Hannah Tak was leading the design of an issue dedicated to some of the latest science on dinosaurs and asked if I could add something in the classic Tuscan wood type style to the Earle family. Tuscan typefaces follow standard letterform structures, but have odd horns, spikes, plates and other details that make them legible, but unfamiliar. This made the style a great pairing for illustrations of dinosaurs and photos of fossils. The trick in all of this was to tamp down any attributes that could make the letters resemble vintage circus posters, which made heavy use of Tuscan type. I drew several variations in different levels of ornamentation before we found one that Hannah felt looked more like bones than a carnival. This typeface ended up being way more versatile than I thought it would, appearing in many subsequent issues of the magazine.
