FF Milo Becomes a Super Family

Mike Abbink explained that his goal with FF Milo was to create a robust workhorse family ideally suited for the complex requirements of magazine and newspaper typography. In order to achieve this goal the graphic designer living in New York outfitted his new typeface with comparatively very short ascenders and descenders, and lent it – specifically in the italics – an individual character without letting it become too unusual.

A good contemporary text face is characterised by the fact that it is inconspicuous, yet very personal in its details, and before all perfectly readable. This makes Abbink's FF Milo no longer a rising, but a shining star in the FontFont library.

With the recent addition of FF Milo Serif the newly created super family is outfitted to tackle the most demanding typographic tasks, and rejoins the major sans/serif families that serve as beacons for users in the typographic landscape. Aided by Paul van der Laan, who assisted with spacing and kerning, as well as the more technical aspects of font production, Abbink not only created the perfect harmonious counterpart for his popular 18-style type family, but also an independently successful serif face, which works perfectly well on its own as well as in combination with other sans serifs. The design strikes a chord with the current zeitgeist without renouncing its historical roots. An elegant balancing act that requires not only a lot of talent, but also a lot of experience. Mike Abbink has proven this again with the new FF Milo Serif. We are very happy to be able to offer this new release as a part of our yellow-black type collection.

Sample by Alexander Roth. View larger.

FF Milo Serif and its big sister FF Milo (type specimen by Stephen Coles)

Header image by Frank Grießhammer. View larger.