Conor Mangat design Platelet in 1993. He was born in 1968 and is still alive.
It is a San serif font. According to Émigré, the font is under the geometric category.
WIKI: In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".
In print, sans-serif fonts are more typically used for headlines than for body text.[1] The conventional wisdom holds that serifs help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. Sans-serifs, however, have acquired considerable acceptance for body text in Europe. They first appeared in the early 1920s and are characterized by geometric construction suggesting use of a compass.
3 Other Typefaces: Eurostyle, Futura, Gotham
Answers:
The inspiration for Platelet came from the California license plate. Similar to the composing restrictions of the typewriter, the manufacture of license plates also requires the use of monospaced type; not only for mechanical requirements, but also to fulfill the need of fitting a fixed number of characters onto each plate while maximizing their legibility at a distance.
While Platelet is perhaps too fanciful for application on standard license plates, its usage might be suitable for the vanity plates, which the DMV offers at a higher price. The vanity plate owner is allowed to choose a customized arrangement of characters that usually spells a name, word, visual pun, palindrome, etc. Since the characters on vanity plates usually have a meaningful arrangement, they are immediately more memorable than a string of random characters, and therefore the design of letterforms could afford a lesser degree of legibility.
The “m” and “w” solve density problems by thinning out the middle stem. The lower case b is a mix of upper and lower to help readability. (Emigre Type Magazine)
Conor Mangat was born in 1968, in South East London. He studied Visual Communication locally, at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, graduating in 1991. The following year, he relocated to Southern California to join the MFA program at CalArts (from which he graduated in 1994), going on to complete a range of old and new media projects for the likes of MetaDesign in San Francisco, Metro Newspapers in Silicon Valley, FontShop International, and Monotype Typography. Since returning to London in 1999, he has established a freelance typographic design practice, while also studying towards a Masters in Typeface Design at Reading University.
Current work:
Do you have an opinion on the typographic representation of the euro?
If so, you are invited to participate in an online survey on the subject, which is part of a dissertation study that I am carrying out at The University of Reading in England.
When it was first announced, the euro symbol drew much informal comment, but little serious formal study. It has since slipped quietly into everyday usage with little further mention, and so it seems appropriate to gauge opinion once again - before it becomes just another topic for design history classes.
The survey (which is only seven questions) should take no more than a few minutes to complete, and will remain online for the next month or so, depending on the level of response. Please also encourage your colleagues and friends to take part, by pointing them to:
http://freespace.virgin.net/conor.mangat/euro/index.html
Your responses will not be used for purposes other than this study, though you should be aware that completion of the survey indicates your permission to be quoted/referenced in any subsequent project documentation.
Many thanks in advance for your time and cooperation (and apologies if you receive this message more than once).
