Paradox (1999)
After Gulliver and the anwb type, for both of which my hands had been more or less tied, I felt a need to strike out in a different direction — not to go down such an extreme path as with Decoder, but to do something with a little more freedom. Both Gulliver and the anwb type are highly specialised types with clearly defined functions. In Paradox almost my sole ambition was to design a beautiful typeface, something elegant. This was a revival of a very old project of mine, dating back to 1975: a new book face, then called Diderot, with influences from the end of the eighteenth century, particularly the work of François-Ambroise Didot and Pierre-Louis Vafflard.* Despite its historical background this was still a modern type, and despite the freedom of its approach it can still be used like any other, so Paradox seemed to me an appropriate name. The type is sold by the Dutch Type Library.

* Unger, G., ‘The Types of François_Ambroise Didot and Pierre_Louis Vafflard. A further investigation into the origins of the Didones’, in Quaerendo vol. 31, No. 3, Leiden 2001