Hermann
W Type Foundry · Diego Aravena, Salvador Rodriguez · 2018
A humanist text serif with swashes and discretionary ligatures, designed around the literary and conceptual worlds of Hermann Hesse and Aldous Huxley.
About
Developed by Diego Aravena and Salvador Rodriguez, Hermann takes Sabon and Garamond as structural references and weaves in concepts of duality and surrealism drawn from 20th-century novel culture. The family spans ten styles across five weights from Regular to Heavy, each with a matching italic, and the character set includes full sets of capital discretionary ligatures, swashes from A to Z, and final letter forms that give the typeface range beyond the text column. Extended German proofing supports the Central European language coverage implied by its literary namesake.
Classification
Inspired by Sabon and Garamond, Hermann draws on 20th-century book typography traditions with humanist proportions, swashes and discretionary ligatures that bridge text and display use.