Fontshop Introducing Roy Cole

Zeta™ was developed by the British typographer and book designer Roy Cole, his second typeface family completed in 2006. The Zeta™ typeface family comprises six fonts. As with his other typeface families, Zeta™ is a sans-serif typeface and is particularly notable for its fluidity and strong legibility.

During development of Colophon 30, the base font of the typeface family, two requirements emerged, namely, that it should demonstrate good legibility and robustness when used for text composition, and where individual characters become more apparent, as in much larger sizes, these should appear well formed.

Colophon 60 and 90 progressively increase in x-height to allow the counters to retain openness. The italics lean towards informality, this being apparent in the descender tails.

Roy Cole Typography was formed in 2003 by the British typographer Roy Cole, as a foundry dedicated to exploring and developing type families in the sans serif style. Governed by the laws of legibility, the type families are particularly suited to book and brochure design, in addition to corporate branding. They epitomize modernity and renewal, echoing the key precepts of Swiss design from where their inspiration originates.

Roy was the only British typographer to study at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland, under the tutelage of Emil Ruder, the master of modern typography. At this time, in the 1950s-1960s, the Gewerbeschule was host to a formidable team of tutors-Robert Büchler, Kurt Hauert, Armin Hofmann, and Ruder himself-and created a typographic style that attained world recognition.

Roy pursued his practice in Switzerland, after which he returned to England with his Austrian wife, Maria Zenz. He worked for the UK’s most prestigious publishers, museums and public libraries, designing hundreds of books and book covers, along with associated creative material. He nurtured a life-long friendship with his fellow designers, in particular Bruno Pfäffli and Adrian Frutiger (Atelier Frutiger + Pfäffli in Paris) and Helmut Schmid in Japan.

Roy Cole Typography continues to run from its original premises in Somerset, England, and is managed by his daughter Ina Cole.