Mabry Mono

Originally released in 2018 and named after the influential funk singer Betty Davis (b. Betty Mabry, 1945), the versatile neo-grotesque Mabry now has a fixed-width counterpart in its companion, Mabry Mono.

With one foot amidst the idiosyncratic forms of the late 19th Century grotesques / grotesks, and the other among the rational maths of early 20th Century geometric sans-serifs, both Mabry and Mabry Mono posit themselves as several things at once: simultaneously contemporary and historic, rigorous and gestural, objective and subjective, cultivated and imprecise, refined and coarse.

Originally rendered from the would-be overlaps of precedent-setting grotesque and geometric types, Mabry and its fixed-pitch partner are vernacular studies in duality: the types are candid and forthright, but also a bit mischievous at times. They can prove pleasantly blunt in certain settings but also contain necessary moments of sensitivity and delicacy in their drawings. In their ideal application, Mabry and Mabry Mono manage to reference a vague past, capture a particular version of the present, and posit an amorphous timelessness.

Mabry Mono is available in three weights — Regular, Medium, and Bold — with corresponding semi-true 18° italics. It is open to licensing in both Standard (‘STD’) and Professional (‘PRO’) versions. The latter contains additional Latin language support, Cyrillic and Greek scripts, OpenType features, stylistic alternates, and copious marks and symbols.