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Mass-Driver

@mass-driver.com
1.1K followers 225 following 225 posts

Independent foundry based in The Hague. We make typefaces that are sensitive to the past, but designed for the present. mass-driver.com Posts by Rutherford Craze, [type]founder.

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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 07/07/2026
It’s taken a while to put into words what I find so distasteful about AI in type design (even — especially — the ‘boring parts’). It’s not the threat of being put out of a job. Some thoughts: mass-driver.com/article/from...
mass-driver.com
From human hands.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 09/06/2026
Update: MD Thermochrome version 0.5 is out today! This update adds 19 new icons, 14 new currency symbols, and support for the Latin M character set (430+ languages). futurefonts.com/mass-driver/...
3D render of a bundle of cables. They’re a mix of black, white and reddish orange, with text printed on them in MD Thermochrome (a combination of symbols, numbers, and labels).
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 08/06/2026
Type Foundry Directory (typefoundry.directory) is one of the best resources out there for finding independent type designers & foundries. This month, not just the nameplate but the entire site is set in our latest typeface, MD UI — there’s no better specimen than a real-world use case.
Screenshot of the Type Foundry Directory, showing the name of the site in MD UI. Partly visible at the bottom are a couple of rows of the main list of type foundries.
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Fontstand @fontstand.com · 12/05/2026
NEW: MD UI from @mass-driver.com is a typeface for interfacing, optimised for word- and sentence-level performance, with an appearance that doesn’t try to be neutral, but doesn’t surprise or distract. Available in three optical sizes: MD UI, MD UI XS, and MD UI XL. fontstand.com/fonts?search...
MD UI XS (top), MD UI, and MD UI XL (bottom), from Mass-Driver.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 07/05/2026
Last month was the 25 year anniversary of the legalisation of equal marriage in the Netherlands. To mark the occasion, the Dutch Central Bank and the Royal Mint together issued a limited-run €5 coin, designed by Koos Breen and set in my typeface, MD Nichrome.
Closeup photo of a silver coin balanced on fingertips. The design features a series of concentric circles, mostly cut off on the left side to form a rainbow motif, with each band engraved at a slight angle to create a gradient effect as it catches the light.

