SST : a font for everywhere.

“It has the notable feature of having no notable features,” says type director Akira Kobayashi. “In other words, it has an understated look that fits products and brands with a solid or clean image.”

Kobayashi first designed SST as an exclusive typeface for Sony – in partnership with Hiroshige Fukuhara, chief art director at Sony Creative Center. Because the company operates in a number of countries, it needed a design that would work across a demanding range of touch points. Above and beyond practical considerations, it needed to be timeless – forgoing trends in favor of solid design principles that would remain relevant, despite an ever-changing digital world.

“I think any type has its own position in the map of typography, if there is such a thing,” says Kobayashi. “An attractive typeface with trendy styling might look outdated in just a couple of years, or a type with embellished characters could instantly attract attention.”

“Being understated does not mean being less expressive,” he adds. “SST was created to be flexible enough to let the products or brands speak for themselves. An ideal type for long-term branding is a type like SST, which does not try to attract attention to itself.”

Kobayashi aimed to create a typeface with universal and timeless appeal – which is no small order. Starting with a sketch of the alphabet created by Sony’s art direction team – who set out to achieve the readability of a humanist sans design and the solidity of a neo-grotesque – the designer first developed the Latin type, before moving onto the multilingual glyphs.

Kobayashi used Monotype’s network of local designers to harness language expertise, and gain insight into cultural sensitivities – making sure the typeface was tailored to each country. This was also a chance to ensure individual details such as curvature and line width were consistent across multiple languages.

“Imagine that you need to describe what your product or brand does, and the text has to have a solid and clean tone,” he elaborates. “You would choose an appropriate type such as Helvetica or Avenir, but what about Japanese, Arabic, and Thai languages? Well, that’s where the SST type family can provide a good solution.”

The use of some clever optical illusion allowed line width to appear consistent across characters, and legibility was maximized by using ample space for apertures and counters at smaller sizes – perfect for small screen displays.

And despite the need for SST to be restrained in appearance, Kobayashi still managed to sneak in some defining characteristics – giving the y a straight instead of curled leg, to avoid the typeface feeling too ‘soft’. This letter, with its “clean and simple” look became the key glyph that defined SST’s characteristics.