A “compilation” font of sorts that incorporates several historical typefaces, the FF Scala® font family is a humanist serif named after the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Designed by Martin Majoor, FF Scala displays an independent spirit that rejects traditional notions of the line between serif and sans.
FF Scala History
Commissioned by the Bredenburg Music Center of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1990, designer Martin Majoor was able to pursue FF Scala as a personal experiment in breaking convention. Confused by the conventional ideas in the typeface community regarding serif and sans fonts, Majoor developed FF Scala outside of mainstream notions and delved heavily into new digital design technologies. An old style, humanist, serif, FF Scala is not a direct descendent of any one classic typeface, but rather acts as a confluence of several historic designs. It is a complete typeface family and includes small capitals and a wide range of ligatures.
A companion sans-serif, the FF Scala Sans® font family was designed and released two years after FF Scala, accelerating the typeface’s popularity and usability. Yet another addition came in 1997 with the FF Scala Jewels font family, a typeface with decorative capitals and a Dutch Baroque influence.
References:
http://scalafont.com/gallery/
http://www.fontfont.com/fonts/scala
FF Scala Usage
The FF Scala typeface is used around the world in design and display elements. Its public applications include use by the Metro of the City of Los Angeles and the New York Public Library. Commercially, FF Scala was used for many years as the house typeface for Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad . It was also employed as the in-house typeface for international airline carrier, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
