McQueen

Swiss Typography off the beaten grid

Designed by Loris Olivier, Noheul Lee, Katja Schimmel and Olli Meier as part of a superfamily along with McQueen Grotesk. Like an outfit from Lady Gaga – showy, spectacular, stage ready.

Rag

Ping Pong is like chess, only without the dice.

McQueen is the popular anti-hero with two faces. One is the ambitious eccentric who loudly lives by his own rules, the other is the reserved individualist who questions conventions in a restrained but determined manner.

Through the veins of the McQueen Collection flows the blood of three designers. Loris Oliver, who came up with the idea, is a Swiss designer with an enviable talent for creating trends. He knows the ‘Swiss Style’ all too well but the search for his own appeals to him much more. Noheul Lee also lives in Switzerland but hails from Korea and brings with her a quiet yet precise tone to the typeface as befitting with traditional Korean culture. Katja Schimmel from Germany completes the trio and adds meticulous font engineering to the typographical mix.

With the extensive update of the McQueen Collection to version 2.0, a fourth designer joins the already diverse group: Olli Meier, who has continued the meticulousness and turned the family completely inside out. He revised and harmonized all the characters and added eight new styles to each of the two families.

The core McQueen family, originally called “Display”, reconciles what are actually incompatible principles of enormous contrast, ink-trap-like ornaments and geometric shapes. Its counterpart, McQueen Grotesk, dispenses with these differences in line thickness and expressive characteristics and therefore appears more stable and restrained. At the same time, however, it retains the playfulness, dynamism and curves of its counterpart. In their own way, both families bear witness to a bold and cheeky character.

Both McQueens clamor for attention but with different game plans. McQueen is like a Lady Gaga outfit – showy and spectacular, fit for the stage. While McQueen Grotesk, is more stealth-like, akin to a pair of fashionable but reliable sneakers – in it for the long run, in other words extensive amounts of text. As in any good family, they like to spend time together, but equally allow each other to live their own lives.

Unless otherwise stated, the images used are subject to Unsplash licenses.

McQueen and McQueen Grotesk – 18 Styles each

#65

Uppercase

Lowercase

Latin Accents

ẞ

Ẃ

Ẅ

Ẁ

Ỳ

ẃ

ẅ

ẁ

ỳ

Numerals & Currency Symbols

Punctuation

;

…

•

‽

⸘

(

)

{

}

[

]

–

—

‒

‐

‑

‚

„

“

”

‘

’

‹

›

‴

⟨

⟩

Mathematical Signs & Symbols

∙

≅

≙

−

≠

≥

≤

≈

∞

∫

Ω

∆

∏

∑

√

∂

‰

Arrows & Shapes

↑

↗

→

↘

↓

↙

←

↖

●

○

◊

■

□

▲

▼

△

▽

▴

▸

▾

◂

Ligatures

Greek

EPFL+ECAL Lab Exhibition

Ridley Howard ‘Shorelines’

Ordinary Lifee

Egna

Aicono

Loris Olivier

Noheul Lee

Katja Schimmel

Olli Meier

Design Contributions

Jan Charvat
Andreas Frohloff

Mastering, Production

Olli Meier
Andreas Frohloff (Version 1.0)
Christoph Koeberlin (Version 1.0)
Rosalie Wagner (Variable Fonts Version 1.03)

Marketing

Ivo Gabrowitsch (naming, copywriting, specimen)
Studio Sowieso (graphic design, imagery)
Julian Braun (3D motion design)
Lucy Beckley (English translation)

Design Period

2016–2023

Release Date

Version 1.0: July 20, 2020; Version 1.03: February 15, 2022 (Variable Fonts); Version 2.0: December 22, 2023 (8 new styles added; corrections to spacing, kerning, outlines; merged Grotesk and Display into one variable font with ‘Optical Size’ axis; small caps removed; renamed McQueen Display to McQueen)

Recommended Use

Advertising & Packaging
Editorial & Publishing
Logo, Branding & CI
Fashion
Music & Nightlife
Poster & Billboards
Sports

Formats

static: OTF, WOFF2; variable: TTF, WOFF2
Further formats available on request

Licenses

TRIAL Free Test license
STANDARD Combined Print, Web, App and eBook license
EXTENDED Larger volume + Broadcasting
Further types of license available on request

Modifications & Extensions

Available on request

Variable Fonts

Included in the Superfamily package at no extra cost.

2 axes: weight, optical size

Web file sizes (.woff2): 90 KB (Upright), 101 KB (Italic)

Trademarks

McQueen™ is a trademark of Fontwerk GmbH

Download PDF

Swiss Typography off the beaten grid

Story

McQueen is the popular anti-hero with two faces. One is the ambitious eccentric who loudly lives by his own rules, the other is the reserved individualist who questions conventions in a restrained but determined manner.

Glyphs

Uppercase

Lowercase

Latin Accents

Numerals & Currency Symbols

Punctuation

Mathematical Signs & Symbols

Arrows & Shapes

Ligatures

Greek

Languages

EPFL+ECAL Lab Exhibition

Ridley Howard ‘Shorelines’

Ordinary Lifee

Egna

Aicono

Swiss Typography off the beaten grid

Story

McQueen is the popular anti-hero with two faces. One is the ambitious eccentric who loudly lives by his own rules, the other is the reserved individualist who questions conventions in a restrained but determined manner.

Glyphs

Uppercase

Lowercase

Latin Accents

Numerals & Currency Symbols

Punctuation

Mathematical Signs & Symbols

Arrows & Shapes

Ligatures

Greek

Languages

EPFL+ECAL Lab Exhibition

Ridley Howard ‘Shorelines’

Ordinary Lifee

Egna

Aicono

Related Typefaces

Pairing Suggestions