The original Orpheus design by Walter Tiemann (1926-1928, Klingspor) was certainly a masterpiece. Unfortunately, like so many typefaces of that between-wars era, it got overlooked when type technology changed over to film, and once again when digital type came around. But during the decade or so when it was available on the metal type market, it was quite popular in Germany. Tiemann was already famous for having an incomparable instinct for the construct and proportions of classic Roman caps, something that shows in spades here, but the surprising genius of Orpheus at the time was how it managed to seamlessly combine an expert vision of the traditional empire caps with a lowercase that showcases a very fine and precise infusion of that efficient rhythm of modern minimalism that was all the rage in Germany at the time, which of course lives on to this very day.
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The italic companion to the original Orpheus roman was released in 1936, under the name Euphorion. One reason it never really took off is of course the fact that the war started just 3 years later, so the typeface hadn't had much time for good exposure.
The Orpheus Pro fonts started out as a straightforward revival of Tiemann’s Orpheus and Euphorion. It was as simple as a work brief can be. But did we ever get carried away, and what should have been finished in a few weeks ended up consuming the best part of a year, countless jugs of coffee, and the merciless scrutiny of too many pairs of eyeballs. The great roman caps just screamed for plenty of extensions, alternates, swashes, ligatures, fusions from different times, and of course small caps. The roman lowercase wanted additional alternates and even a few ligatures. The italic needed to get the same treatment for its lowercase that Tiemann envisioned for the uppercase. So the lowercase went overboard, with plenty of alternates and swashes and ligatures. Even the italic uppercase was augmented by (maybe too many!) extra letters. Orpheus Pro has been a real ride.
But now, looking at the end result with tired eyes and rapidly fluctuating moods, we certainly think it was worth it. There must be a snazzy line about Orpheus playing great music for your eyes, but we haven't quite formulated it yet. Such epics are hard to come by in fontland.
Each Orpheus Pro font comes equipped with upwards of 1000 characters and is rich with OpenType features and extended Latin-based language support. The Pro fonts also ship with their corresponding TTF versions, with six fonts to cover the character range of the roman and six more to cover the italic.About the designer:
Canada Type is an independent font development studio based in Toronto. The studio was founded in 2004 by Rebecca Alaccari and Patrick Griffin as a means to create professional type solutions for creative indviduals and departments all over the world. Since its inception, Canada Type has brought forth a comprehensive and popular library of typefaces that accommodate a variety of aesthetic tastes. Alongside Rebecca's and Patrick's original designs and historical revivals, the Canada Type library features typefaces by eminent American calligrapher Philip Bouwsma, Dutch science writer and lifelong type enthusiast Hans van Maanen, American expat writer and classicist Bill Troop, and Canadian type designer Kevin King.
Canada Type also continues to perform project-specific type solutions for a variety of clients, including large publishing houses, telecom and media companies, film production studios, design agencies, ad firms and government agencies. Among Canada Type's clients are instantly recognizable names like the BBC, Disney, ABC, Pixar, New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, MacLeans, Bell Canada, Rogers, Rethink, Reactor, Leo Burnett, Shaw Communications, Cafe Press, Sobeys, the Canadian Ministry of Transport, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
This package contains:
Orpheus Pro Regular and Orpheus Pro Italic
Copyright © 2011 Canada Type. All rights reserved. Orpheus™ is a trademark of Canada Type.
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