Fontstand

At the drawing board, a typeface may be optimized for branding, signage, or publication design, but its true success is proven in real-world use. Boreal is a crisp and congenial sans serif that has already been put through its paces. Born as a custom face for Canadian airline Air Inuit, Boreal is not only the logo font, but also serves branded text on everything from tiny disclaimers and complex route maps to in-flight magazine headlines. It even looks great on the massive liveries of the airline’s fleet of Boeing 737s. Given this range of uses, the type had to be as versatile and legible as possible, while retaining Air Inuit’s welcoming identity. The fonts also required language support for the local Inuit languages of Northern Quebec, now known as Nunavik. This makes Boreal one of the few commercial typefaces with Latin/Inuktitut character sets that were designed concurrently and meant to be used together. Boreal’s flexibility is bolstered by five weights, each with italics, and a set of useful dingbats, including circled index numbers, arrows, and basic geometric shapes. Two stylistic alternates stand by for a more casual tone: a single-story ‘a’ with an upright italic construction, and a single-story ‘g’. Backed by practical experience, Boreal offers clean, approachable type for any corporate or editorial use, and its clarity and openness are also ideal for UI design and wayfinding. With Boreal, you always know where you’re going.