The engraved text, in all-caps MD Nichrome, reads ‘25 jaar openstelling van het huwelijk voor iedereen’ (‘25 years of marriage [being] open for everyone’), the two Os of ‘voor’ overlapped like linked rings, and the final word (‘everyone’) set apart and highlighted in the centre of the rainbow.The same coin, tilted slightly to show the gradient effect of the ‘rainbow’ section in a different light.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 29/04/2026
Daybreak (Part III) — Cartridge design & custom lettering for the 2026 My #Famicase Exhibition at METEOR, Tokyo (@super-meteor.bsky.social)
ockup of a cartridge for the 1980s Nintendo Famicom. The word ‘Daybreak’ appears in bright red on a black background, in a high-contrast and tightly-spaced blackletter style, surrounded by supporting text and elements in blue.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 08/04/2026
“Writing is to graphic design what clay is to pottery.” @goodspeed.bsky.social makes a compelling case for why designers should write: www.itsnicethat.com/articles/eli...
itsnicethat.com
Elizabeth Goodspeed on why design writing needs designers writing
Without designers writing about their own work, design is easy to misunderstand. Writing helps designers work through what they think – and makes that thinking visible to others.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 23/03/2026
Super nice deep-dive into MD UI here from @jectives.com, comparing it with some much more famous neo-grotesque typefaces. Thanks Curtis! www.youtube.com/live/tm6XDgz...
youtube.com
Typography News No. 41
YouTube video by Jectives
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 18/03/2026
First use of MD UI in the wild! And a huge shoutout to Jack for his advice and expertise on the project — he helped organise half a decade of tangled thoughts about the typeface into a clear message we could use to actually describe it
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 18/03/2026
New release: MD UI. The International Typographic Style projected one step into the future. UI is a neo-grotesque tuned for maximum performance across all scales; a typeface that augments the function of a timeless form. Available today in 48 styles. mass-driver.com/typefaces/md...
A list of all 48 styles of MD UI: three optical sizes, eight weights in each, and matching italics. The typeface is a clean, slightly squarish geometric sans in the neo-grotesque style.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 03/03/2026
Have you used any of our fonts in a live project? If you’re able to share an image or two (or better yet, submit a @fontsinuse.com post!), I’d love to hear what you worked on, and potentially feature it on the next version of our website
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Ben Fry @benfry.com · 17/02/2026
Using a great typeface is like cheating at design because your work instantly gets so much better. After years of mucking, we started using MD System in a prototype. Seeing what the tool *could* look like was a huge motivation to finally make it happen. Once we saw it, we couldn't wait to build it.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 16/01/2026
When you design a typeface, there’s always a feeling of “I hope someone does X with it”. For MD System, @fathom.info’s Rowboat is cooler than even my most optimistic goals:
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Linotype Pilgrim @symbo1ics.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
@mass-driver.com has a modern revival of MICR-ish typefaces: polychrome.mass-driver.com #typography
polychrome.mass-driver.com
MD Polychrome Typeface
MD Polychrome is a display typeface based on the unique ‘retro high-tech’ aesthetic of Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR), and the pre-digital fonts which it inspired.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 02/01/2026
Update: it was actually *less* than one. High hopes for 2026!
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 18/12/2025
For any game developers* caught by the Monotype/Fontworks price hikes: - you can use our fonts for video games - there are no usage caps or renewal fees - unrestricted trial fonts for in-engine testing - smaller dev teams pay less. mass-driver.com *Extended Latin support, but not Japanese, sorry!
MD Nichrome, a geometric sans-serif with a strong retro flavour, syncopated proportions. It’s inspired by 70s sci-fi paperback covers, and available in 16 styles (8 weights, from a very thin to a very bold, with matching obliques).MD Polychrome, a typeface based on magnetic ink bank numbers (and the various retro-high-tech fonts they inspired in the 60s and 70s). Available in four styles, loosely corresponding to different print sizes rather than weights.MD IO, a monospaced typeface intended for super-legible text. It’s somewhat futuristic in appearance (but not distractingly so) with strongly textured italics. Available in 16 styles, with weights from very light to very bold.MD Lórien, a slightly ornate serif influenced by Caslon and the 18th century European typefaces which Caslon’s fonts were derived from. It’s available in five weights, with matching italics, swash caps, ligatures, etc. etc.
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Typographica @typographica.org · 12/12/2025
“I for one think it is entirely excellent that the US State Department is reverting to using a typeface designed by a committed Marxist who was imprisoned during WW1 as a conscientious objector. Bravo!” — John Hudson typedrawers.com/discussion/c...
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 17/11/2025
Available now: MD Thermochrome v0.4 adds over 100 new icons to the typeface, all of which respond to weight and italic angle just like every other glyph. Legibility not guaranteed www.futurefonts.com/mass-driver/...
A handful of key glyphs (lowercase a, asterisk, ampersand, capital R, superscript 1, percent sign) from MD Thermochrome, showing the visual language of the typeface. It’s a dotmatrix-style typeface made from circles and rounded horizontal lines, which grow and shrink to form the multiple weights.A selection of icons from the typeface, highlighted in red, interspersed with words describing them (or described by them) in white.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 17/11/2025
Available now: MD Thermochrome v0.4 adds over 100 new icons to the typeface, all of which respond to weight and italic angle just like every other glyph. Legibility not guaranteed www.futurefonts.com/mass-driver/...
A handful of key glyphs (lowercase a, asterisk, ampersand, capital R, superscript 1, percent sign) from MD Thermochrome, showing the visual language of the typeface. It’s a dotmatrix-style typeface made from circles and rounded horizontal lines, which grow and shrink to form the multiple weights.A selection of icons from the typeface, highlighted in red, interspersed with words describing them (or described by them) in white.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 17/11/2025
The v0.4 update for MD Thermochrome is finally ready, and it’ll ship later today! This version of the typeface includes 100+ new icons for UI design, wayfinding, and more. There’s a few more hours to get it at the current price, with lifetime updates included: www.futurefonts.com/mass-driver/...
A grid of 133 icons, symbols and arrows, from the upcoming V0.4 release of MD Thermochrome. Among them are icons for weather conditions, arrival/departures signs, documents, playing card suits, media controls, and common UI symbols.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 29/10/2025
Made the call last week to push our late 2025 release to early 2026. The delay might be disappointing, but I feel extremely fortunate that we can take as much time as this project needs. In the meantime, here’s a preview of something else I’ve been working on: MD Thermochrome icons
Sample text with some icons set in MD Thermochrome. It’s a dot-matrix–inspired typeface constructed from circles and rounded horizontal lines, and the icons are rendered in the same style.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 07/10/2025
A small update: if you’re buying fonts via our website, there’s now an option to apply a 50% student discount without needing to contact us. (You can always use our trial fonts in class without paying anything — this is only for commercial projects, published websites, etc.) mass-driver.com
Screenshot of a section of the checkout page on our foundry website, showing a checkbox marked ‘Licensee is a student’ (currently selected). The line below reads, ‘50% off. Student licenses remain valid after you graduate.’
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 24/09/2025
Super nice example of MD Nichrome in use, by Malcontenti Studio for Yatasto, a bar/pizzeria in Buenos Aires. (I love seeing projects like this!) Via @fontsinuse.com: fontsinuse.com/uses/71993/y...
Candid-style photo of a person’s upper back, showing the design on their shirt. They’re in a tiled space, presumably a commercial kitchen. Their shirt is white, with text and an illustration in black, red and sky blue: the illustration is of a racehorse, with the logo of ‘Yatasto’ bar & pizzeria underneath. The word ‘Yatasto’ is set in red MD Nichrome Ultra, with ‘Bar’ above and ‘Pizzeria’ below in Cooper Nouveau.A mockup of paper sheets (presumably to be used as fast food wrappers) with a repeating design tiled across them. The design features the same Yatasto logo and racehorse illustration as the shirt (with some additional supporting text), in a warm white colour on red paper, and the inverse, red on warm white paper.
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Linotype Pilgrim @symbo1ics.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Typofonderie's gorgeous Caslonian M type tester:

