Edgar
Frere-Jones · Tobias Frere-Jones, Nina Stössinger
An oldstyle text serif by Tobias Frere-Jones and Nina Stössinger, rooted in the British typographic tradition and named after Frere-Jones' great-grandfather, the crime novelist Edgar Wallace.
About
Designed as a sibling to Frere-Jones's Mallory sans, Edgar draws on the letterforms of William Caslon and Alexander Phemister to create a lively rhythm suited to long-form reading. Its origins lie in Frere-Jones's British ancestry and a desire to translate the conversational cadence of Edgar Wallace's crime thrillers into the shapes of the text itself. Ten styles run from Light to Black with matching italics across an extended Latin character set.
Classification
Edgar is explicitly described as an oldstyle text family, with letterforms drawing on the types of William Caslon and Alexander Phemister, placing it firmly in the humanist oldstyle serif tradition.