Samarium: A Bold Condensed Font

SAMARIUM A bold condensed sans serif

Samarium is a bold authoritative condensed font with an abundance of subtle and interesting attributes. Not your basic blocky sans serif, this font implements a number of unusual details, such as a top-heavy taper, arced terminals, some slanted — and some curved — crossbars and strokes, and more.

DIRECTOR'S CUT: THE STORY BEHIND THIS FONT

When I was designing fonts for ITC way back in the nineties, I ran an earlier version of this design by the eyes of the design committee at their [then] New York City office in Hammarskjold Plaza. They liked what they saw but wanted me to tone down some of the more outside-the-box elements, especially in the upper case character set. That more conservative version of the font was released as ITC Verkehr. Although I'm very proud of that font design, I consider Samarium to be the "director's cut” version of the font. In other words, it more closely matches my original vision. Enjoy!