Bluu is back!

Bluu Suuperstar is a brutalist serif typeface featuring very prominent triangular-wedges for serifs and terminals. In certain places, strokes have been “broken,” like in the upright fonts’ lowercase “a,” “g,” and alternate “r.” Any oddities within the design are still firmly within the canon of serif typography, including the crazy gamma-shaped alternate “r.” Bluu Suuperstar does not alter the expected rhythm of a Garalde-style typeface. The family’s lighter fonts are optimised to support long passages of text in applications intended to encourage immersive reading. The heavier styles are best used in large display sizes. Despite the initial appearance of some of its letterforms, Bluu Suuperstar is a masterful variation on the Garalde-style serif typeface theme. Even though that style of letter is a well that designers repeatedly turn to for inspiration, Bluu Suuperstar proves that not all of the results need look the same.

Bluu Suuperstar’s letters have a tall x-height, and the diamond dots are a chief characteristic of the design. These aren’t only found on the “i” and “j,” but also in punctuation marks and diacritics, too. The lowercase “l” in each font includes a notch at the x-height on its left-hand side; this mimics the wedge-shaped serifs found at the tops of so many of the typeface’s lowercase letters, but it is also a nice nod to history. Notches like these are found in several blackletter designs; but most-famously in the “romain du roi” created for Louis XIV. Nothing in Bluu Suuperstar is soft or cuddly; this is a sharp typeface, and you could cut yourself on its letters. Even lesser-used characters like the fonts’ guillemots have energy; in Bluu Suuperstar, they look like folding knives, or bolts of electricity. Bluu Suuperstar’s italics have their own letter-construction model; they aren’t slanted versions of the upright letters. The result is calligraphic and dynamic, without referencing a particular typographic precedent. In the italics, the lowercase “a” and “g” are single-storied. Several italic letters include loops, like on the top-right of lowercase “k” or the bottom of “g” and “y.” The italic lowercase “f” has a descender – almost as if the letter had grown a tail.