Body is a type family designed for Zetafonts by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini with Andrea Tartarelli. Conceived as a contemporary alternative to modernist superfamilies like Univers or Helvetica, Body tries to maximize text readability while providing a wide range of options for the designer. It comes in two variants (Body Text and Body Grotesque), each in four widths and four weights: regular and bold for basic typesetting, light and extrabold for display use.
Body Grotesque applies to the sans serif modernist skeleton little imperfections and quirks inspired by our research in early 20th century type specimens. Curves are slightly more calligraphic and a light inverse contrast is applied to bold weights, giving the typeface a slight vintage appearance in display use.
Body Text, on the contrary, challenges the modernist aesthetics maximizing horizontal lines and using open terminals for letters like “s” and “a” that appear normally dark in modernist grotesques.
For both variants, the normal width family is slightly condensed in an effort to maximize space usage; the Slim width is provided for extremely dense texts or side notes while the Fit width is optimized for display usage as in logos, headings or titles. The Large width manages to look elegant in its light weight while becoming a valid heading or subtitle font in its extrabold weights.
All the 64 fonts in the Body superfamily include a complete latin extended character set with small caps for over 70 languages, Russian cyrillic, open type positional numbers, stylist sets and alternate forms.