In Spring 2012 I started working on Works That Work, and as strange as it may seem, one of the first things that I started working on was its typeface.

It was clear what kind of texts we were looking for in the magazine — favouring clarity, avoiding complex hierarchies or footnotes, speaking in the first person. I wanted the typeface to be the voice of WTW — confident enough not to need to show off, with the comfortable, relaxed manner of an engaged storyteller, ready to handle long stories, but also small captions or titles.

The magazine stretches across multiple platforms (online, eBook, PDF and print), he typeface is the sole constant characteristic, identifying the magazine regardless of whether a reader purchased a single article on a mobile phone or a complete issue in print. Lava, the very typeface you are reading right now, was designed to perform optimally in both high and low resolution environments, and delivers something that typical user interface fonts usually lack: refined details, finely tuned proportions and meticulous spacing, letting the reader forget about the typeface and pay attention to the text.

Please welcome a new typeface family — Lava.