Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 1d

Arny Sans looks like a fantastically refreshing take on the Jugendstil concept, would love to see more of that!

Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 1d

A small update: if you’re buying fonts via our website, there’s now an option to apply a 50% student discount without needing to contact us.

(You can always use our trial fonts in class without paying anything — this is only for commercial projects, published websites, etc.)

mass-driver.com

Screenshot of a section of the checkout page on our foundry website, showing a checkbox marked ‘Licensee is a student’ (currently selected). The line below reads, ‘50% off. Student licenses remain valid after you graduate.’

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 14d

Super nice example of MD Nichrome in use, by Malcontenti Studio for Yatasto, a bar/pizzeria in Buenos Aires.

(I love seeing projects like this!)

Via @fontsinuse.com: fontsinuse.com/uses/71993/y...

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Reposted by Mass-Driver

Linotype Pilgrim @symbo1ics.bsky.social · 20d

Typofonderie's gorgeous Caslonian M type tester:

"Turn on replies, coward" in Light, Light Italic, and Regular weights

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Sep 3

For years, @matthewsmith.website’s typefoundry.directory has been my favourite place to discover new, independent type foundries.

This summer Matthew released a huge update to the site, and also (finally!) let me support his efforts with a sponsorship — this month, the nameplate is set in MD Lórien

Screenshot of the new Type Foundry Directory main page, showing the name “Type Foundry Directory” (very large, set in MD Lórien Italic), and the first couple of foundry listings.

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Sep 2

Happy to have been able to contribute some thoughts to @goodspeed.bsky.social’s latest piece for @its-nice-that.bsky.social.

It’s great to see an article on design ethics consider type and UX, which generally don’t follow the typical client–agency model.

www.itsnicethat.com/features/is-...

The Good, the Bad, and the Iffy: is there such a thing as an ethical designer?

Designers from Pentagram, Koto, Creech, and more talk candidly about the murky waters of client selection, the logistics and risks of rejecting work on moral grounds, and how to keep afloat without lo...

www.itsnicethat.com

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Sep 1

Regardless of how good the platform is for sharing my work, I love that the design conversations here aren’t dominated by fawning dipshits talking about how much they love AI

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Sep 1

A small update on web fonts: from today, we’re no longer including the .woff format by default, since browser support for .woff2 is virtually identical (96% vs 96.7%).

We’ll continue to provide them on request for any users who need them.

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Aug 14

Designed by Ihar Yukhnevich and Masha Maroz.

(I’m hugely grateful to Ihar for sending me a copy — getting to see how people use my fonts is pure joy, and this was clearly made with so much care and effort)

Typeface (WIP): www.futurefonts.com/mass-driver/...

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Aug 14

About a month ago this arrived at the studio, and I *adore* it.

Long Way Home is a book on the work of Belarusian artist Masha Maroz. Its titles are set in MD Thermochrome, which doesn’t (yet) support Cyrillic — so the designers made their own.

Via @fontsinuse.com: fontsinuse.com/uses/69970/l...

Scan of the contents page of Long Way Home. Section titles are set in slightly tracked all-caps MD Thermochrome, in English on the verso page and Belarusian on the recto. The paper is off-white, with a rich yellow gradient towards the spine. Small supplementary text is in wide-tracked Roboto, also in all caps.

Scan of an article title page from the book. On the verso page is a large image of a tree trunk standing before a snowy woodland, wrapped in brightly-coloured ribbons. The book title is written in three languages (English, French and Belarusian) vertically along the spine, in all-caps MD Thermochrome.

On the recto page is the title and opening paragraphs of an interview. The title is also in all-caps Thermochrome, with the body text, page numbers, and a note stating the page number of the English translation all in Roboto.

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Aug 6

Thank you for the mention!

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Reposted by Mass-Driver

Linotype Pilgrim @symbo1ics.bsky.social · Aug 5

A lovely historical discussion of some of my favourite, and the oldest, typeface families, by @mass-driver.com; including many beautiful page images.

mass-driver.com/article/md-l...

