Superior Type is a foundry based in Prague, in a picturesque neighborhood on the Vltava river bank. Established in 2013 by the graphic and type designer Vojtěch Říha, it is an active foundry regularly expanding its collection. One notable example is the Restart family, a recent addition to the Fontstand library. I spoke with Vojtěch about the inspiration behind SuperiorType’s typefaces, his love for gravestone inscriptions, and his workflow.
Vojtěch Říha, Superior Type’s founder.
Vojtěch developed an interest in typography while studying graphic design at UMPRUM in Prague, where he graduated in 2015. During a six-month Erasmus experience in the Netherlands at the Royal Academy in The Hague, he often sneaked into the Type and Media course, which furthered his interest in type design.
Whether it’s the sweeping lines of a building, the ergonomic contours of a product, or the organic shapes in ceramics, Vojtěch draws inspiration from art in many forms, creating typefaces that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. “It’s all about curves,” he remarked. “When I see nice curves of stuff, I get inspired.” He strives to incorporate the fluidity and elegance he notices everywhere. This inspiration provided the concept for the development of the neo-grotesque Restart family, which includes sub-families like Restart Hard, Restart Soft, and Restart Ginger.
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The main difference between Restart Hard and Soft is the method used to connect strokes to the stems. In Restart Hard, the connections are sharp; in Restart Soft, they are rounder and smoother. The family includes a generous amount of styles, stylistic sets, and OpenType features, which were not necessarily Vojtěch’s goal. “Between 2008 and 2011,” he explained, “I was obsessed with superfamilies as these were getting popular then. Nowadays, I prefer specific fonts, not versions. It’s funny that I say that I don't like superfamilies because I keep making them” [laughter].
“For Restart Ginger,” Vojtěch noted, “I was toying with ink traps and some other things. Then I thought to myself, ‘Even though I have mixed feelings about some of the new fonts on Instagram, I still kind of like a few of the ideas.’ When I applied them to the design, they actually looked very nice!”. I asked Vojtěch how he stopped himself after implementing only one splashed-ink element to the typeface. “The idea was not to destroy every letter,” he replied. “We still wanted to have a solid grotesk. That is only present in one of the stylistic sets [Stylistic Set 10]. I also had in mind an idea of creating different styles with the splashed-ink dots”. I asked Vojěch if this was an idea for a variable version of Restart, to which he replied: “Exactly, but it just didn’t work, there were too many points.” This made me think of variable fonts and whether SuperiorType is working on updates to its existing typefaces. The answer is yes! They will be available on the foundry’s new website, currently in development.
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Despite having a love-hate relationship with Instagram, Vojtěch uses it to stay updated on the new releases published there daily. He considers it the best platform for advertising typefaces and sharing digital specimens. For the past several years, SuperiorType has been posting every day, a strategy that has helped increase awareness of their typefaces. Vojtěch gave me the impression that his other primary sources of inspiration for his work was to go offline and visit cemeteries.
“I always loved old gravestones,” Vojtěch shared. “I was born near Karlovy Vary. There were a lot of Germans living there in the past. The cemeteries are filled with the amazing inscriptions they left. At the beginning of my studies at university, I visited all the cemeteries in that area to make rubbings. Steiner was particularly inspired by these inscriptions.” It’s a contemporary-looking serif whose strong character is most evident through its large triangular serifs, which are balanced with rounded terminals. It is perfectly suited for headlines and other large-size texts. Together with Matyáš Machat, who shares Vojtěch’s fascination for headstone inscriptions, Superior Type is planning more gravestone-inspired typefaces for the future.
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Apart from exploring lettering in Czech cemeteries, Superior Type says that it feels independent from the local typographic scene. About 90 percent of its clients are located outside of the Czech Republic. “We interact more with the world than with the local scene,” Vojtěch assessed. However, there are several projects where Superior Type collaborated with established Czech designers, including Rostislav Vaněk.
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Another example is SuperiorType Vegan Sans release which is a digital revival of Vega, originally designed in the 1960 by Czechoslovak typographer and graphic designer Stanislav Maršo. Vega was issued in 1965 by Grafotechna, the only manufacturer of type metal in the former Czechoslovakia.
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Diacritics that are given in the Czech language are not of Vojtěch’s concern, as he believes that nowadays, it’s easier for non-Czech-speakers to design these than it was before the 1990s, referring to the growth of the global web. He does point out, though, that the same old Arial and Times, which replaced hand-carved gravestone inscriptions, have poorly designed diacritics.
During the pandemic, Vojtěch spent a great deal of time browsing the Decode Unicode website (https://decodeunicode.org/), which is how the Raptor family obtained a fairly large character set. A geometric sans serif, Raptor comes in three versions, named V1, V2, and V3. In addition to Latin, these support the Greek and Cyrillic scripts. Their multiple extras include all that one’s heart can desire, including Roman numerals, circled numbers, ligatures, multiple dingbats, and even illustrations, including a dinosaur egg! Having Futura as a historic reference for the typeface, Vojtěch experimented with the roughness of character drawing and increased Raptor’s x-height. New additions to the Raptor family are Raptor Text and Raptor Mono.
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Lenora, a Superior Type serif typeface for headlines, has an intriguing backstory. Originally thought of as an expressive serif with high contrast, it was only later expanded to include classically-drawn characters, arranged into eleven stylistic sets, designed for setting lengthy amounts of texts in articles and books. “When all sets are off, you get crazy curves,” Vojtěch explained, “not the other way ’round.” Named after Vojtěch’s wife, Lenora draws inspiration for its details from Bodoni and Didot. With Lenora, Vojtěch could experiment with his favorite characters, which are uppercase “R” and lowercase “g”. There is also a version of Lenora with less contrast, Lenora Grade, which gives a different, more robust feeling.
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Currently, Vojtěch is working on a major customization of one of Superior Type’s typefaces: Micro, designed by Marek Pistora. The customization is for a client he can’t yet reveal. Additionally, he’s reworking his old sketches, which will result in many new typefaces. Meanwhile, Vojtěch’s colleague Matyáš Machat is developing a new serif typeface with as few control points as possible. It will be added to the Superior Type library, too. Be sure to keep an eye out for the updates as they are working on, including the launch of the new Superior Type website with variable fonts and exciting new releases!
