Blacksmith Coffee Company: A Case Study
Our resident campus coffee shop, Blacksmith Coffee Company is a staple for every NYUAD student. When you’re in need of a change of scenery, or a fresh cup of high-quality coffee to jumpstart your day, Blacksmith is your one-stop shop. It’s a rite of passage to become a Blacksmith visitor once you land on the NYUAD campus. It’s not just another coffee spot; it’s a campus checkpoint. You haven’t truly arrived at NYUAD until you’ve sipped their signature blend.
It is an integral part of our community, and indeed coffee and coffee shop culture are integral to Abu Dhabi’s and the UAE’s community. Coffee binds us together and creates a shared interest amongst the locals of the UAE. One of our favorite pastimes is to frequent new coffee shops, typically extortionately overpriced, and grab a flat white, V60 drip or even an Aeropress when we’re feeling particularly pretentious. But at the end of the day, we can always count on our favorite coffee place to provide us with the best beans, the best service and some pretty good energy as well. When I’m one sip away from a caffeine-induced existential crisis, Blacksmith is the sanctuary that brings me back to base.
A significant part of Blacksmith’s community identity relies on its font typeface. Inevitably after attending three weeks’ worth of ‘Types of Art’ classes, I was burdened by the need to find out what typeface they use. So I went searching and I’ve been able to find a few options that seem to be along the right lines.
The blacksmith logo appears to be a Helvetica adjacent type font. However, the devil is in the details and the secondary font that they utilize for their menus is a monospaced typographic font.
Monospaced fonts, also known as fixed-pitch or non-proportional fonts, are fonts where each letter takes up the same amount of horizontal space. Unlike other fonts that rely on the individual letter’s width, their characteristic spacing allows it so they align neatly on your screens or printed material. Due to these characteristics, it is common for these fonts to be used for coding and are particularly useful for the function of efficient debugging.
Fonts like these tend to allude to typewriter fonts of the past. They also evoke a certain aesthetic and practical nostalgia often seen in vintage designs and typewriter-inspired artwork. Monospaced fonts are not only about utility but they also carry a sense of clarity, tradition, and a straightforward approach to typography.
One monospaced font is ‘Space Mono’ which was created by Colophon Foundry for Google Design inspired by 1960s Grotesque and science fiction aesthetics. One font which bases a resemblance to the Microgramma typeface of the Nebiolo Type Foundry of 1952. A deep sense of nostalgia is evoked when one views the Microgramma typeface they are instantly catapulted into the worlds of vintage science fiction. Along with this callback to science fiction and futurism, the font paid homage to typewriter styles. While Microgramma once alluded to the future, the reference to it in Space Mono in conjunction with the reference to typewriter styles forms a modern futurism, relating to the coding culture and the era of technological advancements.
Another monospaced font is Code Saver, released by Dharma Type in 2018. Code Saver, common for monospaced, fonts is also designed with distinguishability and legibility in mind, particularly for numerals, and aims to bring a new sensitivity to monospaced fonts that are often considered dull. One of its key features is a 93.33% condensed width, which allows for more usable space, making it particularly effective for environments where space is at a premium.
The last contender for Blacksmith’s typeface font is RF Rostin. The RF Rostin typeface is a modern monospaced font designed by Misha Panfilov and published by Russian Fonts. This typeface comes in a variety of eight styles, including four regular and four true italic weights, ranging from ultralight to bold. The design of RF Rostin includes modern and futuristic stylistic alternates, making it versatile for a broad range of applications.
The outcome: how has the monospace typeface influenced the Blacksmith vibe?
The general atmosphere of the Blacksmith café alludes to a cyberpunk aesthetic. With the dark colors – greys and browns – the space is rather cold. There is a repeated motif of metal and piping around the space with pops of greenery, alluding to a futuristic atmosphere, so the font typeface being one which melds both old and new is quite appropriate. It expresses the modern phenomenon of the coding language while not becoming overly elaborate or hard to read as does happen with many overly embellished fonts, similar to the sci-fi Microgramma. It is clean and simple and referential to our modern reality, partially transforming us into a futuristic cyberpunk world.
Works Cited:
Code Saver | Adobe Fonts. https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/code-saver. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.
Fonts, 1001. “Space Mono Font Family · 1001 Fonts.” 1001 Fonts, https://www.1001fonts.com/space-mono-font.html. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.
“Microgramma (Typeface).” Wikipedia, 30 Jan. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microgramma_(typeface)&oldid=1200940117.
“Monospaced Font.” Wikipedia, 19 Oct. 2023. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monospaced_font&oldid=1180948346.
RF Rostin Font. https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/russian-fonts/rf-rostin. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.
“Space Mono.” Google Fonts, https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Space+Mono. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.
