Contro (with Michael Cina) [3DX 145]

Contro is a type by myself and Michael Cina. It is available through Public Type. Contro is about utopian pre-war modernism versus capitalist post-war modernism. Contro takes its basis from Italian types of the early 20th century, expanding outwards into global writing traditions.

Contro is not a “revival” type: these letters are about moving forward. I drew a first alphabet in November 2023, from which Michael extrapolated and imagined many more, as he led the font making process.

Contro's glyphs and styles were designed with many typographic cultures in mind. The turn of the 20th century saw a major turn to industrialization, which in turn inspired typography designed with (sometimes too much) practicality in mind.

Tschichold is someone we both respect. It wouldn't make sense to omit a reference to his experiments with skeletal Latin alphabets, or to his fascinating critical journey. The names Renner, Bill, and Bayer also came up in our first, long discussion.

Please challenge yourself to explore other methods of language construction as you experiment with Contro's glyph set. Setting legible Latin language text is certainly possible. This typeface was made with multiculturalism in mind. That said, the designer using Contro has some decisions to make about how and what they use it for. We encourage you to fuss with choices, spacing, and layout after you ask yourself the big questions.

Working with Mike lets me speak very naturally about all aspects of visual form. The dialogue feels almost psychic. More than half of the entire Contro glyph set was designed by him in 4 or 5 days after he saw my first letters. His intuitiveness as a collaborator is staggering. His line drawing is always James Brown levels of precision and funk. We have collaborated regularly over two decades for this reason. I can never pass up a chance to jam with him.