Defunct »Retina« by H&FJ?

Posted by Renko in

General Discussions

5 Oct 2008 — 12:10pm

Hi there dear Typophiles,

does anyone have a picture or a typespecimen of the typeface »Retina« by Hoefler & Frere-Jones and could show it?

Reason why: Mario Garcia has redesigned the layout of the – where I live – well-known quality-newspaper from Austria »Salzburger Nachrichten«. They now use Scotch from David Berlow as copyfont, the italic-weight as lead-typeface in some books and Frutiger from A. Frutiger as headlinetypeface.

Originally Mr. Garcia wanted to use »Retina« as headline-font, but the people there rejected it and stuck to Frutiger, as used the last couple of years.

Huh, Retina?

Haven't found much of this typeface until now. All the previous links from typophile go to 404-sites to H+FJ. Is this Retina-typeface out of business? Could someone show a complete alphabet of it? Please?

Well, thanks for reading. Even more thanks for answering. ;^D

Celeste
5 Oct 2008 — 12:57pm

Hi Rainer
I had myself noticed that Retina wasn't shown (I don't know why) on H&FJ website.
Here's a link to the AIGA website anyway.
http://designarchives.aiga.org/entry.cfm/eid_440

Renko
5 Oct 2008 — 1:12pm

Hi Stéphane,
thank you very much for the site. Must have overlooked it.

Is this the whole family? Do you or anyone else know if there is a display weight of it, too?

If not, how could anyone want to have all those inktraps seen in headlines? Now I know why the people there didn't wanted to change their headline-typeface.

Strange.

Merci, Stéphane, again.

Celeste
5 Oct 2008 — 1:49pm

Retina was designed as part of the "Wall Street Journal" redesign by Mario Garcia a few years ago (can't remember the exact date). It was intended for use in the stock market listings at a bodysize of 5 pts. So I don't think a display weight was even considered.

loremipsum
5 Oct 2008 — 2:33pm

Retina Display exists and is currently used in WIRED magazine.

loremipsum
5 Oct 2008 — 2:34pm

Retina Display (without inktraps) exists and is currently used in WIRED magazine.

Renko
6 Oct 2008 — 1:57am

Thanks loremipsum for this info. So it is the one shown in this thread, right?

loremipsum
6 Oct 2008 — 5:18am

Yes, that's it.

Renko
6 Oct 2008 — 5:47am

’kay, thanks for confirming.

loremipsum
7 Oct 2008 — 1:57pm

If you want a closer look, here's a sample - right from the source:

http://www.wired.com/images/press/pdf/petaage.pdf

In Acrobat, under Properties/Fonts, you see "Retina Display".

Renko
7 Oct 2008 — 11:44pm

Marvellous. Thanks very much, loremipsum. You have been a great help. Both of you. Thanks again. Your info went into this blogpost (only german, sorry)

Reed Reibstein
8 Oct 2008 — 7:57am