Putting the “Vogy Smog” typeface under the microscope
By: Leigh Fisher
Tags: Design, Typography, Typeface, Design Process, UI

When choosing a typeface to analyze, I was quite torn between a more conservatively designed typeface and a very bold, out-there option. After digging through the work of different type foundries, I was stuck between Grand Slang by Nikolas Type and Vogy Smog by Swiss Typefaces.

My decision was somewhat made for me since I reached out to Nikolas Type and learned that they do not offer student trials of their typefaces. While this might sound anticlimactic, I like to think about it as a design constraint of sorts. In every official design project I’ve ever done, there were a ton of constraints — sometimes as arbitrary as my supervisor deciding they didn’t like a particular color or icon style.

Plus, it pushed me to pick the more wild typeface, which I think is something I need in my creative practice more. I always tend to be more conservative with what typefaces, colors, or styles I work with; I need to be more bold and adventurous.

Vogy Smog is a boldly creative typeface that feels suitable for design projects.

Vogy Smog was developed by Swiss Typefaces’ Lab in their Research & Development department. They describe this collection of typefaces as “experimental and definitely radical in design.” I did a little more digging to see if I could find examples of Vogy Smog used in other designs and came across Identifont, which reports that this typeface was released in 2019.

Vogy Smog is beautiful, but it definitely isn’t the typeface to put on a business’ annual report. I’m working with the primary, non-italicized version of Vogy Smog where the capital letters always have the stylistic smog. There is a variant of the typeface called Vogy Smog SS01 (Smogless Capitals).

As the name pimples, this gives you the power to include capital letters without the cloud-like accent lines. I wanted to mention the availability of that variant, but I’m going to keep focused on the primary Vogy Smog typeface for the purposes of analyzing only one form.

Vogy Smog, if used with care, could be excellent for visual storytelling.

The contrast between the capital letters and the lower case ones is part of what makes this typeface so eye-catching. The capitals are works of art. Perhaps a bit hard to read if downsized too much, but works of art nevertheless.

The stark contrast between those and the lowercase letters is striking. Though the line weight is similar between capital and lowercase letters when you look closely at the tails and details, the lowercase letters have a generous amount of kerning at default. They’re quite simple and easy to read. The individual levels in lowercase seem to vary between being serif and sans-serif, depending on the character. Though it’s a variance that I don’t think I’ve seen very often, I feel like it works for this typeface.

The lowercase letters look very modern. They almost look like they’d be suitable for sci-fi fiction. Alternatively, they seem like the kind of typeface you might see a tech company using in their marketing materials. The smoggy capitals feel versatile; while they lend a sense of mystery, they could be used to add gentleness or classiness to a composition. They’re very artistic and could even be perceived as rather fantasy-like if used in the right context.

The glyph overview sheds more light on the versatile nature of Vogy Smog.

Beyond that, the numbers and punctuation are all very clearly rendered. They’re so simple that they almost look minimalist or authoritarian in a way. In some ways, I do feel like the numbers look a bit different from the lowercase letters. They’re close enough to look related, but they do seem a bit more divorced stylistically from the letters than other typefaces.

Yet truth be told, since Vogy Smog is such a heavily illustrated typeface, I almost couldn’t see myself putting the numbers or currencies to work. While the smogless capital variant would be useful for more professional and less creative contexts, I would feel like I was trying to shoehorn this typeface into a shoe it didn’t fit in if I used it that way.

However, Vogy Smog would be a simply brilliant typeface choice for initials. It’s a brilliant font for names. I’m a bit self-centered and had to try typing my name out and seeing how that looked in this typeface. As you can guess by the hero image of this piece, I was rather pleased with the results.

Let’s get analytical and look at some potential weaknesses.