"Turn on replies, coward" in Light, Light Italic, and Regular weights
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 03/09/2025
For years, @matthewsmith.website’s typefoundry.directory has been my favourite place to discover new, independent type foundries. This summer Matthew released a huge update to the site, and also (finally!) let me support his efforts with a sponsorship — this month, the nameplate is set in MD Lórien
Screenshot of the new Type Foundry Directory main page, showing the name “Type Foundry Directory” (very large, set in MD Lórien Italic), and the first couple of foundry listings.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 02/09/2025
Happy to have been able to contribute some thoughts to @goodspeed.bsky.social’s latest piece for @its-nice-that.bsky.social. It’s great to see an article on design ethics consider type and UX, which generally don’t follow the typical client–agency model. www.itsnicethat.com/features/is-...
itsnicethat.com
The Good, the Bad, and the Iffy: is there such a thing as an ethical designer?
Designers from Pentagram, Koto, Creech, and more talk candidly about the murky waters of client selection, the logistics and risks of rejecting work on moral grounds, and how to keep afloat without lo...
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 01/09/2025
A small update on web fonts: from today, we’re no longer including the .woff format by default, since browser support for .woff2 is virtually identical (96% vs 96.7%). We’ll continue to provide them on request for any users who need them.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 14/08/2025
About a month ago this arrived at the studio, and I *adore* it. Long Way Home is a book on the work of Belarusian artist Masha Maroz. Its titles are set in MD Thermochrome, which doesn’t (yet) support Cyrillic — so the designers made their own. Via @fontsinuse.com: fontsinuse.com/uses/69970/l...
Scan of the contents page of Long Way Home. Section titles are set in slightly tracked all-caps MD Thermochrome, in English on the verso page and Belarusian on the recto. The paper is off-white, with a rich yellow gradient towards the spine. Small supplementary text is in wide-tracked Roboto, also in all caps.Scan of an article title page from the book. On the verso page is a large image of a tree trunk standing before a snowy woodland, wrapped in brightly-coloured ribbons. The book title is written in three languages (English, French and Belarusian) vertically along the spine, in all-caps MD Thermochrome.

On the recto page is the title and opening paragraphs of an interview. The title is also in all-caps Thermochrome, with the body text, page numbers, and a note stating the page number of the English translation all in Roboto.
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Linotype Pilgrim @symbo1ics.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
A lovely historical discussion of some of my favourite, and the oldest, typeface families, by @mass-driver.com; including many beautiful page images. mass-driver.com/article/md-l... #typography
mass-driver.com
MD Lórien: a Parallel to Caslon
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 17/07/2025
Another 10/10 entry in Figma’s portfolio of features which look great but will make your web developer cry
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 09/07/2025
Take Back Mokum: a collection of essays, interviews, illustrations and more, around the theme of squatting and housing in Amsterdam. The first (& I hope not the last!) book set in my typeface, MD Lórien. Via @fontsinuse.com: fontsinuse.com/uses/67027/t... Typeface: mass-driver.com/typefaces/md...
Front cover of a paperback book, titled Take Back Mokum: Squatting and the Housing Struggle in Amsterdam. White text in MD Lórien on a purple background, with rough (linocut?) illustrations of a mix of domestic and municipal objects (e.g. a cooking pot, cargo bike, bar stools, angle grinder).Closeup of a page from the book, showing a section title and opening paragraph. All the text, again, is in MD Lórien.

