Triptych is comprised of three distinct styles — Roman, Italick [sic] and Grotesque — harking back on the sophisticated brutality emblematic of Victorian text typography.

Roman and Italick are irreverently free renditions of the sturdiest of all sturdy book faces ever produced — namely Old Style Antique ­No. 7 by Miller & Richard’s prime punchcutter Alexander Phemister first issued in 1858. The accompanying Grotesque is a mental extrapolation of unsorted Sans Surryph influences spanning the best part of the Nineteenth Century.

The seriffed styles were drawn based on a variety of type specimens encountered in both physical and digital form of more and less dubious origin.

In the process, it proved beneficial to avoid high fidelity imagery in favour of low resolution samples. The lack of visual clues combined with a no-touch technique invites for individual interpretation of these letter shapes from the elusive past. This approach removes the result from being a mere revival and rather emphasizes the moment of abstraction required in drawing digital type

The Bold weight takes this adaptive method even further; nonchalantly appropriating various historical sources, it is a subconscious amalgamation of a manifold of quaint European grotesques and American gothics.

Despite its name, Triptych is of secular, utilitarian nature. The triplet is designed to take on clearly defined hierarchical functions within a typographic system. Its unsentimental, at times mechanical drawing makes for a stubbornly robust and economic design. Bare any bourgeois flamboyance it is suited for confident and hard-working typography. Where other typefaces are promoted as workhorses, this one is a mule.