The typefaces issued by Alphabet Soup, the new foundry established byveteran lettering artist Michael Doret, are not your run-of-the-millfonts. Each of the three initial offerings—Orion, Metroscript(above), and PowerStation—consists of more than a character set.PowerStation, based on Doret’s work for the Hershey’sflagship store in Times Square, is a sturdy, faceted sans serif in twowidths that is intended for two-color work. Orion is an Art Deco scriptwhose letters join so seamlessly that every word set in it looks like ajazzy logo. The letters of Metroscript, an homage to the Americancommercial scripts that were used for everything from matchbook coversto baseball uniforms between 1920 and 1960, also link up perfectly. Inaddition, Metroscript has alternates and swash “tails” that,with the help of OpenType-friendly programs like InDesign, can turnvirtually any keyboard jockey into a professional letteringartist.
The Alphabet Soup fonts are carefully thought out andproduced, reflecting Doret’s long experience designing distinctivelettering for logos (Universal Studios Hollywood), book and magazinecovers (Time), scorecards (Toronto Blue Jays), album covers(Kiss), posters, and even stamps. For PowerStation and Metroscript,Doret has included PDF user manuals explaining how to get the most outof each font. These guides are beautifully designed, informative, andsimple to follow. More foundries should be providing extras like this.Alphabet Soup is m’m m’m good. PAUL SHAW