“It all started as a weird form of shorthand,” says Mat Planet about his new typeface family. “I never set out to create a typeface. The design evolved out of scribbles that practically forced their way out of me.” What began as a set of phonetic doodles evolved into the three styles in the Planet family of fonts. “ I found a lot of similarity between what I was doing and what a lot of other designers had explored–particularly Herbert Bayer’s ‘fonetic alfabet,’” he adds.
The foundation of the family is Planet Sans. While its monoweight characters are reminiscent of uncial letterforms, there is more to this design than a calligraphic exercise. Exotic shapes and unusual proportions (somewhere between Bauhaus minimalism and the imagined markings on the side of an alien spaceship) make this a design like no other.
While Planet Sans boldly summons the future, Planet Serif harks back to a myth-enshrouded time when fairies and wizards roamed the earth. The use of traditional writing tools has introduced a sense of mystery into the basic Planet shapes. Curves have become sensual, serifs dramatic, and stroke weights show the clear influence of the calligraphic pen.
Planet Informal is closest to Mat Planet’s original lettering. Somewhere between street graffiti and a brush script, Planet Informal has a loose, carefree personality. This inviting typeface is the perfect foil to a particularly beautiful, haunting, and distinctive typeface family.