About ITC Malstock
ITC Malstock is the work of Frantisek Storm, a designer in the Czech Republic. The typeface is based on a sign painting technique that uses a flat brush and an instrument called a Maalstok (a long wooden or aluminum bar with soft padding on the top) that is used as a rest for the painter’s hand and works like a straight edge for vertical lines. The split stem endings of ITC Malstock recall the traces of the sign writer’s broad-edged brush drawn along the Maalstok. A very narrow typeface (the x-height is exactly one half of the cap-height) it is well suited to headlines, invitations, and advertisements. Storm recommends combining ITC Malstock with other faces and suggests two approaches: create “harmony” using any sans serif in text sizes, or create “contrast” using a classic serif type to achieve tension between the headline and body text. For the latter he also suggests setting the headline at twice the size of the text. |
