About

Pennypacker is a sturdy and reliable sans serif, a versatile design full of personality. As a contemporary take on the Neue Moderne Grotesk lineage of early grotesks, the design is focused on stylish functionality – equally useful for packaging and poster design as it is for mobile apps and wayfinding. With its wide range of styles, the design is also perfectly suited for use in brand identity systems and publication design. The family includes 5 widths: Compressed, Condensed, Standard, SemiWide, and Wide, and 9 weights: Hairline, Extra Light, Light, Book, Regular, Medium, Bold, Extra Bold, and Black, for a total of 45 roman styles. Pennypacker is available as a single variable font, with weight and width axes, as well as smaller variable fonts for each individual width: Wide, SemiWide, Standard, Condensed, and Compressed.

Historical background: The Neue Moderne Grotesk lineage of typefaces originates from the matricies of Wagner & Schmidt, Leipzig in 1914 (Indra Kupferschmid, 2014). Pennypacker is inspired in particular by Aurora-Grotesk and Favorit-Grotesk, but also draws from the many siblings of this style, namely Annonce, Edel-Grotesk, Normal Grotesk, Hallo, and Flachdruck-Grotesk. After extensive digging through type specimens and ephemera, especially at San Francisco’s Letterform Archive with the invaluable guidance of Stephen Coles, the resulting design in Pennypacker is a curated synthesis of these printed materials optimized for use as a cohesive series of families for contemporary typesetting. Using variable font technology, it is now possible to access a wide spectrum of variations from these historical sources all contained in a single font file, including combinations that never existed. Rather than a strict revival, Pennypacker aims to build on the “everyday design” sensibility at the core of this genre of industrial grotesks and adapt it for use today.

Compressed in the narrowest width of Pennypacker ↓

This is Pennypacker Compressed Hairline

Pennypacker Comp Extra Light

Pennypacker Comp Light

Pennypacker Comp Book

Pennypacker Comp Regular

Pennypacker Comp Medium

Pennypacker Comp Bold

Pennypacker Comp Extra Bold

Pennypacker Comp Black

Condensed is slightly wider ↓

Cond Hairline is slightly wider

Cond Extra Light is slightly wider

Cond Light is slightly wider

Cond Book is slightly wider

Cond Regular is slightly wider

Cond Medium is slightly wider

Cond Bold is slightly wider

Cond Extra Bold is slightly wider

Cond Black is slightly wider

This is the “standard” width of Pennypacker ↓

Pennypacker Hairline is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Extra Light is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Light is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Book is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Regular is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Medium is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Bold is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Extra Bold is the “standard” width

Pennypacker Black is the “standard” width

SemiWide is pretty wide, but not the widest ↓

SemiWide Hairline is pretty wide

SemiWide Extra Light is pretty wide

SemiWide Light is pretty wide

SemiWide Book is pretty wide

SemiWide Regular is pretty wide

SemiWide Medium is pretty wide

SemiWide Bold is pretty wide

SemiWide Extra Bold is pretty wide

SemiWide Black is pretty wide

Pennypacker Wide is the widest of all ↓

Wide Hairline is the widest

Wide Extra Light is the widest

Wide Light is the widest

Wide Book is the widest

Wide Regular is the widest

Wide Medium is the widest

Wide Bold is the widest

Wide Extra Bold is the widest

Wide Black is the widest