A year after the tremendous success of Memoriam in the “Lives They Lived” issue of the New York Times magazine at the end of 2008, Patrick Griffin and Nancy Harris Rouemy teamed up once more to tackle the same project for the 2009 issue. This time the magazine’s design concept revolved around a typeface they created specifically for custom vertical malleability, and that can play just as well in single- or multi-colour environments. The result was another iconic commemorative issue that shows exotic tri-line letters merging, swashing, extending and flourishing in stunning gold, silver and blue on black on the cover, and in black on white on the inside pages. Just like in the previous year, the issue won multiple publication design and typography awards.

Crescendo is that typeface, finally issued for retail by public demand. Just turn your setting into outlines in your favourite vector program, grab single strands and extend away, and do your best alternating colours between strands.

Crescendo comes with a limited punctuation set, but accented characters for Western Latin languages are included, and there many, many alternates and ligatures in there as well. This typeface is best used in large display sizes.