In early 2004, the staff and new owners of the Swiss cultural magazine Du stuck it out with one another for a grand total of 13 days … before editor-in-chief Christian Seiler, art directors Beat Müller and Wendelin Hess, and picture editor Andreas Wellnitz handed in their notice to the publishers Niggli. The only survivor was the typeface Lexicon, which had just been introduced by Müller and Hess.

Better than any other typeface, Lexicon, designed by Bram de Does in 1992, combines Swiss and Dutch typographical aspirations: economy, elegance, quality and “cleanness”. The font was originally intended for low resolution printers such as laser printers and newspaper printing presses. Hence it is also suitable for the purpose suggested by its name: reference works, the Bible, timetables and other text-heavy printing.

Lexicon is composed of two groups of twelve fonts: Lexicon No. 1, with shorter ascenders and descenders, and Lexicon No. 2, with standard metrics. Both have the same character width and can be interchanged freely.