Name: Belinsky, Belinsky Text
Type: Retail typeface
Publisher: Tabular Type Foundry
Release year: 2019
Purchase links: I Love Typography (both)
I was inspired by over-exaggerated architectural letterings and typefaces, and wanted to make it a functioning monospaced typeface. You can see the influence of Kabel from g and the italic e for example, and the ß is taken straight from the Berlin street signs. The Q’s construction is unconventional, which is taken from the old pixel typeface from Capcom’s 1941. The designer probably intended Q to be more normal like Clarendon’s, but the very coarse pixel grid might give others totally different impression. I embrace that effect, and the Q is a result of my rather intentional misinterpretation.
I love monospaced typefaces, but that doesn’t mean I am not tempted to fix its inherent spacing issues. You cannot of course kern a monospace typeface, but nobody said you cannot therefore solve spacing problems. You can use alternate shapes that extend or shrink depending on the context, which I implemented in i l t f to fill wide gaps. It’s an approach I took in Cowhand back in 2015. Unfortunately however, OpenType support is not so strong in coding apps and the effect is not so observable.
The name Belinsky was taken from my favourite animation film, American Pop. The film depicts the history of American music through the lives of the four generations of a fictional immigrant family, the Belinsky’s. The film has nothing to do with the typeface, but I just love the sound of the name.