Unhinged is a blocky sans serif font inspired by an everyday object in the modern human experience, door hinges. The uniform shape, as well as the negative space making up each letter is drawn from a classic door hinge. This fun and funky typeface is offered in both Unhinged Regular and Unhinged Stroke for greater adaptability and playfulness.
How Did We Get to Door Hinges?
I started researching for this project and originally intended to use doors as a whole as the inspiration. I researched different door components, and typography associated with doors, including address numbers, and different door shapes. As my sketching and research evolved I narrowed in on the possibilities of focusing solely on door hinges and how I could play with positive and negative space within each letterform.
First Five Variations
I started by focusing on different aspects and styles of doors while creating 5 variations of my potential font, using the letters H, O, and N, which eventually evolved into Unhinged. Of these five, one of my interpretations was literal in imitating door hinges, which I continued to explore.
Making More Letters
As I continued with the process I found that each letter being too detailed and too different in the overall shape was a recurring problem. Around this time Silas Munro of Polymode Studio came into class and provided feedback, directing towards SourceType’s Reform typeface for inspiration. Reform was inspired by tractors and had a similar chunky quality to the shape I was most gravitating toward within these shapes. He also suggested the idea of having a variation solely with the stroke, as the play between negative and positive was an interesting notion within my experimentation.
Unhinged Takes Shape
For the next steps of the process I set out to create my entire alphabet, and I decided to choose the one iconic door hinge shape that can be found in most homes to lean into. I set rules for myself of how large the negative space could be, with the same size circle across all the letters, but more variation in the negative blocks to create letters like E and F. These little variations are still inspired by hinges, as not all hinges are of equal size where the two sides meet to actually bend. I also set out to create the stroke version of Unhinged, as Silas had suggested.
Unhinged Regular and Unhinged Stroke
