FF Scala Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....

 designed in by Dutch designer Martin Majoor

Martin Majoor

Martin Majoor is a Dutch typedesigner and graphic designer.-Biography:Martin Majoor has been designing type since the mid-1980s. During his study at the School of Fine Art in Arnhem , he shortly worked in a student placement at URW in Hamburg. It was there that he was able to work with the first...

 in 1993 for the Vredenburg Music Center in Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

, the Netherlands. It was designed as a companion to Majoor's earlier serif old style typeface FF Scala

FF Scala

FF Scala is an old style, humanist, serif typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1990 for the Vredenburg Music Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The FF Scala font family was named for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan...

, designed in 1990.

Like Eric Gill's

Eric Gill

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...

 1927–30 design Gill Sans

Gill Sans

Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill.The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Cleverdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where Eric Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals that would later be known as Gill Sans...

 and Hans Eduard Meier's typeface Syntax

Syntax (typeface)

The Syntax font families are designed by Hans Eduard Meier. Originally started with sans-serif fonts, it was expanded to include serif designs.-Syntax:...

, both upper and lower case are structurally modeled on serif old style faces. The lowercase roman a and g are two-story. FF Scala Sans italics are true italics, not sloped roman. The lowercase a, e, v and y are particularly calligraphic. FF Scala Sans is a very complete sans-serif in its inclusion of true small capitals, lining and non-lining (old style figures) and many ligatures. In 1993 an additional condensed width of the typeface was released. The typefaces are available through Font Shop International.

External links

• FF Scala microsite A website fully dedicated to FF Scala
• Writing With Scala Typespecimen by Ellen Lupton (2005)
• www.martinmajoor.com Martin Majoor’s official website
• My Type Design Philosophy by Martin Majoor (2002)
• Martin Majoor, type designer Interview by Peter Biľak
  Peter Bilak
  Peter Biľak Slovakian graphic and typeface designer, based in The Hague , The Netherlands. He is the head of the type foundry Typotheque. In 2003, he designed a series of the standard post stamps for the Dutch Royal mail...
  
  (2003)
• Types and Characters: Martin Majoor Brochure by Nina Völlink (2007)
• Martin Majoor on fontshop.com
• Uses of FF Scala