century old style

+sweet sans

in action

Sweet Sans 150 / 140 pt + Century Old Style 24 / 28 pt

why do they

match?

The pairing of Century Old Style and Sweet Sans is a pairing of maximum contrasts. Unlike as they may be, each typeface seems to say to the other — Hey, look, I've got everything you haven’t! And they not only can get along well together but offer something very special in simply switching roles.

Sweet Sans Uppercase

Lowercase

Numbers & Symbols

Century Old Style Lowercase

Uppercase

Numbers & Symbols

1. Proportions

While very different in appearance, the faces do share some things — relatively large x-height and the similar length of the extenders. In all else, they differ significantly. Century's capitals are taller and narrower than Sweet's. Century tends to bunch its hanging elements, while Sweet lets them fall freely. Century's ascenders are the height of its capitals. Sweet's are taller. 

Century and Sweet's capitals differ in width but are very similar in their proportions – both are regularly proportioned types. Century tends to frame its capitals in a narrow rectangle (with sides in an approximate relationship of 2x3), while Sweet's capitals tend to squareness.

In the lowercases, both typefaces carry forward the intention announced in the capitals. Century seeks maximum compactness, while Sweet lounges comfortably across space. At the same time, unlike Sweet, whose lowercase letters are relatively equal in width, Century's lowercase letters include several notable exceptions: the letters -e- and -s- are wider than the others by just enough to stand apart distinctively in text-sizes.

Despite their important differences, both faces work very well as text type. Sweet has everything that a sans serif needs for comfortable reading. On the other hand, it is best to go with as large a Century as possible, for the Century image is not well adapted for showing on screens.

2. Details

Century Old Style is consistent in mixing a late-19th-century typeface with elements of letterforms from a century and more before. It does not draw the elements from a single model but blends elements from many. Sweet Sans, unlikeCentury, is a typeface with a direct connection to its prototypes — the engraving-likescripts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

about

Century Old Style

Sweet Sans

Morris Fuller Benton

1909

American Type Founders Company

Mark van Bronkhorst

2011

MVB Fonts

Today, when many people are rediscovering the warmth of “analog” things — the purr of old recordings, the grainy texture of photographic film, sweaters and scarves as granny might have knit them — designers and typographers are, too, in their own distinctive ways.

In addition to a growing interest in calligraphy, letterpress printing and the forms of old-time sign painting, there is the obvious popularity of all things connected to Victorian typography, which offers a bit of unhurried domestic ease in a world of instant communications and thus seems to take us back to a time when the fastest means of travel was the steam locomotive and when letters in actual paper envelopes were delivered to one's door.

In the world of digital typefaces, the nostalgia for handmade things has given rise to a new demand for the awkward charm and plastic variety of old sans-serifs.

Sweet Sans takes its inspiration from models of engraved lettering found on various kinds of personal and business correspondence from a hundred years ago and widens the range of application to the maximum — from large titles and headlines to blocks of text and footnotes.

The typeface is available to Readymag users in five styles: Light, Regular, Italic, Medium and Bold.