Michael Parson is a graphic designer who discovered his love for typography while attending Switzerland’s Ecal university. He was no certainly no stranger to lettering at that time, having worked on his share of logos and flyers by hand, but it was Michael’s formal introduction to computer software that changed everything. One of his professors persuaded him to give Fontographer a try, an endeavor that was Michael’s first foray into the world of digital type design.
And he hasn’t looked back since.
“I was amazed at the technology behind typeface design and how this little program could then command the various letterforms I had created,” Michael observed. “I got more involved in type design the following years and explored typography as code during my final graphic design course.”
His newly-found interest in the art of typography led Michael to pursue potential outlets for publishing his work. He contacted foundries to inquire about their interest, and Linotype accepted some of his fonts as a part of their TakeType contest. As most designers will recognize, the singular joy and validation that comes with having someone say “yes” to their work is all it took to encourage Michael to keep exploring the field.
For Michael, that meant really digging into the history of type design, its roots, its architecture, and its meanings. It was fascinating for him, to say the very least. Over time, Michael’s fondness for typography exceeded that of graphic design, in large part because he feels that there is a never-ending number of concepts to discover and explore. Typography is an exhilarating experience for Michael and he remains continually immersed in the craft he is so intensely passionate about.
One of his more recent releases is Kurstiva, a slender sans serif with a wide personality. Kurstiva is a contemporary type design whose squarish architecture is softened by its rounded curves and corners. It’s a balance that keeps the font legible and informative, yet it presents itself with a warm demeanor that eliminates any sense of severity.
Kurstiva is available in Thin, Light, Regular, Bold, and Black, with corresponding italics for each. The thinner weights are more precise and honed, with a decidedly scientific edge to their structures. The heavier the weight, however, the more buoyant Kurstiva becomes due to its increasingly rounded, almost bubbly stature. Because of its range of weights, Kurstiva is well suited to an incredible variety of projects, including headlines, editorials, corporate communications, letterhead, website content, presentations, logos, branding, e-publishing, product packaging, advertising, displays, posters, and signage.
Kurstiva is loaded with additional features that include fractions, alternative fractions, case sensitive forms, contextual alternates, discretionary ligatures, standard ligatures, ordinals, oldstyle figures, tabular figures, subscript, superscript, and stylistic alternates. Its multilingual support extends to Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, and Pan African Latin languages for global accessibility.
Michael Parson currently offers 41 products through YouWorkForThem, featuring an impressive collection of styles to suit a variety of design projects. Visit his portfolio to check out the rest of his work and bookmark it so you won’t miss any of his upcoming additions. Michael is always hard at work and we’re looking forward to seeing more of his typography in the future!