Defunct »Retina« by H&FJ?

Rainer Zerenko5 October 2008 · 12:10

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

Stéphane Darricau5 October 2008 · 12:57

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

Rainer Zerenko5 October 2008 · 13:12

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.

Stéphane Darricau5 October 2008 · 13:49

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.

loremipsum5 October 2008 · 14:33

Retina Display exists and is currently used in WIRED magazine.

loremipsum5 October 2008 · 14:34

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

Rainer Zerenko6 October 2008 · 01:57

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

loremipsum6 October 2008 · 05:18

Yes, that's it.

Rainer Zerenko6 October 2008 · 05:47

’kay, thanks for confirming.

loremipsum7 October 2008 · 13:57

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".

Rainer Zerenko7 October 2008 · 23:44

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 Reibstein8 October 2008 · 07:57

Mario did, however, get to use Retina Display just as recently in his redesign of the Oklahoman (see his blog post here).

gmpx2008 October 2008 · 09:57

another recent use of Retina:
http://blog.pentagram.com/2008/09/new-work-khaleej-times-1.php

gmpx2008 October 2008 · 09:59

(on the agate pages)

Rainer Zerenko8 October 2008 · 15:00

Oh wow, thanks for these sightings, too. Does anyone have a complete typespecimen?

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