Layout & typography by Jan Egbers (janegbers.info).
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 03/07/2025
In love with the typesetting on these posters, too (mass-driver.com/typefaces/md...)
Poster for Aaron Parks’ summer 2025 tour. Pastel lavender and yellow, with an abstract circular design and text set in MD Nichrome.Poster for Aaron Parks’ May 2025 tour. A moody, dark blue abstract design based around concentric circles, similar to the album artwork (quoted). White all-caps text is overlaid in two weights of MD Nichrome.
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Fontstand @fontstand.com · 30/06/2025
This is the final week of collecting responses regarding font users’ opinions on the current state of font licensing. The survey will close on Sunday 6 July at midnight CEST. Once the data has been analysed, we will share the findings publicly. Complete the survey today: fontstand.com/survey
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 25/06/2025
MD Thermochrome v0.3 is now available! This update adds 33 new styles, for a total of 40 — including a new Medium weight and 4 sets of italics. (Also included are arrows, super & subscript, and a fractions OpenType feature) www.future-fonts.com/mass-driver/...
Overview of the 8 weights in MD Thermochrome 0.3 (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Black & Ultra).

The typeface itself is a tightly-spaced, dot-matrix–inspired design, where horizontally adjacent dots merge into lines.Composition showing all 5 italic variants arranged in a wave (each line of text is incrementally more or less slanted than the previous).
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 24/06/2025
The next update to MD Thermochrome will be out tomorrow, adding 33 (!) new styles: a new Medium weight, plus 4 sets of italics. As always with Future Fonts releases, the price will increase for new buyers, but existing customers get all updates for free www.future-fonts.com/mass-driver/...
An overview showing all 40 styles of MD Thermochrome v0.3. Eight weights from Thin to Ultra (Medium is new in this update), all of which are available in 5 different slants: Reclined, Retalic, upright, Italic and Inclined.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 18/06/2025
What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? Fonts regularly take multiple years to make, and developing a small typeface family can easily cost $50k.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 12/06/2025
The type distributor (and organiser of my favourite typography conference), @fontstand.com, is restructuring into a cooperative. It’s hard to overstate how valuable this could be, for foundries, customers, and the health of the whole industry. A font platform owned by independent foundries!
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 05/06/2025
Maybe you’ve heard: every font is free! Since fonts aren’t subject to copyright, you can legally ‘pirate’ them if you use a specific loophole! ...except that’s not really true. I’ve seen this claim repeated quite a lot recently, and it’s missing some pretty important nuance. 🧵 A thread:
Alphabet and numbers in a monospaced typeface (MD System Mono, specifically), arranged in a grid. In the bottom row, ‘$0’ (zero dollars) is highlighted in bright red.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 03/06/2025
Via @fontsinuse.com: MD Nichrome in use for Révéler l’impact, an exhibition on the impacts of mining and mineral extraction. More info: fontsinuse.com/uses/68263/r... Typeface: mass-driver.com/typefaces/md...
Poster board advertising Révéler l’impact, an exhibition on the impact of mining and mineral extraction. The title and supporting text are set in MD Nichrome (with a nice use of the alternate tabular numbers at the bottom), weaving between organic-looking layers of abstracted purple, green and silver textures.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 21/05/2025
Back in 2023, we made a custom typeface for Bonnaroo festival — MD Bonnachrome is still front and centre for the 2025 event (and I’m still getting excited every time a new poster drops). The case study: mass-driver.com/custom/bonna... The festival: www.bonnaroo.com
Poster for “Remi Wolf’s Insanely Fire 1970s Pool Party Superjam”, an event scheduled as part of Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival 2025. Expertly-typeset (seriously, their design team is phenomenal) all caps bold type with a 1970s vibe. Beneath the text block is a grainy, colourful, psychedelic illustration of a pool with an inflatable flamingo and green orbs.Lineup poster for Bonnaroo’s ‘Who Stage’. Text in the same typeface and style (MD Bonnachrome, a custom design based on MD Nichrome) sits on a textured background of stars.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 19/05/2025
I’m really happy to see MD Lórien used for Robin Sloan’s recent zine, The Secret Playbook (on strategies for artists to counter AI models) — and in great company, next to DJR’s exceptional Clavichord! www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/...
Closeup of the cover page of Robin Sloan’s zine, ‘The Secret Playbook’. A highly textured Risograph print of a greyscale photo, with ornate, condensed blackletter caps (Clavichord, from DJR) overlaid in red ink.Closeup of the top corner of the first page (I’m trying to keep the text secret!). ‘The Secret Playbook’ is visible, all caps in a wide sans-serif, with body text below it set in MD Lórien.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 29/04/2025
This year I had the privilege of being on the type design jury for the Type Directors Club TDC71 awards. It was difficult keeping quiet about some of these entries, but the winners have now been announced — check them out! tdc.org/winner-archi...
tdc.org
TDC71 WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED - Type Directors Club
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 28/04/2025
garamond.png
Dungeons & Dragons-style alignment chart (a 3x3 grid with ‘lawful/neutral/chaotic’ and ‘good/neutral/evil’ axes). Each location is a different version of Garamond.

