Lydia is a calligraphic sans-serif typeface, re-drawn and -developed by Benjamin Critton Art Dept. over the course of several years beginning in the Spring of 2010. It is a bold, condensed iteration of Warren Chappell’s Lydian, drawn on behalf of New York’s American Type Founders (ATF) in 1938 and successively updated and expanded in 1940 & 1946.
Lydia Bold Condensed was initially drawn for a poster announcing the arrival of visiting typography critic Matthew Carter, who swung through the city of New Haven one spring day while on his way to the premises of the MacArthur Foundation.
Lydia is concurrently fluid and sharp, intended to appear wrought simultaneously by both pen and machine. It follows respectfully in the footsteps of Chappell’s canon, Edwin Shaar’s Valiant (MT, 1940) and Tom Carnase’s Honda (ITC, 1970).
Lydia contains Latin-A and Central European support, as well as several typographic alternates. It is supplied in OpenType (.OTF) formatting.
Pulsating with the primitive beliefs of a savage people, this electrifying novel about a modern Mexican girl who could not marry the man she loved until she banished an ancient curse.
She flung herself into a man’s arms to save herself from an unnatural life.