Skrappa is a bulky geometric typeface built for bold and brash messages. The project began life in 2018 as a rough draft for a t-shirt lettering, based it in part on Ken Garland's design for the 'First Things First' manifesto. This manifesto (published in 1964), was a call to re-evaluate design's purpose in society. It urged designers to eschew the trappings of commercialism, advocating for design that served social and moral purposes.
As much as Ken's lettering served as the foundation for Skrappa, the typeface began taking on a character of its own as the project broadened. Its robust structure an ode to the modernist bombast of decades past – clinical abstraction, methodical construction.
It was first published in 2019 as a single condensed cut – partnered a short while later by an accompanying italic. I gladly worked on a custom version of Skrappa for the NBA basketball team the Utah Jazz for their 2020/21 season which included a new set of wide masters. When I finally returned to Skrappa in early 2023, I noticed a myriad of things which could be improved upon. This led me down the inevitable path of redrawing and redesigning the entire project from scratch – a well needed fresh start in order to expand the family and make it variable in the process.
The update now comes in 5 widths; Condensed to Wide, with accompanying italics. The full family also comes with a variable font which enables fine-tuned customisation over three separate axes; Width, Italic, and Tracking. As Skrappa gets wider, it also increases in weight to maintain a compact appearance. In its default state, Skrappa has a range of optical spacing adjustments to help improve the letter-fit. However each individual font style also includes a separate 'Tight' set with more equal spacing – best used when tightening up the tracking.
