It is an almost ‘invisible’ typeface which has legibility as its main attribute and is ideal for a wide range of design works. It does not attract any unnecessary attention, but rather serves its purpose.

The European Design Awards 2008 just finished. Celebrating the best European design, setting the benchmark, promoting and raising standard for communication design throughout europe. There where some excellent winners this year (I strongly recommend you check out the official ED Awards website).

I (and forgive me) hadn’t realised there was going to be an Original Typeface category until it was announced! It went to Centro Pro (well deserved) a solid family (slab/serif/sans). Parachute are a relatively small foundry & in my opinion it was really deserved.

I went onto parachutes blog (parachutefonts.blogspot.com and the exctiement from them firsthand spills out into one of their posts.
“…it is awards like these that make you feel that your work is appreciated, it is awards like these that make you feel responsible for your work, it is awards like these that raise your standards, but most of all these awards make you believe in yourself and your work”.
I love it when good type gets recognized & when the details are counted!

Another great thing about Centro/Parachute & and something that makes me warm to it more is the fact they documented its construction. From their initial type requirements and design aspects to revisions, quality control and variations. They covered it pretty well and if your at all interested in the construction of type or creating typefaces it’s brilliant! The construction of the typeface is available on their blog. I strongly recommend the read!

Parachute have documented the event and have centro pro samplers on their flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/parachutefonts/… Check out the trophie. What a beauty!!

Love Typography? Here’s a few other posts that might interest you…

• A great typography t-shirt – this years typophile t-shirt design competition winner.
• I Love Typography – an animation I did as a tribute to the fantastic iLT blog.