Tempo (typeface)

Tempo in some styles had a "dynamic" true italic, with foot serifs suggesting handwriting and optional swash capitals.^[4] Some styles had a double-storey 'a' in the usual print form, similar to Erbar, others the single-storey form in the manner of Futura, and numerous alternative characters were available, such as a choice between capitals in which the 'A' and other characters have sharp points similar to Art Deco poster lettering and designs which have them blunted off similarly to Futura Bold.^[5][6] Digital-period type designer James Puckett describes it as "bonkers; really four typefaces that just got lumped together for the sake of marketing."^[7][8][9] Release notes from Commercial Type comment that it as "seems to borrow as much from sign painter's Gothics as it does from Futura"^[10] and Puckett also comments that it has "big open apertures for e and s that resemble American advertising letters of the era."^[11]

Middleton also designed a slab-serif typeface in similar style, Karnak, around the same time, again copying a German trend of Futura-style "geometric" slab-serifs.^[12]

Tempo's italic, with its 'feet' at the bottom of the letters, was an influence on that of the popular 2002 geometric sans-serif family Neutraface, designed by Christian Schwartz, also creating a companion slab-serif.^{[13][14][15][16]} Schwartz's company Commercial Type also have created a sans-serif family inspired by Tempo intended for publication design, originally created for McClatchy.^[10]