Spectres of Fascism

Here’s my cover for Samir Gandesha’s Spectres of Fascism, published by Pluto Press. A fine excuse to deploy Jonathan Barnbrook’s contemporary blackface Bastard Spindly, designed in 1988. Some background from Barnbrook:

William Morris said ‘the more mechanical the process, the less direct should be imitation of natural forms’. This idea—that the tool should be acknowledged in the form of the design—directly influenced the development of Bastard’s letterforms. Bastard was digitally assembled using a modular system; whilst acknowledging the rhythm and drama of the historical blackletter form, this process transformed the typeface into something aligned with contemporary modes of production. Bastard draws upon a variety of typographic sources from the Gutenberg Bible to Albrecht Dürer’s geometric experiments.

Seriously though, is there a font with a better name than Bastard Spindly?