Carrig came to life in 1998 when I discovered an example of a beautiful Roman typeface in an old calligraphy workbook. I had been researching old typography for an identity I was designing for Carrig House – a picturesque and tranquil lakeside hotel in Co. Kerry, Ireland. I had been leaning towards using Baskerville, Garamond or even Trajan for the logotype, but there was something about the hand-drawn look that made it more personal and authentic. Also, as “Carrig” is the Irish word for “rock”, it made sense to emulate the look of weathered stone engravings for the logo.

I attempted to copy the found typeface by hand and then began the process of interpreting my drawings in Macromedia Fontographer to create a working font. I managed to get a basic character set together and the identity was created and very well received by the client. But since then Carrig was pretty much forgotten. Until 2014, when I suddenly found the inspiration to resurrect the project and breathe new life into it. Having purchased the wonderful Glyphs app, I rolled my sleeves up and set about creating what would become Carrig Rough.

The ‘Rough’ soon became ‘Refined’ – a smooth cut, all-caps font – which was followed by lowercase roman and italic versions completing the Carrig Compleat family that has been around since mid-2015.

Now, while this typeface has been popular, I have been aware that along with the historical ambiguity and beginner’s naivety that are inherent in Carrig, there were many inconsistencies that would need correcting. I have now addressed those and redrawn all the fonts from scratch, while retaining their original personality. Carrig Pro is a family of 12 fonts that are packed with the features listed below. By the way, the original Carrig has been updated at all font resellers – the 5 font family is now known as “Carrig Basic”.

One of the original Carrig’s most-loved features are the alternates for the /O/Q/R/U/ glyphs – particularly the distinguished swash /R/. Those have been retained and improved upon in Carrig Pro. I have drawn a swash /K/ that mirrors the /R/ and also included a swash /S/ that was a popular feature in another typeface of mine, Fnord.

Following on in the style of Fnord, I have included a number of all-caps ligatures. These, combined with the alternates, help to extended the possibilities of what you can achieve with Carrig Pro – think of how you might design very distinctive titles for your book covers, magazine articles, advertising, etc. Just ensure you have “discretionary ligatures” activated when typing and you’ll get access to these typographic flourishes.

While the ancestry of Carrig’s design is ambiguous, having being influenced by different type movements from Roman times to the 19th Century, I wanted to include the option to create more authentic typography of a time period up to the mid-1700s. The inclusion of a /long s/ glyph ( ſ ) and its subsequent ligatures give you the option to add a touch of authenticity to your replication of type from that era. There are gadzooks too – these are the loop ligatures that link /c/ to /k/, etc. You can activate these via “stylistic alternates”.

As I was creating the promotional graphics for this typeface, I thought it would also be a nice bonus to include some alternates to create the same ornaments. So, there are alternates for the endash and emdash that will give you Carrig-themed, stylised line breaks. There’s an alternate bullet point and a hashtag that returns an ornate filigree icon. And, if you type <||||> and hit/activate Stylistic Set 1, you’ll get a Carrig-themed double-headed arrow – perfect for line breaks and ornamental use.

Feature Summary

Alternate /K/O/Q/R/S/U/ glyphs – activate Stylistic Set 1
All Caps Ligatures – activate Discretionary Ligatures
Gadzooks – activate Discretionary Ligatures and Stylistic Set 1
Long s & Historical Ligatures – need to be inserted manually from the Glyphs Palette
Ornamental Alternates – activate Stylistic Set 1
Small Caps – simply activate Small Caps!

What will you create with Carrig Pro? Please let me know, I’d love to create a “fonts in use” gallery.

Thank you,