Mencken
Designed by Jean François Porchez

Collections
Collection | Purchase |
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Mencken 4Weights – Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic
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Mencken Narrow 4Weights – Regular, Light, Bold, Heavy
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Mencken Text 4Weights – Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic
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Mencken Family 14 fonts
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Mencken Narrow Family 7 fonts
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Mencken Text Family 14 fonts
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Mencken Full Family 35 fonts
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Mencken Full Family Try out 35 fonts
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Styles
Style | Purchase |
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Mencken Regular
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Mencken Italic
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Mencken Book
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Mencken Book Italic
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Mencken Demi
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Mencken Demi Italic
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Mencken Bold
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Mencken Bold Italic
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Mencken Extra Bold
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Mencken Extra Bold Italic
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Mencken Heavy
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Mencken Heavy Italic
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Mencken Black
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Mencken Black Italic
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Mencken Narrow Light
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Mencken Narrow Regular
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Mencken Narrow Demi
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Mencken Narrow Bold
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Mencken Narrow Extra Bold
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Mencken Narrow Heavy
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Mencken Narrow Black
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Mencken Text Regular
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Mencken Text Italic
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Mencken Text Book
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Mencken Text Book Italic
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Mencken Text Demi
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Mencken Text Demi Italic
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Mencken Text Bold
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Mencken Text Bold Italic
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Mencken Text Extra Bold
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Mencken Text Extra Bold Italic
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Mencken Text Heavy
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Mencken Text Heavy Italic
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Mencken Text Black
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Mencken Text Black Italic
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Mencken has sixty-three styles, divided into three widths, three optical sizes, romans, italics, borders and dingbats. Generally, optical size typeface families belong to a same common construction. It falls into the same category of type classification, while presenting different x-heights or contrasts. Mencken is unique because it is designed according to different axis and optical sizes. Firstly, Mencken Text is a low-contrast transitional typeface, designed on an oblique axis, asserting horizontal with featuring open counters. Its capitals follow Didots to better harmonize the rest of the family. On the other side of the spectrum, Mencken Head (and narrow variations) is designed on a vertical axis, high contrast, in a contemporary Didot style.
The Mencken is therefore a typeface answering to different sorts of uses, whose design is different according to its uses: from oblique axis in small size to vertical axis in large sizes. Vertical proportions (x-height, capitals height, etc.) were designed to be compatible with Le Monde series and specially Ardoise: small caps, drawn on an intermediate height between the lowercases x-height and capitals, in order to remain present for acronyms or to compose the first line of a paragraph or the words following a drop cap. Lucie Lacava and I followed the idea launched by Matthew Carter few years ago for some of his typefaces intended for publications.
From Baltimore Sun’s project to Typofonderie’s Mencken
It is a bespoke typeface for American newspaper The Baltimore Sun started at the end of 2004 which marks the beginning of this project. The story started with a simple email exchange with Lucie Lacava then in charge of redesigning the American East Coast newspaper. As usual, she was looking for new typeface options in order to distinguish the redesign that she had started. At the time of its implementation, a survey of the newspaper’s readers has revealed that its previous typeface, drawn in the mid-1990s, was unsatisfactory. The Mencken was well received, some reader responses was particularly enjoyable: “It’s easier to read with the new type even though the type is designed by a French.”
Why it is called Mencken?
The name Mencken is a tribute to H. L. Mencken’s journalistic contributions to The Sun. According to the London Daily Mail, Mencken ventured beyond the typewriter into the world of typography. Because he felt Americans did not recognize irony when they read it, he proposed the creation of a special typeface to be called Ironics, with the text slanting in the opposite direction from italic types, to indicate the author’s humour. Affirming his irreverence, the Mencken typeface does not offer these typographic gadgets.
Henry Louis Mencken (1880 — 1956) was an American journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English. Known as the “Sage of Baltimore”, he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the twentieth century. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians and contemporary movements. Source