It generates a contrast of its own, with an undogmatic weight distribution that simply works. The ampersand (&) is designed completely outside a pen-derived logic of thick and thin strokes. While the middle bar of ‘E’ is typically designed as a fine line with a triangular terminal, we transformed the black values of this letter part into a bare bold line. TheW NYC revitalizes the conventional model with highly novel elements, borrowed from TheW Clan RZA. Even the triangular top serif on the lowercase ‘l’ doesn’t deviate much from the historical Didot. Initially developed for Sport&Style magazine under the creative direction of Régis Tosetti and Simon Palmieri, it largely follows the logic of a traditional Didot with straight serifs and condensed proportions. TheW NYC is a unique interpretation of the Didot genre, made to be more flexible and less mechanical. In addition to ‘m’, ‘æ’, ‘œ’, ‘fi’, ‘fl’ (like RZA & GZA) and the ampersand (like GZA), we gave ODB a double-wide glyph for the question mark, too. True to its name, it’s not really monospaced, though: ‘G’ and ‘r’ are narrower, ‘t’ is wider. ODB’s look is infused with monospacedness. In ODB, we chopped off its right diagonal. ‘W’ is a special character in all TheW fonts.
This verticality is counterbalanced by long bars for the dots on ‘i’ and ‘j’. Exit strokes of ‘a’ or ‘t’ shoot to the top, and diagonals in ‘k’ or ‘R’ get guillotined. Where RZA has drop terminals, ODB has beaks. Serifs on ‘3’ or ‘E’ are square instead of triangular. It’s distinguished by tighter glyphs, with more surrounding space. TheW Clan ODB emphasizes the vertical dimension. Other defining features of GZA are the pointed vertices in ‘A’ or ‘N’ and the top-heavy ‘K’ and ‘Z’. GZA accentuates the x-height via bold bars in ‘a’, ‘f’, ‘r’ and ‘t’, and isn’t afraid of asymmetrical solutions, see the ‘T’ with serifs of different length, or the ‘H’ with a weight distribution as in ‘M’. It has the same triangular top serifs on ‘C’ and ‘G’ as its cousin RZA, while ‘E’ or ‘L’ exhibit hairline slab serifs for better balance. It isn’t totally serifless, though: In an anti-dogmatic manner, GZA retains the wide bases for ‘f’, ‘i’, ‘l’ etc. TheW Clan GZA comes close to what a sans serif version would look like.
They lend themselves to similar attention-grabbing tasks, but offer a distinct voice. TheW RZA is now joined by two new clan members, GZA and ODB. In other places, RZA doesn’t give a hang about rules: ‘m’ occupies the space of two characters. In some of its shapes, RZA embraces the limitations of being monospaced: Caps are tight, ‘i’ is airy. It first emerged in the Lab, our testing field for new ideas, and proved to be a big success. In the begining, there was TheW RZA, a fixed-width style with vertical stress, high stroke contrast, and a bold attitude.
TheW NYC is a slightly tamed-down offshoot with proportional spacing, made for text use. While they all have a monospaced look, each of them brings a special flavor to the page.
TheW comprises two collections: TheW Clan is a series of display styles, and currently has three members, RZA, GZA, and ODB.