Oswald Cooper never created a sans serif type (he didn’t like them much). But designer Dave Farey had long been a fan of the early 20th century American typeface and lettering artist, and was himself on a mission “to create a type family that was fresh and stood out from the crowd of other designs. At the same time, I did not want to create a design that was so distinctive, or so unusual, that it limited itself to just a few display applications.”
Seeking inspiration, Farey discovered that Cooper had produced some display lettering exercises of serifless letterforms. Farey found these and tested the available letters as the basis for a prototype font. He was delighted to see that they worked surprisingly well as text letterforms – and thus, many refinements later, ITC Highlander was born.
Most would probably classify ITC Highlander as a sans serif design; Farey prefers to categorize it as a “soft terminal monoline.” He believes that the soft terminals help the design be more readable than most sans serif type styles.
Another aid to the design’s readability is the slightly uneven character stroke weights. Farey chose to maintain this hand-drawn aspect of Cooper’s original design, and the appealingly human deviation from perfection overcomes the tendency toward visual monotony common to many sans serif faces. The italics are true cursive designs, which were carefully drawn to complement the roman while maintaining their own design integrity.
ITC Highlander has a modest x-height, providing a subtle sense of elegance to this otherwise informal design.