Over time, many of the functors of page layout have become formalized within the concept of typeface as morphic categories, categories being the semantic building blocks of perception at the level of both individual physiology and social production. First case, then skew, weight, horizontal scale and serifization have evolved as the axes about which type families may be configured. To these Nick Shinn has added a cultural axis, with modern (minimalist) and old style (humanist) as the poles of the sans serif genre.
Shinntype’s Sense and Sensibility comprise a super-family of two styles of roman with italic, sharing stem widths, vertical metrics, and horizontal scale (though not exact equivalence of character widths). There are eight weights, with alternate figures and identical tab figure width across all 32 fonts.
The types were originally developed for David Pratt’s 2007 redesign of The Globe and Mail (Canada’s National Newspaper), and have subsequently been slightly modified, with the addition of a Black weight and extended language support.
