Praxis Next
Studio Linda Hintz · Gerard Unger, Linda Hintz · 2017
A 2017 redesign of Gerard Unger's 1970s Digiset sans, extending the original with darker weights, a true italic, condensed companions and small caps, while preserving its distinctive rounded forms.
About
Gerard Unger drew the original Praxis in the mid-1970s for Hell's Digiset phototypesetting machines, pre-rounding letterforms on a coarse bitmap grid to control the exposure blurring. Linda Hintz took over the contemporary reworking, adding weights, a drawn italic and condensed variants that could not exist within the original grid's constraints. The characteristic roundings, far from being discarded, were recognised as central to the design's identity and carried through intact.
Classification
Derived from Gerard Unger's original 1970s Digiset humanist sans, Praxis Next retains the high x-height, open counters and characteristic roundings of the bitmap-era original while adding true italics and condensed variants freed from the grid constraints.