Nexus
| FontFont Focus
In the type specimen Nexus | FontFont Focus, published by FSI FontShop International in 2007, I wrote about the genesis of the Nexus family.
In the text I tried to explain my newly defined type design philosophy. Where in Scala and in Seria I had defined the principle as Two typefaces, one form principle, with Nexus I had changed this into Three typefaces, one form principle, because I had added the slab serif version Nexus Mix.
Just like the other issues in the FontFont Focus series (Scala, Quadraat, Meta etc.), the concept and design was done by Wim Westerveld.
Some passages and images below have been added or changed.
Read the full text below or
download the original type
specimen (PDF 
)
at the bottom of this page.
Nexus: A three-way conversation in type
A three-way conversation in type, Threesome and The new Scala? are just three qualifications that were given to my type family Nexus, when it was released in 2004.
The fact that Nexus has three variants, a serif, a sanserif and a slabserif (a mix between serif and sans), makes it a highly versatile typeface. Its third extension, the slabserif, is a logical result of my type design philosophy which started with the release of Scala and Scala Sans some 15 years ago.
Press release of Nexus. FontShop International FSI, 2005
First serif, then sans
Almost 20 years ago, during the time I started designing Scala, I almost intuitively developed a process in which the sans serif version was derived from the serif version: first the serif, then the sans. Later I called this theory ‘2 typefaces, 1 form principle’, and the immediate succes of Scala and Scala Sans was a proof that I was on the right track.
It turned out that his ‘theory’ wasn’t new at all, but thanks to digital techniques I was able to bring it into practice in a way that had not been seen before in type design. Features like old style figures and small caps, in all weights, in serif and sans and in regular and italic, simply had not been possible in the time of hot metal type. But at the start of the digital type area, this versatility was something new. It was 1993 and I think I was the first type designer to design italic small caps for a sans serif typeface. In a way its versatility made Scala revolutionary.In the years that followed I saw that it was not so difficult to expand my ‘theory’ with the design of a third member of the family, simply by taking the sans and add thick serifs to it. It would become a slabserif that was not designed from scratch like Rockwell or Memphis. Instead it would be derived directly from a sanserif, that itself again was derived from a serif design. The connection of the three versions would automatically make it a coherent family. My initial type design philosophy of ‘2 typefaces, 1 form principle’ simply became ‘3 typefaces, 1 form principle’.
The three versions of Nexus (serif, sans and mix) share the same form principle
The Nexus principle
From 2002 to 2004 I brought my extended theory into practice when I
designed Nexus, a family of three ‘connected’ typefaces. Nexus
is the Latin word for connection,
and at this stage I changed my ‘3
typefaces, 1 form principle’-slogan simply into ‘The
Nexus principle’.
Nexus started as an alternative to Seria, a typeface I had designed
some 5 years earlier. Seria has some strong features like extremely
long ascenders and descenders, and an upright italic. This had been a
reaction to the rather straight Scala forms. I started working on an
alternative version of Seria, with shorter ascenders and descenders.
But soon this design developed into a new typeface, with numerous
changes in proportions and in details, and with a redrawn italic. The
result was a workhorse typeface like Scala, with all the features like
small caps in all weights, nine different sorts of numbers and
ligatures: Nexus Serif was
born.
Logically, Nexus Sans
resulted directly from Nexus Serif, with identical features. But I too
developed a new family member: Nexus
Mix, a slabserif or egyptienne that in its turn was based on
Nexus Sans. The addition of the word ‘Mix’ in its name was a result of
the idea that a slabserif is a real mixture between a sans and a
serif. The three versions of Nexus are really close family members:
the subtle differences in shape are revealed when they are
superimposed upon each other.
Subtle differences in shape when the 3 versions of Nexus are superimposed upon each other
Typographical notes to Nexus
The Nexus family is a complex typeface to use, with numerous version
and possibilities. To sum up all possibilities would go too far, but
below there are a few hidden features and also some hints for using
Nexus properly.
Nexus Serif
Nexus Serif is a serious text face with features like small caps,
standard and special ligatures, old style figures, fractions and
miscellaneous characters.
The proportions of Nexus Serif are quite universal, which means the
typeface can be used for a wide range of printed matter, from weekly
magazines and scientific books to logotypes and posters. The italic
has an ‘ideal’ slope of 9°, the bold distinguish itself enough from
the regular version but at the same time is not too fat.
Nexus Sans
The sans serif version, Nexus Sans, is derived directly from the
serif. A serifless counterpart like this already proved to be
effective in typefaces like Scala and Seria. All the serious text face
features that can be found in Nexus Serif are present in this sans
version. This makes it an ideal partner so that the two can be
combined intelligently. The italic in Nexus Sans is a ‘real’ italic,
not a sloped roman.
