A few years back I when I was living in the U.K I came across this great old tourism/rail poster for Whistable. Not too dissimilar from the type of thing you’d spot in Selling the Dream. This particular poster grabbed my attention because of the typeface used for the headline.

At the time I had been endlessly searching for a typeface that had similar qualities but for whatever reason I was never quite satisfied with my findings. No doubt there is one already out there. Probably hundreds. But in any case I decided to draw up my own version which I have called Petrel named after the seabird.

Every typeface I have created, I have named after a bird. The Petrel, a seabird, seemed fitting as Whistable is a seaside town and the typeface reminded me of something I might see painted on the doors of a dilapidated Oamaru warehouse.

Forty-one of the ninety-seven species of Petrels are found in NZ. So there you have it.