Eskapade

Designed by Alisa Nowak . Released 2012.

An experimental Fraktur and a nimble oldstyle serif now share common ground in Eskapade. The serif styles have a contemporary ease, light typographic colour, and smooth design — perfect for continuous book and magazine text. Eskapade Fraktur’s visual punch captures the reader’s attention in headlines, visual identities, branding and logotypes, and packaging, especially with the second set of double-stroked decorative capitals that encourage experimental use and creative application.

  • Typographica’s Best Typefaces of 2012
  • Bronze, 2013 European Design Awards
  • 2013 Communication Arts Typography Annual
Eskapade Fraktur Set. 6 fonts USD 183,13
Eskapade Roman set. 10 fonts USD 346,70
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Die faszinierende Welt der Botanik!

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Pilze zählen in der botanischen Systematik nicht zu den Pflanzen und haben ein eigenes Fachgebiet innerhalb der Biologie, die sog. Mykologie.

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Was ist ein Botanischer Garten? Der Begriff bezeichnet eine großräumig angelegte Gartenanlage, in der große Sammlungen von holzigen und krautigen Pflanzen kultiviert werden. Die einheimischen oder exotischen Pflanzen werden dort größtenteils nach botanischer Herkunft und Pflanzenarten sortiert. Ein Botanischer Garten dient nicht nur dem Artenschutz, dem Erhalt der biologischen Vielfalt und der Erholung seiner Besucher, sondern auch der wissenschaftlichen Forschung von Biologie-Abteilungen von Hochschulen und Universitäten. Außerdem ermöglicht ein Botanischer Garten Pflanzen-Interessierten ein privates Studium der Botanik und dient mit Schildern, Schautafeln und botanischen Exkursionen der Vermittlung von Wissen (vgl. z.B. Blumentypen).

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Die Wurzeln der Botanischen Gärten in Europa reichen bis in die Renaissance im 15.–17. Jahrhundert zurück, in der die Kunst und der Geist der Antike eine Wiedergeburt erlebte. In der Antike war die Philosophie noch eng mit der Pflanzenkunde und Gärten verbunden, weshalb nun ein intensives Studium der Natur und Pflanzenkunde in wissenschaftliche Gartenanlagen stattfand. So wie es bereits der Naturforscher und Philosoph Theophrastos von Eresos (ca. 372–287 v. Chr.) im Nationalgarten von Athen exercierte. Theophrastos von Eresos, der Verfasser von ‘Naturgeschichte der Gewächse’, war damit vermutlich der Gründer des ersten Botanischen Gartens.

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The Backstory

Eskapade

Creating new common ground between a nimble oldstyle serif font and an experimental Fraktur.

The Eskapade font family is the result of Alisa Nowak’s research into Roman and German blackletter forms, mainly Fraktur letters. The idea was to adapt these broken forms into a contemporary family instead of creating a faithful revival of an historical typeface. On one hand, the ten normal Eskapade styles are conceived for continuous text in books and magazines with good legibility in smaller sizes. On the other hand, the six angled Eskapade Fraktur styles capture the reader’s attention in headlines with its mixture of round and straight forms as seen in ‘e’, ‘g’, and ‘o’. Eskapade works exceptionally well for branding, logotypes, and visual identities, for editorials like magazines, fanzines, or posters, and for packaging.

Eskapade roman adopts a humanist structure, but is more condensed than other oldstyle serifs. The reason behind this stems from the goal of closely resembling the Fraktur style to create harmony in mixed text settings. Legibility is enhanced by its low contrast between thick and thin strokes and its tall x-height. Eskapade offers an airy and light typographic colour with its smooth design. Eskapade italic is based on the Cancellaresca script and shows some particularities in its condensed and round forms. This structure also provided the base for Eskapade Fraktur Italic.

Eskapade Fraktur is more contrasted and slightly bolder than the usual darkness of a regular weight. The innovative Eskapade Fraktur Italic, equally based on the Cancellaresca script previously mentioned, is secondarily influenced by the Sütterlin forms — an unique script practiced in Germany in the vanishingly short period between 1915 and 1941. The new ornaments are also hybrid Sütterlin forms to fit with the smooth roman styles.

Although there are many Fraktur-style typefaces available today, they usually lack italics, and their italics are usually slanted uprights rather than proper italics. This motivated extensive experimentation with the italic Fraktur shapes and resulted in Eskapade Fraktur’s unusual and interesting solutions. In addition to standard capitals, it offers a second set of more decorative capitals with double-stroke lines to intensify creative application and encourage experimental use.

The Thin and Black Fraktur styles are meant for display sizes (headlines, posters, branding, and signage). A typeface with this much tension needs to keep a good harmony between strokes and counters, so Eskapade Black has amplified inktraps and a more dynamic structure seen in the contrast between straight and round forms. These qualities make the family bolder and more enticing, especially with the included uppercase alternates. The Fraktur’s black weights are strident, refusing to let the white of the paper win the tug-of-war. It also won’t give away its secrets: Is it modern or historic, edgy or amicable, beguiling ornamentation or brutish presentation? That all depends on how the radically expanded Eskapade family is used, but its 16 fonts certainly aren’t tame. See some examples in our blog.

CREDITS
Lead design and concept
Alisa Nowak

Engineering
Joancarles Casasín
Sonja Stange

Quality assurance
Azza Alameddine

Graphic design
Alisa Nowak
Elena Veguillas

Copywriting
Joshua Farmer

About Us

TypeTogether is an indie type foundry committed to excellence in type design with a focus on editorial use. Additionally, TypeTogether creates custom type design for corporate use. We invite you to browse our library of retail fonts or contact us to discuss custom type design projects.