in the right way.
“We thought because we’ve taken something physical from the city in terms of the sign, we want to give something physical back,” she explains. “We felt that the billboards would give something typographic to the city, especially around springtime, when Manchester is coming out of the gloom.”
F37’s Mancunio typeface
Banks and Oldham had worked together on several previous projects and bought in Ling to develop the copy-led campaign.
She admits it was a daunting brief in some ways, given some high-profile misfires with localised campaigns in Manchester in recent years.
In 2022, locals ridiculed a Magnum advert which misrepresented one of the city’s more insalubrious squares, while a recent Adidas billboard for Manchester United proclaiming that “Manneh is Red” was equally derided.
Writing on LinkedIn, designer and United fan Andrew Whitehead said he had never once heard the club referred to as Manneh. “It’s not a nickname. It’s not Manchester United. It’s just… off,” he wrote. “This is what fake authenticity looks like.”
“There is all this localised stuff that just bombs,” Ling says. “The pressure is on not to do something that feels tired and out of touch.”
F37’s Mancunio typeface
The team all felt it was important to steer away from many of the well-worn Manchester motifs, which many people feel have been co-opted by commercial interests looking to exploit the city’s creative soul.
“When we were putting the brief together, we found pages and pages of reference for things that we didn’t want,” Wright says. “It was much harder to find things that showed what we actually wanted.”
“A lot of this stuff feels like it was made by outsiders,” Oldham says. “History didn’t start here in the 1980s – there’s a wealth of culture and community spirit.” It was exciting, he says, to avoid cliches around Tony Wilson, the Hacienda stripes, and the city’s bee symbol and try and capture “the stoicism, the acerbic wit and the self-deprecating pride.”
Some of the posters do take familiar topics – like the city’s famously bad weather or Ian Brown’s quote that Manchester has “Everything but a beach” – but Ling says they worked hard to find “a sting in the tail” and “reclaim” these tropes.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Other references are extremely local and deliberately perplexing to outsiders, such as the celebration of Boombox Barry, an iconic local personality.
“He’s part of our everyday experience of being in Manchester,” Ling says. “It was nice to give him his flowers in terms of the joy that he brings, and the enigma that he is.”
One poster even references the Magnum-advert debacle, celebrating “alfresco tinnies on a piss-soaked Piccadilly G.”
For the design, they tried several approaches, including using acid colours, but Oldham says he and Banks realised at one point they were “trying too hard.” The stark white text on black background was the perfect way to showcase the typeface, Oldham says, and stands out in the cityscape.
“This dense spot of black cuts through this ocean of visual clutter,” he explains. “It confronts people, and forces them to read the words.”
Ling adds that the design works perfectly to communicate the deadpan tone of her copy lines.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Manchester’s creative scene has been struggling with the changes wrought by the city’s rapid growth and development in recent years. Designers have even taken to remixing the city’s famous visual language to protest against “incessant gentrification.”
Oldham recognises the tension, although he thinks it’s happening in many cities.
“I think as cities grow and change rapidly, you get to a crossroads,” he says. “What are we going to change into? What are we going to take with us? And what have we got to leave behind?
“I think that’s a universal worry, but Manchester’s very much at that point in its life cycle right now.”
Ling agrees. “It’s not that the city’s independent spirit is being crushed, it’s more like it’s being Last Of Us fungi-d,” she says, in reference to the hit HBO show. “It does feel that everything that you know in your bones makes Manchester great is being commoditised.”
F37’s Mancunio typeface
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
Ellen Ling and Craig Oldham’s posters to launch F37’s Mancunio typeface. Photo by Tim Sinclair.
#new #f37 #typeface #launches #with
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