Tabac Big
Those who have grown tired of text typefaces insensitively blown up to the size of a poster or a building facade should from time to time try out extreme display styles, which are designed precisely for this purpose. They look best in dimensions from around 32 points out to infinity, and they rise to the occasion when a strong impression is necessary. This is especially true for the extreme weights Hair and Black, which don’t allow for any compromise. The sharp hairline and brutal contrast of the strokes test the most extreme possibilities, without having readability suffer in continuous text, as is characteristic for all the typefaces of the Tabac superfamily.
Tabac Big can satisfy all expressionists desiring idiosyncratic colouring in setting because it provides black weights. But at the same time it offers solutions for orthodox environmentalists who like to save ink and toner — all the fragile hair styles are intended just for them. Less clearly-defined typographers can then choose from the six other weights, from Thin through Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold and Bold, including true italics.
Anyone needing to optically enlarge the giant typeface to the maximum can increase the x-height. And if extra width compression is added, the image of the letters stretches seemingly to the clouds so that it fills up the entire line with the mass of the typesetting. Because we believe that not even display styles should skimp on their character sets and accompanying functions, we provide each typeface with a wide range of numerals, mathematical symbols and stylistic sets. Only small caps are absent; their function can be comfortably replaced with exceptionally reduced uppercase letters.
Tabac Big is a first and universal choice where we look for pronounced display type as a complement to text type. Its modern drawing, made up of precise arcs, sharp lines and seemingly simple segments, gives a clear and unmistakeable impression every time. And yet the typeface knows how to intrigue — especially in shaping the italics, which fully expresses the typeface’s unique details, such as its large bulbous instrokes and outstrokes and heavy wedge serifs.
Design: Tomáš Brousil
Number of fonts in a family: 16 (Hair, Hair Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Semibold, Semibold Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Black, Black Italic)
Number of glyphs per font: 493
Release date: 2019
OpenType Features:
Old Style Numerals (onum)
Lining Figures (lnum)
Proportional Figures (pnum)
Tabular Figures (tnum)
Localized Forms (locl)
Standard Ligatures (liga)
Case Sensitive Forms (case)
Slashed Zero (zero)
Stylistic Sets (salt)