Jure Stojan, 2002

JY Raj has had a lengthy gestation. The original one was a sans serif adaptation of a slab serif typeface design by Jure Stojan. The slab serif, which he called Pekel after the town he lived in, was quirky, and in turn had been based on one he used for Christmas cards the year before.
   Raj looked instantly better as a sans serif. After refining it further one lengthy night in 2001, he showed the drafts to Jack Yan, who completed the character sets and finished the kerning (again, over 3,000 kerning pairs per font are present). As with the majority of JY&A Fonts typefaces, Raj is euro-equipped.
   A characterful sans serif, JY Raj pushes the boundaries of what is possible with various geometric shapes, combining legibility and tradition with sharp, unexpected angles. As with Stojan's earlier JY Koliba, it possesses a delightful balance, thanks to the designer's eye for detail and typographic harmony.
   The name has little to do with the Asian subcontinent: it translates to paradise in Stojan's mother tongue, Slovenian.

138 JY Raj Roman, Italic, Extra Bold, Extra Bold Italic $99

Above Stojan has created four weights for JY Raj, including an extra bold roman that has sharp forms yet a gentle, legible appearance. Below left The letter g is highly distinctive, just as it is in JY Koliba. Below right Four letters that show how how JY Raj breaks from tradition. It is in the overall form that Raj maintains its legibility, not in the outline shape or the stroke width. Bottom Despite the unconventional forms, it is one of the most legible sans serif typefaces available.

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Single fonts $39 each.

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