Margaret Neue Font

Margaret Neue Font is based on the Hungarian design of the sixties, Margaret by Zoltán Nagy. “Margaret” was one of the winners of the 1966 International Typeface Design Competition that was organised by the Visual Graphics Corporation, and the winners were chosen by such distinguished designers as Paul Rand and Herb Lubalin.

The idea of an original typeface appealed to me, and it was the shapes of these letters that made me start my journey with type design. Recognizing the potential to build upon Nagy’s work, I plan to expand the original design in several meaningful ways:

That is why Nagy had started working on a cursive version that was never fully designed. With this in mind I’d like to achieve this adding an elegant and fluid counterpoint to the current typeface.

To add more flexibility, a thin version will be developed, which is optimised for a wider range of purposes, including texts as well as headers.Small Capitals and Oldstyle Figures: Small capitals and old style figures will complement the typographic selection that designers can select from so that they can create more complex layouts.

This way of varying an optical size will keep the typeface legible as well as visually harmonious even when used in a different point size and mimic the effects of phototypesetting.

I believe it is my mission to stay as close to Zoltán Nagy’s concept as possible but design this for today’s practical usage. I believe by extending the typeface, designers will get the complete set of tools that had the influence of the 1960s Hungarian design while containing all the modern typography elements. It is not a mere restoration project as the end aim of the project is to update and push the ‘Margaret’ into a new generation, catering to today’s creative demands.

From this endeavour, I hope to are a part of filling the gap between the past and the contemporary in typography. This new enlarged typeface will be perfect for dressing editorial, branding projects, advertising, and even information technology applications. It is a homage to the design that first sparked my passion and the next move towards reintroducing this classic.