There are traditionally two kinds of ‘gothic’ type, blackletter and sans serif, to which Shinn now adds a third by dosing the classic Roman alphabet with a philtre of mystery, malice and antiquity. Where once was purity and grace now exists the undead—crooked, scarred and beastly. An oxymoron, no doubt, for a design to be both gothic and humanist, yet Merlin points to the fallacy of demonizing otherness, of becoming too settled in the association of form with meaning.

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