Brylski is a typeface by Nick Sherman, named for wood type worker Norb Brylski and designed to be produced as wood type at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. The design takes cues from various 19th-century type styles and includes optimizations for the wood type production process.
Brylski incorporates several themes common in old-fashioned poster type design, including split strokes, slab serifs with angled sides, heavy weight placement at the top and bottom of letters, and an extended overall width. Though not a strict revival, the typeface was inspired by various old-fashioned designs – particularly one offered by Dan X. Solo under the name Midway Ornate. Other historical references include Wm. H. Page & Co’s No. 121 (a.k.a. Mansard), Aldine Expanded, French Antique Extended, and Hellenic Wide.
The side angle of the serifs is echoed throughout the design, especially in the punctuation, allowing for complementary relationships with certain character combinations or overprint effects.
A few bonus features are included in the typeface:
Following historical wood type production methods, several limitations were employed in Brylski’s design to simplify manufacturing and composition of the physical wood type:
The design of Brylski was started in 2010 and released publicly in 2017. David Jonathan Ross assisted with the final digital font production.
You can read more about the design and production of Brylski at Print magazine.
As part of the Wood Type Legacy Project, Brylski is available in digital format from Adobe Fonts or P22 Type Foundry, with proceeds of sales supporting Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum’s ongoing operations. Those interested in physical wood fonts of Brylski should contact Hamilton.