With considerable experience in art direction, type design, illustration, identity, web design, and UI design, Connary Fagan is a graphic designer and typographer who has mastered the art of quality type design. “As a designer, I noticed early on how much typography affected the quality of my work,” Connary told us. In the beginning, he sought to obtain a better understanding of the mechanics behind good type, developing original typefaces and expanding his own library of fonts for private use.
Over time, Connary began releasing his type designs into the world and has met with a great deal of success along the way. His designs have been licensed by powerhouse companies that include Discovery Digital Networks, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Land’s End, and his work also secured three spots in our Top Ten Fonts of 2016.
One of Connary’s most recent releases is Integral CF, a bold sans serif with an intense character that gets noticed wherever it goes.
“From the beginning, the idea was to push myself to go bold,” Connary told us. “I wanted to design a typeface that could express big, huge emotions, be visually captivating, and be very functional and legible. I’ve always pictured Integral being well suited for posters and large format print, but it’s also great for headlines, titling, motion graphics, and logotypes.”
The idea of Integral had been working itself out in Connary’s head for an extended period of time; when he sat down to begin work on it, things moved rather quickly. Connary is incredibly pleased with the final result, having accomplished exactly what he intended to do with Integral’s design.
“I enjoyed focusing on specific characteristics that I wanted to see in a typeface – clear, sober, loud – and seeing that focus through to the end,” Connary expressed. “I’m happy working within self-imposed constraints and seeing what happens. I think some people’s best work happens when they have to deal with restrictions (whether from a client, or a format, or self-imposed) as it lends a sense of clarity and purpose, and requires a dedication to problem-solving instead of evasion.”
For Connary, Integral emerged in stark contrast to Addington, an elegant serif that was developed to serve a wide range of applications, balancing versatility with classical beauty. “Where Addington is like a delicate pencil drawing or watercolor, Integral feels like painting in huge, broad strokes with dark black ink,” Connary said.
Integral delivers an intensity that refuses to be denied. Powerful and almost overbearing in its physical stance, this type design demonstrates heart, determination, and masculine charm through its letterforms.
“A lot of fine tuning went into the letters so they would all feel roughly the same in terms of visual weight,” Connary shared. “At times I felt like I was working on a monospaced font because I wanted a lot of consistency. There’s a bit of optical illusion and rule-breaking at work to make it happen.”
Connary was unsure of creating a lowercase set for Integral. “I explored enough to realize it wasn’t going to work out the way I wanted it to, and ultimately chose to focus all my effort on the capitals. It was worth the time to explore that detour and make sure I was on the right path,” he said.
All-caps Integral offers six weights that include Regular, Medium, Demi Bold, Bold, Extra Bold, and Heavy, with corresponding obliques for each. It provides numerals, extensive punctuation, and symbols that include a truly unique variation on the classic “@” symbol. “I chose to reverse out the glyph, and it ended up looking great,” Connary explained. “It keeps the overall visual weight consistent when sitting next to other characters.”
Integral is a strong choice for branding, displays, signage, headlines, advertising, product packaging, book covers, and posters that want to leave an impact on the viewer. Multilingual support extends to Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romanian, Pan African Latin, Dutch, and Basic Greek for exceptional global accessibility.
If you dig the robust posture of Integral, check out the rest of Connary Fagen’s portfolio and bookmark it to watch for new releases and updates because Connary is always working on something. “I’m still chipping away at an atypical script/cursive typeface, plus I’m experimenting with a stencil version of Manifold,” he said. “I am also well into the process of creating a tall, condensed family that will be a companion typeface to Integral.”
Connary ensures that his customers will always receive the best long-term support possible, so make sure to visit YouWorkForThem and download new updates for Connary’s fonts. “I spend a lot of time going back to my older typefaces and improving them – adding features, cleaning up shapes, removing bugs – and these updates are free!”
