Spiegel Sans

When approached to give informal advice on the redesign of the leading German weekly Der Spiegel (“The Mirror”), Luc(as) offered to design a completely new headline font. A newly developed typeface, he argued, would lend an unmistakable personality to the magazine. He worked late nights for a week and sent in sketches; the designers immediately ordered six weights. Says Luc(as): “I get a weekly free copy of the magazine as long as the typefaces are being used – it’s been twenty years now.”

The Spiegel Sans typeface embodies an interesting paradox: the shapes and proportions of an American-style gothic – the ultimate industrial typeface – are combined with the subtle diagonal stress and almost imperceptible traces of handwriting that are typical of most of Luc(as)’s text faces. Although conceived as a headline face, Spiegel Sans is perfectly suited for medium-sized body text: a lucid, unobtrusive face to lend a unique character to brochures and illustrated books. The Condensed version is an elegant, spacing-saving headline font.

The current OpenType version includes character sets for dozens of languages including special sets for Central European, Baltic, Icelandic and Turkish.