Robin Mientjes’s Dover Series challenges current expectations about type families. That a family is comprised of styles of one kind, for instance, or that they come in lots of harmoniously interpolated weights. Dover’s four display styles and six text styles propose a different approach by matching serif and sans into one family.
The series explores “the quintessential British type” with a serif that is inspired by Haas’s Caslon, and a “sansified Caslon” that here and there quotes Edward Johnston’s lettering and sketches. So far so unsuspecting. But by giving us a limited yet compatible set of weights each, the Dovers facilitate more creativity than usual when it comes to hierarchy and design. Dover Display consists of both serif and sans Regular and Italic, Dover Text of serif and sans Regular, Italic and Bold (only). With matching proportions, x-height, skeleton and features, all styles are meant to be used together and provide enough variation for most applications while proving that familiar looking type can be anything but boring.