#typography

MD Lórien: a Parallel to Caslon

mass-driver.com

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Aug 4

I think “renamed Y” might be the most technically correct, but “renamed to Y” is acceptable (and probably slightly clearer).

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jul 17

That’s an 11

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jul 17

Another 10/10 entry in Figma’s portfolio of features which look great but will make your web developer cry

Figma @figma.com · Jul 17

Let’s touch glass

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jul 9

Take Back Mokum: a collection of essays, interviews, illustrations and more, around the theme of squatting and housing in Amsterdam.

The first (& I hope not the last!) book set in my typeface, MD Lórien.

Via @fontsinuse.com: fontsinuse.com/uses/67027/t...
Typeface: mass-driver.com/typefaces/md...

Front cover of a paperback book, titled Take Back Mokum: Squatting and the Housing Struggle in Amsterdam. White text in MD Lórien on a purple background, with rough (linocut?) illustrations of a mix of domestic and municipal objects (e.g. a cooking pot, cargo bike, bar stools, angle grinder).

Closeup of a page from the book, showing a section title and opening paragraph. All the text, again, is in MD Lórien.

Layout & typography by Jan Egbers (janegbers.info).

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jul 9

There are few pleasures quite like seeing another designer’s interpretation of a source you know well!

The design process involves choosing to go down so many paths at the expense of others — it’s wonderful to vicariously take a different route.

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jul 8

All hits no misses! Such a lively, lovely take on the genre

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jul 3

In love with the typesetting on these posters, too

(mass-driver.com/typefaces/md...)

Poster for Aaron Parks’ summer 2025 tour. Pastel lavender and yellow, with an abstract circular design and text set in MD Nichrome.

Poster for Aaron Parks’ May 2025 tour. A moody, dark blue abstract design based around concentric circles, similar to the album artwork (quoted). White all-caps text is overlaid in two weights of MD Nichrome.

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Reposted by Mass-Driver

Fontstand @fontstand.com · Jun 30

This is the final week of collecting responses regarding font users’ opinions on the current state of font licensing. The survey will close on Sunday 6 July at midnight CEST. Once the data has been analysed, we will share the findings publicly. Complete the survey today: fontstand.com/survey

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jun 25

MD Thermochrome v0.3 is now available! This update adds 33 new styles, for a total of 40 — including a new Medium weight and 4 sets of italics.

(Also included are arrows, super & subscript, and a fractions OpenType feature)

www.future-fonts.com/mass-driver/...

Overview of the 8 weights in MD Thermochrome 0.3 (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Black & Ultra).

The typeface itself is a tightly-spaced, dot-matrix–inspired design, where horizontally adjacent dots merge into lines.

Composition showing all 5 italic variants arranged in a wave (each line of text is incrementally more or less slanted than the previous).

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jun 24

Honestly this naming took weeks, but I’d welcome a discussion about the topic in general.

(Any excuse to push back against the “font parameters should be standardised” idea, really)

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jun 24

The next update to MD Thermochrome will be out tomorrow, adding 33 (!) new styles: a new Medium weight, plus 4 sets of italics.

As always with Future Fonts releases, the price will increase for new buyers, but existing customers get all updates for free

www.future-fonts.com/mass-driver/...

An overview showing all 40 styles of MD Thermochrome v0.3. Eight weights from Thin to Ultra (Medium is new in this update), all of which are available in 5 different slants: Reclined, Retalic, upright, Italic and Inclined.

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jun 22

To be fair, Google would be delivering completely incorrect information regardless of what Devroye published

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · Jun 21

Commercial has Neue Haas Grotesk (no Condensed, but different optical sizes):
commercialtype.com/catalog/neue...

There’s also Antique Legacy from Optimo:
optimo.ch/typefaces/an...

Although I also think Klim’s Söhne is a more interesting typeface than any direct revival:
klim.co.nz/collections/...

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