Mabry Variable

Mabry Variable Font Family was designed by Benjamin Critton, Colophon Foundry and published by Colophon Foundry. Mabry Variable contains 2 styles and family package options. Originally commissioned in 2014 for Los Angeles-based apparel company Nasty Gal—named as such after the 1975 album and song of the same name by influential funk singer Betty Davis (b. Betty Mabry, 1945)—Mabry is the commercial iteration of the former NG Grotesque.With one foot amidst the idiosyncratic forms of the late 19th Century grotesques / grotesks, and the other among the rational maths of early 20th Century geometric sans-serifs, Mabry posits itself as several things at once: simultaneously contemporary and historic, rigorous and gestural, objective and subjective, cultivated and imprecise, refined and coarse all at once.Rendered from the would-be overlaps of these precedent-setting grotesque (ex. Schelter & Giesecke’s Briete, 1890) and geometric (ex. Renner’s Futura, 1927) types, Mabry is a vernacular study in dualities: the type is candid and forthright, but also a bit mischievous at times. It can prove pleasantly blunt in certain settings but also contains necessary moments of sensitivity and delicacy in its drawing. In its ideal application, Mabry manages to reference a vague past, capture a particular version of the present, and posit an amorphous timelessness.