Changing Face

New Zealand-based foundry JY&A Fonts, established by Jack Yan in 1987, has announced a new, classically inspired typeface family, JY Alia created to complement previous his 1994-5 release, JY AEtna. Yan, who is also the publisher of Wellington-based fashion magazine Lucire said: “The problem with JY AEtna, as I saw it, was that it wasn’t robust enough for text usage.” He sees JY Alia, which is stronger but still approachable as a design, as a rival for other workhorse typeface families such as Adobe Garamond or Monotype Bembo. JY&A Fonts was the first to branch into digital type in its country, and has spent the last several years working on private commissions.