Oban

Originally drawn as a rebranding proposal for a fashion house, Oban takes inspiration from Thorowgood types and from sample books of wood cut fonts from the late nineteenth century, with their spirited and expressive, heavyweight graphic, sometimes naively drawn forms. Oban has a modular geometry and its character shape has an extra sharpness, with the slight curve connecting vertical to horizontal and curve to straight line of the originals reduced to a sharp angle. It has two versions, with ball terminals or triangular serifs, each with a backwards italics and outline. The backwards italic suggests the kind of self-consciously quirky idea a nineteenth century type founder might have had.