P22 Saarinen is a typeface based on the architectural lettering of Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen.The Saarinen fonts were created to help commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, NY which was designed by Saarinen in collaboration with his father Eliel Saarinen and is recognized as one of the greatest concert halls ever built in the United States.

 

Saarinen’s own lettering styles were combined with various lettering manual suggestion for proper lettering to create a flexible casual lettering style in regular and bold weights.

 

The Pro fonts include multiple variations of each letter for a more natural lettering style as well as stylist in variants to achieve various highs for crossbars and other customizable variants. The Pro fonts also include Central European character set, fractions, small caps and an array of hand drawn directional arrows.

Many variations of each letter were drawn by Miranda Roth for this project. 

Architectural drawings such as the floorplan of Klienhans Music Hall in Buffalo may have been Saarinen's lettering but more likley one of his assistants using conventional architectural lettering standards. The drawing below and many others found in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Insitute provided lettering specific to Saarinen.

Letters from Eero Saarinen to his wife Aline provided source material for his more casual lettering style...one informed by his architectural practice, but less restricted.