Mastadoni is a bold headliner/masthead typeface, with high vertical contrast in a Didone style. That’s the starting point at least. There’s much more to this font than another modern clone. It is a specialized (only one weight) typeface that comes in five optical grades. Use G1 at very large sizes and G5 at smaller sizes. The grades can be combined so that the thins of type set at different point sizes appear the same thickness - a very useful feature for magazine layouts. Optical grades could also be used in circumstances where a logo needs to be size-specific; the text on your bistro sign can afford to be more delicate than that on your coffee cups.
This is a typeface with a big x-height, small cap-height and stubby ascenders and descenders, which contribute to an overall appearance somewhat different from must Didones, and make for some interesting layout possibilities in tight spaces.
Mastadoni features a number of useful OpenType features. All fonts include standard ligatures and automatic fractions. In the discretionary ligature feature, you’ll find the esoteric “percent off” glyph. Just type ‘?’ with dlig engaged and there it is! Case-sensitive forms are available in all the fonts. The contextual alternates feature performs a subtle trick that resolves an optical illusion whereby two ascenders next to each other appear to be different heights.
The Roman and Italic styles have a different group of stylistic sets as follows:
Roman: SS01 substitutes a less decorative 4; SS02 is a different eszett; SS03 substitues the # with an attractive numero glyph; and SS04 gives an alternate K.
Italic: SS01 and SS03 are the same as in the Romans; SS02 gives you more bulbous variants of v, w, and y letters; SS04 is a single storey g; SS05 changes C, G and S to non-ball-terminal varieties; and SS06 changes the swash versions of E, L, N and Q (when the swash feature is engaged).
Speaking of the swash feature, the italic fonts feature swash capitals from A to Z, and swash variations for lower case h k m n v w and z.
Lastly, the discretionary ligature feature in the italic fonts has vi, wi, KA and RA ligatures.
Mastadoni is a typeface that would find itself immediately at home in glossy magazines, while offering a different aesthetic palette from the more standard choices of Didones.
