The ‘Laura’ font created by Paul Harpin
Paul Harpin, creative director of global media company Haymarket, and font consultancy Typespec, have hit upon a creative way of raising funds for cancer research by creating and selling fonts.
The ‘Buy Fonts Save Lives’ campaign has three fonts available for sale; one designed by Harpin, another by Matt Willey, and a third designed by Paul Hickson for Haymarket founder Lord Heseltine. Proceeds from sales will go towards Cancer Research UK and MacMillan Cancer Support.
Harpin was inspired to embark on this project after the death of his 26-year-old niece Laura, and spent 14 months designing a typeface in her memory. It is available in four styles and 12 weights, and is named after her.
He created the font by cutting letters out of A4 paper, scanning and tracing them in Illustrator, and using Fontographer. Hickson, Eichi Kono and Joe Graham, founder of Typespec, helped him with the kerning, measurements and ensured it was fit for production.
The ‘Heseltine’ font was originally created as a birthday gift for the Haymarket founder’s 75th birthday. It is available in two styles: text and titling, and was updated to include italics for his 80th birthday.
Willey’s font is called ‘Mfred’ and has appeared in Elephant magazine, as well as Port and the US edition of Wired. The designer donated the font in honor of his father Nick.
Do your part for cancer research – head here to learn more about the project and buy a font. If you would like to donate a font, contact Harpin at paul.harpin@haymarket or Graham at Joe@typespec.co.uk.
The ‘Heseltine’ font created by Paul Hickson
The ‘Mfred’ font created by Matt Willey
[via Creative Review, images via Buy Fonts Save Lives]