Bagatelle

Bagatelle began as an attempt to add a lower case to Freehouse, but swifty developed into a design all its own. It owes something to Oz Cooper and his eponymous Cooper Black and the Cooper-inspired Goudy Heavy, Frederic Goudy’s 1925 riposte for Lanston Monotype. The rounded bracketed serifs are a feature of both Freehouse and ITC’s American Typewriter, which was designed in 1974 when the friendly Cooper styles were undergoing a huge resurgence.

The family comes in three widths, each with alternative swash capitals that can be globally toggled on or off in the Opentype panel of graphics applications or chosen individually from the Glyphs palette. There are also stylistic sets that offer alternate versions of the K, R, a, d, h, k, m and n with extended tails, a single-story g, a lining (i.e. without a tail that descends below the baseline) Q suitable for tight leading, straight-legged versions of the K and R, Qu and Th ligatures, and swash final characters for the k, r, v, w and x. (These final swash characters are not inteded for use in the middle of a word.) A set of arrows and manucules are also included.

Bagatelle is warm, approachable and full of life.

Tags
1970sblackletter-inspiredboldbulbouscircuscondensedcurlycurvydecorativedisplayextendedfunkyheavyhigh-contrastornamentalplayfulquirkyretroroundedserifslab serifsoftspiralswashultra boldvictorian-inspiredvintagewesternwhimsicalwood type