Nexus Mix
The slabserif version, Nexus Mix, was derived directly from the sans version. It is a quite humanistic slabserif, designed in the same strain as PMN Ceacilia and TheSerif. The fact that this slabserif can be combined effortlessly with the sans and with the serif, makes Nexus a versatile family.
Mixing Serif, Sans and Slab
A good example of using the three Nexus versions together is in a multi-langual text. For example English, German and French texts can be distinguished from each other quite easily, without losing coherence. Using serif, sans and slab versions together is much better than using a light, a regular and a bold, as seen too often in Swiss three-language books.
The three versions of Nexus. The text is from ‘A Morning at the Bookshop’ by Carl J. Burckhardt
Cover design by Josef Müller-Brockmann (left), using Helvetica regular for all three languages.
I designed a fake cover (right) to show how it could work with the three versions of Nexus.
One of the special sorts in the Nexus family is a series of Swash characters, inspired very much on the Italian scribes from the Renaissance, like Arrighi, Tagliente and Palatino. Nexus Italic Swash has two different swash versions for the 26 capitals. Moreover all 26 lowercase characters have an end swash, both in a short version and in a long version.
The written capitals of Arrighi (1521) are one of the main sources of inspiration for Nexus Swash (right)
For some other signs in Nexus Italic Swash – like question mark, exclamation mark, ampersand and brackets – there are special ‘swash’-versions:
Nexus Typewriter
Nexus comes with a monospaced typewriter version in Regular, Italic, Bold and Bolditalic, and there is a choice between old style figures and lining figures. The whole typewriter version is designed in a way that the colour looks more even than in other typewriter faces. Characters like ‘m’ and ‘w’ are often clotted because of the small space it has to be put in. In Nexus Typewriter the ‘m’ has a special design: the middle bar is shortened in order to get a lighter character (as shown in the example below, where Nexus Typewriter is compared with Letter Gothic). For the same reason the ‘i’ has long serifs to match its colour better with the other characters.
Small caps
Small caps are available for all versions and all weights (except for the typewriter version). There are some specially designed characters to fit with the small caps, like question mark, exclamation mark and ampersand:
Numbers
There are 9 different sort of numbers and valuta signs for old style figures, lining figures, superscript, subscript, fractions, numerators and denominators:
There are special square and round boxes which can be combined with the denominator numbers to create ‘boxed’ numbers up to 99. The set width of the square and round boxes is zero, so when the number is typed it is automatically superimposed into the shapes.
Ligatures and special characters
There is an extensive range of special characters, available in all Nexus weights.
Standard ligatures:
Special ligatures and historical forms:
Squares, circles, stars and arrows, in both solid and outline:
Miscellaneous characters:
There are specially drawn superscript characters. Their weight and width is slighly adjusted to fit perfectly with the normal characters. The best known superscript characters are the ª (ordinal feminine) and º (ordinal masculine). They are frequently used in abbrevations:
But other superscript characters are sometimes used too:
There are case-sensitive forms in all versions and weights of Nexus. This means that characters like hyphen, slash and parantheses are lifted slightly to get in line with capital characters.
When the Nexus family (Serif, Swash, Sans, Mix, Typewriter) was released in 2004, it was one of FontShop’s first OpenType font families. There are two OpenType versions of Nexus: OpenType Standard and OpenType Pro.
The OpenType Standard version contains accented characters for Western, Southern and Northern European languages, like:
The OpenType Pro version also contains accented characters for Central and Eastern European languages like:
Supported languages in OpenType
Standard:
Albanian, Breton, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French,
German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese,
Rhaeto-Romance, Spanish, Swedisch.
Additional supported languages in
OpenType Pro:
Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Kurdish, Latvian (Lettisch),
Lithuanian, Moldavian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Sorbian
Lower, Sorbian Upper, Turkish.
Both OpenType Standard and OpenType Pro support the following layout
features:
Standard ligatures, Discretionary ligatures, Historical forms, Small
capitals, Small capitals from capitals, Case-sensitive forms, Capital
spacing, Oldstyle figures, Lining figures, Proportional figures, Tabular
figures, Fractions, Numerators, Denominators, Ordinals, Scientific
inferiors, Superscript, Subscript, Mathematical Greek, Acces all
alternates, Stylistic alternates, Ornaments.
Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, Spacing Modifier Letters, Greek and Coptic, Latin Extended Additional, General Punctuation, Superscripts and Subscripts, Currency Symbols, Letterlike Symbols, Number Forms, Arrows, Mathematical Operators, Geometric Shapes, Misclellaneous Symbols, Dingbats, Alphabetical Presentation Form.
Martin Majoor
Nexus | FontFont Focus
Download the specimen (PDF 9,7 Mb)
© Martin Majoor. First published in FontFont Focus, FSI FontShop International, 2007