In order (Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil): Garamond Premier (2005); Adobe Garamond (1989); Stempel Garamond (ca. 1925); EB Garamond (2011), Claude’s Garamond (Berner, 1540s); “Garamond.ttf” (found on hard drive, origin unknown); Monotype Garamond (1922); ATF Garamond (1917–20); ITC Garamond (1975). Digital versions shown, but alignment based on originals if they were in other formats.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 25/04/2025
“Awake, brave Knight, for the Dawn comes not!” — O Knight of Many Stars Cartridge design & custom lettering for the 2025 My Famicase Exhibition at METEOR, Tokyo. #famicase
Mockup of a cartridge for the 1980s Nintendo Famicom. White text on a black background, with violet sword, stars & supporting elements. The main lockup reads ‘O Knight of Many Stars’ in an incised, angular flared serif.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 23/04/2025
The ‘Piracy. It’s a Crime’ campaign used pirated music, *and* as it turns out, also used pirated fonts. Incredible.
fontsinuse.com
“Piracy. It’s a Crime.” PSA
From Wikipedia: “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car” is the first sentence and commonly used name of a public service announcement that debuted on July 12, 2004 in cinemas, and July 27 on home media, which wa...
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 22/04/2025
MD Thermochrome version 0.2 is now available! This is a pretty big update, with 6 new weights (i.e. 600% more than v0.1), all of them duplexed to allow for various stacking and layering effects. Also a variable font, and slightly better language support. www.future-fonts.com/mass-driver/...
List of the available weights in MD Thermochrome (Thin, Light, Regular, Semibold, Bold, Black & Ultra, plus a variable font version), with each word set in its respective weight.List of words (each the exact same width) in increasing weights of MD Thermochrome, with the relevant weight labeled in a darker colour over the top.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 08/04/2025
I guess it’s #PortfolioDay! I’m Rutherford, I’m a type designer running a small foundry in The Hague. We (me + friends) make really good fonts, and distribute them via a model designed to be simple and fair. Studio: mass-driver.com Latest case study: mass-driver.com/article/md-l...
Overview of 15 styles from MD System, my flagship sans-serif typeface. It’s available in 4 widths (the 3 shown here, plus a monospaced version), with 5 weights each, and matching italics.

The design is influenced by 20th-century grotesks like Akzidenz and Helvetica, but designed to feel warmer and more human.3D render highlighting the four optical sizes (Nano, Kilo, Mega & Giga) of MD Polychrome, my tribute to 1960s ‘digital-style’ typefaces.A comparison between MD Primer, a typeface influenced by late-1800s sans-serif designs, and one of those designs (Gothic No. 2, from Cincinnati Type Foundry).An alphabet of swash caps set in my latest release, MD Lórien. It’s a contemporary interpretation of Dutch baroque typefaces, an elegant serif intended to be readable but with a little more ornateness and sparkle than normal.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 04/04/2025
I’m not quite ready to lock in a release date, but I’ve been making progress on v0.2 of MD Thermochrome. The main focus is this (duplexed) inkbleed/dot size axis, which opens up a huge range of options for layering text.
The word “Thermochrome”, in all caps, spanning the width of the image. Each letter is comprised of dots and lines in varying sizes, and rendered in black, white and reddish orange based on their overlaps.

Above the word is the Mass-Driver logomark, and below it the text “Version 0.2 * Coming when it’s ready”.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 31/03/2025
Hey just to make my stance extremely clear, trans rights are human rights.
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Mass-Driver @mass-driver.com · 20/03/2025
I always imagined font engineering was about developing OpenType features and managing complex interpolation spaces. It’s actually about 80% “trying to figure out why Microsoft Office is doing that”
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