Draft:Sofia Pro

Sofia Pro is a sans-serif typeface designed by French type designer Olivier Gourvat of Mostardesign Type Foundry in 2008 and 2009. The typeface family contains sixteen weights: Ultra Light, Extra Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Semi Bold, Bold, and Black, with corresponding italic versions. Designed for professional use, Sofia Pro is a large family with two widths, sixteen weights and a rounded version. This font family covers more than 220 languages.

Companies that notably use the font are Pepsi, TikTok ,Tim Hortons, Museum of Sydney, ABC, Wayfair, Digital Western and formerly in the logos of Museum of Sydney, Meridian Credit Union and Paris International Agricultural Show.

Creation and style
Based on geometric shapes with a slightly contrasted stroke, Sofia Pro can be classified as a geometric sans-serif according to the Vox-Atypi classification, or as a humanist typeface according to the Thibaudeau classification. This typeface family is inspired by characters of the same classification as Futura, created in the 1920s-1930s by Renner, or the ITC Avant Garde designed in 1970 by Herb Lubalin.

The main characteristic of this typeface from other geometric sans-serifs lies in the less pronounced rhythm of the uppercase letters. They have been designed with a more homogeneous and regular witdth, giving words a less pronounced rhythm than other geometric typefaces. Another aesthetic feature that sets it apart from other geometric sans-serifs is the wide apertures of letters, which is much more pronounced, giving the typeface a modern appearance and distinguishing it from other existing geometric typefaces.

Less common in geometric typefaces, a slightly higher x-height makes the readability of lowercase letters more evident when reading long paragraphs.

In 2012, Gourvat released the OpenType version of Sofia Pro, making modifications to numerous glyphs as well as adding the Black weight. The following year, he also created the condensed version of Sofia Pro, intended to save space in editorial design work. In 2014, a version with rounded terminals, Sofia Soft, was added.

Published under the name Sofia, the typeface family was officially released on December 2009, by the current Mostardesign Type Foundry. Spacing and kerning were executed by Igino Marini of the iKern company.

In a video interview on YouTube, Olivier Gourvat explains in details the design process of the Sofia Pro font. Sofia Pro was chosen as the text font of the month for April 2012 MyFonts for its excellent readability and for the number of languages it covers, remaining in the top 5 for several weeks on the MyFonts website as a best sellers font family. In December 2012, the website Fontspring ranked Sofia Pro among the top fonts of the year, praising the redesign undertaken by its author for its subtle nuances and wide range of weights.

Notable Usage
Here are some notable examples identified by the foundry:

Sofia Pro was also employed in the presentation of the 85th Oscars ceremony, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and hosted by Seth MacFarlane. The ceremony was televised in the United States by ABC. Various weights, including the Ultra Light weight, were used for the title in the television broadcast's graphics package, as well as for posters and presentation panels featuring the nominated artists. A customized version of Sofia Pro, Lyft Pro, was created for Lyft in 2017. Lyft Pro includes an additional Heavy weight with modified glyphs. Lyft utilizes this customized version as its main font on its mobile application, website, and for its advertising communication on billboards.

Sofia Pro was also used in the TikTok mobile application developed by ByteDance between 2016 and 2022. for its communication on its mobile application and its advertising billboards. The brand used Sofia Pro as the primary font for titles, subtitles, text, and captions, utilizing both Sofia Pro Soft in combination with the regular version. During 2023, TikTok replaced Sofia Pro with a font specially designed for its application called TiTok Sans. The reception of this new font remains divided.

Since 2017, the Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons has embraced Sofia Pro for its new visual identity, designed by the London-based agency Turner Duckworth. This typeface is used on its website, mobile application, signage, packaging, advertising billboards, and digital communication.

In 2018, Pepsi also utilized the Sofia Pro font family for its official partnership with the UEFA Champions League. This global campaign, supported by the hashtag #loveitliveit, brought together five of the world's top players (Leo Messi, Marcelo, Toni Kroos, Carli Lloyd, and Dele Alli) through visuals featuring photos of the players integrated with the slogan "Love it, Live it", prominently displayed in large capital letters using the Sofia Pro Black font. Pepsi further extended this campaign by employing Sofia Pro on its packaging and limited edition cans, and aired a commercial featuring the same slogan in multiple countries.

In 2020, The Museum of Sydney used Sofia Pro and Sofia Pro Soft for its exterior signage, wayfinding, and indoor exhibition panels, as well as for the Sydney Living Museum logo.

In August 2021, Channel News Asia underwent a comprehensive redesign of its website and mobile application, opting for the Sofia Pro font family. This choice marked a departure from the previously employed Lato font, which had been in use since 2018 in its initial version for international audiences. The reception of this new iteration featuring Sofia Pro has been varied, with some questioning the readability of articles and the suitability of employing a geometric sans-serif font for an editorial platform where readability is of utmost importance.

In 2022, Sofia Pro was also chosen as the primary typeface for the visual identity of the Paris International Agricultural Show. This new brand identity relies on Sofia Pro to give the agricultural show's brand a more contemporary feel. The typeface is also featured in its logo. On March 25, 2022, Jean-Luc Mélenchon unveiled his poster on Twitter, mentioning in his tweet the slogan "Another world is possible" above his portrait, preceded by a red circle. Unlike his previous electoral poster, the typography of this poster is solely in lowercase letters to foster closer connection with his voters.

During the same year, in the French presidential elections, Jean-Luc Mélenchon used the Sofia Pro font for his poster campaign, widely featured on numerous campaign signs and posters. It also served as the primary font for his campaign website, mélenchon2022.fr. Some French media outlets, like Ouest France, along with specialists, analyzed the poster, describing it as rather positive for the presidential candidate, conveying serenity and gentleness.

Sofia Pro is the official font of the University at Buffalo the state university of New York. In the University of Buffalo's branding guidelines, Sofia Pro is identified as a cornerstone of their typography collection, noted for its versatility, being both pragmatic and friendly.

In 2024, a customized version of Sofia Pro, called LLB Sofia Pro, was created for the rebranding of the National Bank of Liechtenstein. LLB Sofia Pro includes specific variations of lowercase letters. It is used as the main font on their mobile application, website, and throughout their entire IT system.

Variants
The Sofia Pro typeface family consists of 3 variants: the regular version, the condensed version with narrower proportions, and the Soft version. The spacing and kerning of these 3 versions were executed by Igino Marini.


 * Sofia Pro Condensed (2013) - The condensed version of Sofia Pro features tighter character spacing intended to save space in editorial design work. The weights of this typeface family are identical to the regular version.
 * Sofia Pro Soft (2014) - This variant is designed with soft edges, giving it a rounded appearance and a more naive style compared to the regular version. This typeface family includes 8 weights: Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold, with corresponding italic versions. Sofia Pro Soft appears in the book 'Typology - A typographic palette' with other fonts by the same author, such as Archeron Pro, Metronic Slab, Strato Pro and Marlon Pro. It showcases the diversity of typeface design in France.
 * Sofia Rough (2015) - Based on Sofia Pro, Sofia Rough is a multifaceted font family with differents eroded variations. Sofia Rough contains sixteen fonts and two eroded sub families.

Languages
Sofia Pro covers 223 languages including Extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese. It contains 1519 glyphs with Mac OS Roman, Windows 1252 encoding characters.