Archive Mono

Developed and refined through various projects and design commissions by Colophon Foundry, Archive was initially conceived as a workhorse Serif typeface for a publication for Brighton-based photographic publisher Photoworks — The Myth of the Airborne Warrior by Stuart Griffiths, edited by Gordon MacDonald, documenting the troubles in Northern Ireland during the 1980s. Collected ephemera by the artist used lo-fi reproduction techniques such as photocopying and primitive variants of Offset printing which led to distortion of the typography. Observing this, Colophon Foundry set out to draw a Serif that encapsulated the qualities of these production methods. Small indents on both the top and bottom of each serif, aligning parallel to the baseline and cap height, gave each letterform an independent ‘pre-existing’ and, when applied through complete alphabet, rhythmic quality.

Archive is available in four weights — Roman, Roman Italic, Semibold, Semibold Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Extra Bold, Extra Bold Italic and with corresponding Italics. It also boasts a  Monospaced variant in a Roman weight. Archive is open to licensing in both Standard (‘STD’) and Profesional (‘PRO’) variants. The latter contains a full set of small capitals, discretionary ligatures and additional typographic alternates, as well as further language support for Cyrillic and Greek.