Formist Foundry Typeface Companion 01
Kapitol LIMITED EDITION box set

A collector’s item for type lovers limited to an edition of 50 
Available with and without fonts – please see dropdown options

To celebrate the release of Formist Foundry’s new type family Kapitol, we are thrilled to offer the Kapitol Typeface Companion. This special specimen box set, limited to 50 editions, is also available with an accompanying Kapitol family pack font license.

Kapitol is a sans-serif type family that expands on the distinctive materiality found in 1980s screen aesthetics, grounded by a robust practicality, clean utility and concrete geometry. The Kapitol fonts are available from the Formist Foundry.

Designed by Mark Gowing, the Kapitol Typeface Companion is a visually expressive collector’s item created to playfully link the conceptual elements that underpin the design and creation of the Kapitol type family.

The Kapitol Typeface Companion consists of:

• A laminated magnetic-close Kapitol Typeface Companion box, printed with raised gloss black, signed and numbered by Mark Gowing.
• A download link to a Kapitol family font pack 1–3 user desktop license from Formist Foundry, 14 styles plus variable fonts (OPTIONAL). 
• Kapitol Typeface Companion specimen book. A limited edition 160 page book, featuring an essay about the creation of Kapitol; detailed specimen typesettings; expressive typographic experiments and tributes; large Kapitol glyphs; and a collection of black and white photographs by Gowing, featuring Brutalist concrete architecture in Australia’s capital city, Canberra. 
• A custom knitted black and off-white Kapitol scarf featuring the typeface name and the size it appears on the scarf: 430pt. The scarf is knitted in Melbourne from premium Australian extra fine Merino wool. 
• A Kapitol carpenter’s pencil, printed with the typeface name and the size it appears on the pencil: 18pt.
• Two posters, 50 × 70 cm each. One is a Kapitol specimen featuring city names of the world, and the other is a photographic poster featuring a Kapitol letter k.

Formist director and Kapitol designer Mark Gowing describes the type family as “inspired by screen aesthetics that were part of the digital design revolution that gave birth to a vibrant, frantic era of groundbreaking creativity in the late 1980s. I am a product of those tumultuous times and my attitude towards communications is made up of both traditional and progressive values as a result.”

“There was change in the air and luminaries such as Neville Brody, Gert Dumbar, Emigre, April Greiman and Wolfgang Weingart emerged as champions of progress. Frank and awkward characteristics became ever present in new typefaces and a fresh approach to communication design questioned the status quo.”

Gowing continues, “Kapitol expands on the memory of the single-weight Chicago, by capturing its tone and energy, while also completely re-inventing it. To create a sensitive and useful type family, with a formality based on familiar robustness and sense of geometry. Kapitol has been created with a concrete nature at its heart. During the design process I also looked at concrete architecture (both conceptual and literal) for the inspiration required to use geometry as the necessary central focus of Kapitol’s visual language.”

The Kapitol fonts are available from the Formist Foundry.

Magnetic-close box
with Kapitol font family (optional), 160 page paperback, scarf, pencil, 2 posters
245 × 325 × 60 mm (box)
Design: Mark Gowing
Text: Mark Gowing
2022 FE031

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