Brandon Grotesque Webfont in Focus

Foundry’s Description

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Editor’s Notes

Brandon Grotesque’s enduring appeal lies in its capacity for strong but muted headlines and titles. It has just enough character, and is just individual enough, to appeal to designers wanting an expressive typographic palette yet it won’t dominate a layout nor recede into the background.

That character is in part down to its geometric origins, that recall the elegance and class of 1920s and ’30s deco modernism – those high ascenders impart a grace and poise that bring to mind dancing partners at a ’20s society ball or rows of tall cocktail glasses.

Less subjectively, Brandon’s geometry has been carefully considered and adjusted depending on the weight; optical corrections have been made to improve legibility but in the Black weight the counters are often perfect circles, which really adds to the retro air.

Brandon’s best use is for setting headlines, titles and mid length texts such as block quotes and call outs. It looks great in all caps settings, and we would recommend that for navigation menus and taxonomy blocks where the font size might be smaller. We wouldn’t go as far to say that it should be avoided in extended paragraph texts, but there are better options out there with many of the same qualities – not least Brandon’s younger brother Brandon Text which is designed for specifically for that function.

See Brandon Grotesque in action:

• The Climate Reality Project

  This tile-based layout presents a vigorous and lively design pallet mixing up lots of typography,…

  

• Alex Talmon

  Heavy all-caps titles centered over widescreen photography is a popular and well established design…

  

• Worldwide Print

  This is a clear, bright and spacious layout, and Brandon Grotesque, with its tall ascenders and…