"Whomp" OpenType Script Font & User's Guide - 1,6 MbAbout this typeface"Whomp" takes its inspiration from the work of an American master in sign painting and alphabet manipulation: Alf Becker. In 1932, Becker began designing a series of alphabets to be published in [EM]Signs of the Times[/EM] magazine at the rate of one alphabet per month. Nine years later, 100 of those alphabets were compiled in one book that became an enormous success among sign painters.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Alf Becker alphabets were digitized with blurbs that falsely credit them as "an Alf Becker typeface". Alf Becker was not really a typeface kind of guy. He was more of a calligrapher and sign painter. His alphabets were either incomplete or full of variations on different letters, and didn't become typefaces until the digital era.
This particular Becker alphabet was quite incomplete. In fact, it wasn't a showing of an alphabet, but a few words on a poster. Alejandro Paul took the challenge of drawing, digitizing, restructuring, and finally building a complete usable typeface from that partial alphabet.
Through the wonderful possibilities of OpenType, "Whomp" comes with more than 100 alternates, tons of swashy endings and ligatures, all accessible through OpenType palettes in programs that support such features. This is the in-your-face kind of font that pays direct homage to the vision of this great American artist.
About the DesignerAlejandro Paul teaches graphic design and typography at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. He has worked as an art director in prestigious Argentina-based studios, handling high-profile corporate brands such as Arcor, Marta Harff, Morph, SC Johnson, Danone, and Movicom. He has walked away with awards from several design competitions and is also a typeface designer for T26. He is one of the founders of the Sudtipos project, the first Argentinean type foundry collective.