Items
Schick Toikka · Florian Schick, Lauri Toikka
A Times-lineage transitional serif system in Display and Text branches, three widths each, plus monospace styles and pixel-icon extras evoking 1980s DTP.
About
Items is a contemporary serif tied to the pervasive serifs of the early digital period, drawn to overcome the limitations of Times and its peers. A consistent contrast axis and constant top-serif angle across weights, plus carefully modulated blacks and shapely whites, give it an even typographic colour. The family has two branches: Items, with tight letter fit for larger sizes and tapered joints, and Items Text, with subdued contrast and open spacing for body copy. Each branch offers three widths (Standard, Condensed, Wide) in seven weights with matching italics, plus a Monospace style with fixed proportions and spindly strokes that nods to Latin glyphs in fonts made for Chinese and Japanese scripts. A variable version covers optical size and weight axes. Extras include ligatures, alternates, multiple numeral sets and a pixel set of arrows, punctuation and icons that reads as a homage to Susan Kare.
Classification
Schick Toikka tie Items to the pervasive serifs of the early digital period, with Times New Roman as the central reference: Times shipped on the first laser printers from IBM and Xerox and on Apple's LaserWriter, was a core font in Microsoft Windows from 1990, and was for many years one of just two feasible options for serif text on the web.