Clip, from its specimens at myfonts.com
Last night on this Twitter account, hooked up to his LinkedIn profile*, Stephen Coles of Typographica and said, “You can dump your drawer full of paperclip fonts now. This one can replace them.” He was totally right—this is the mother of all paperclip-based typefaces. The notion that makes this stand out from the rest is its whimsy. It’s based upon the notion of a paperclip, but it’s not constrained by it. The forms are less bent by a frustrated office drone, more fashioned by a jeweler in a moment of fun. The letters appear to dance. Geometry creates the pattern of the letters rather than the structure.
While browsing the publisher’s MyFonts page, I also found this little gem, Outliner. This is a great alternative to those crazy squashed late 19th century engravers’ sans (like Burin Sans and Sackers Gothic), rendered with a more modern touch but the same sort of whimsy those old faces have. There’s something charmingly accidental in the filled version. Both styles are specifically designed to be used with outlines of varying widths, so take a lookie-loo at their samples and go nuts.
*I am probably the one person who actually pays attention to anything at all on LinkedIn.