Today we celebrate #TaxonomistAppreciationDay by sharing our story of the research and collaboration with @calacademy which inspired the DB Clariday family of fonts. Taxonomists ensure that every species on earth has one name and only one name. 1/17

Today is the day! Get those applications in :) We are excited to meet this year’s applicants! https://t.co/eddjSKTZb2

A sincere thank you to @rileycran, Laurel Allen, Kristina Fong, the @calacademy collections managers and staff for this opportunity to collaborate. It has been a pleasure! Visit our site for the full case study and to try the Clariday fonts yourself! https://t.co/IpAeb15ELb 17/17

By transposing the quirks of the various samples into an amalgamated design, I gave Clariday’s styles a unique voice while keeping them connected via their shared skeleton. My goal was to evolve the essence of the found letters while incorporating sparkly idiosyncrasies. 16/17

The name “Clariday” was inspired by the beautiful curiosity-cabinet calligraphy. Inside the cover of the Coleoptera box is a list of the subfamilies and orders of beetles, including Cleridae, commonly known as checkered beetles. I found the name charming. 15/17

The styles that evolved are in line with Besley’s original intentions with his Clarendon from 1845, bucking the trend of wide slab designs: a horizontally efficient typeface that not only served a traditional display role, but also functioned as a heavier style within text. 14/17

A genre rooted in the earliest slab serif examples of Vincent Figgins’s foundry would evolve into a variety of Clarendons, from display-centric thin faces and fat faces to more sturdy regular and expanded styles. 13/17

The Clarendon typeface, released in 1845 by Thorowgood and Besley of London, was not exactly pioneering but was popular enough to jump-start an entire genre of slab serifs with increased contrast between thicks and thins. 12/17

I had found 3 different sources from 3 different countries and 3 different authors, all originating in the late 19th century. An exciting set of inspiration for me to absorb. My process began with drawing lettering pieces based on standout specimens found during my visit. 11/17

Following my visit, I ended up at the reference section of Wikipedia's entry: Cleridae, where I found an image plate from "Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London" (1851) w/ typographic notes in an efficient monoweight slab serif, neatly tucked away in the corners. 10/17

I noticed that the illustrated specimens were annotated with monoweight condensed slab serif lettering. RADIOLARIAN was published in 1862 by scientists in Berlin, less than 20 years before the curiosity cabinet construction—a similar time frame for a similar lettering style! 9/17

In the Geology department I stumbled on a book called RADIOLARIAN etc. Radiolaria are ocean-dwelling protozoa (single-cell organisms) that produce intricate mineral skeletons. Marvels of evolutionary design, the skeletons come in fascinating shapes and configurations. 8/17

The curiosity cabinet reminded me of assemblage art—everything has its place, everything in its place. Specifically, Joseph Cornell, who pioneered the art of assemblage, arranging eclectic specimens of photos and knickknacks in glass-pane shadow boxes. 7/17

A particular specimen among the shelves full of insect specimens caught my eye. I later learned that this piece I was so enamored of is known as a "curiosity cabinet." The cabinet was beautiful, full of gorgeous insect specimens pinned over meticulous hand-lettered labels. 6/17

Insects come in an incredible range of sizes and colors, evolved to suit the various species’ environmental needs perfectly. Each exists in countless varieties, shaped by their environments to perform optimally a certain function in a certain context, just like fonts! 5/17

The department that most stood out to me visually and typographically was Entomology, concerned with the study of insects. The scientific community has classified over 1.3 million insect species, which is over two-thirds of all known species on Earth. 4/17

Over the course of the week I spent at the Academy, I visited the full range of specimen collections, from botany to geology, anthropology to herpetology (the study of reptiles), mammalogy to ichthyology (the study of fish). Each department was a trove of inspiration. 3/17

In the spring of 2018, I was invited to tour the private scientific collections of the @calacademy as part of a typeface design collaboration. Situated in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the Academy is one of the largest museums of natural history in the world. 2/17

We have “Practice” shirts available on the Delta Bravo Goods shop in 43 different color ways! You can choose between all three families, here are some of the bright and fresh options for Clariday Slab. 🤓 https://t.co/NNZMJlf19E #typography #fonts #fashion #merch

For the evening crowd! The DB Clariday Serif family is available in 7 weights, here’s the Medium style 👀 Trial fonts and editable waterfalls available on our site for further testing and perusal! Fonts In Use: DB Clariday Serif #fonts #dbclariday #deltabravotype #typography