Power Grid was one of my earliest Fontstruct designs. The basic concept was inspired by early 20th century constructivist designs and has a very industrial feel. I’ve recently revisited the concept and am releasing Power Grid as an OpenType font.

Download Power Grid and Power Grid Oblique (OpenType format, ZIP archive)

While converting it to OpenType, I was able to add an oblique version. Something that wasn’t really possible in Fontstruct. Hopefully, it makes Power Grid more useful as a family. (Note: Both fonts start with an SbB prefix to differentiate them from the Fontstruct originals.)

Oddly enough, Power Grid works well in both “high-tech” applications and constructivist-inspired retro designs. I’ve included some samples below that are directly inspired by some constructivist poster designs.

I’ve released three new fontstructions – Woodrow Light, Dradis and Pseudoscript. You can download them for free from Fontstruct. (Note: Free registration required to download…)

Woodrow Light

One of my favorite Fontstruct creations is Woodrow. I always wanted to create a lighter version and finally got around to it. Woodrow Light is a condensed typeface. It’s intended as a display face, but surprisingly, it works well in smaller sizes as well.

Dradis

I sketched out Dradis for a logo I was working on. And while I liked the design, it was completely wrong for the client. I ended up repurposing it for a logo contest (I know, they are evil…) and lost. So I offer it up here in hopes that someone will love this oddball creation.

My own goal on this design was to maintain a degree of legibility while having no space between letters. And I wanted to keep the design as simple as possible. The resulting design uses only 6 block shapes and most of the letters are contained within a 3x5 grid.

Geeky note about the name: As the design developed, I noticed that many of the letters had slanted corners to differentiate them from their neighbors. And it reminded me of how every sheet of paper on Ron Moore’s reimagined Battlestar Galactica had the corners cut off at a 45 degree angle. So when I got ready to name the font, I looked for a random reference from the show. DRADIS is the Colonial Fleet’s equivalent of RADAR and the name seemed to fit the design.

Psuedoscript

I sketched out this basic concept while waiting in a doctor’s office. The concept was to take inspiration from something difficult to build with Fontstruct - a script. I created a version called Baseline, but after a few months, I revisited the concept and ended up with Pseudoscript. Changed the proportions. Rethought some of the letterforms. Got rid of the clumsy upper case.

And I’m pretty happy with the resulting typeface. It’s readable and distinctive. I recommend using the low line character to connect words. I’ve added some starting and ending characters as well. (Some letters look a little strange starting a word.)