Acton

Acton is a deceptively simple, grid-based design. Though derived from a 2 by 3 arrangement of blocks, it uses white spaces to allow for more complex shapes – for example as the R – where the underlying 3 by 5 arrangement is apparent. It also departs from this strict grid-based logic for characters such as the the T, L, f and r, whose cross-bars are shorter than they would otherwise be in order to promote optical evenness. No elegant solution could be found for the V, which in geometric fonts can appear very similar to the U, lacking as it does the cross-bar that can differentiate a square A from the capital form of the n. However, the resultant diagonal retroactively proved useful on the lower-case e and a, characters that otherwise would have more uninteresting design solutions.