At first glance Malaga has all the earmarks of a sturdy old style serif that would hold up well to any amount of reading. Healthy spacing, large x-height, short ascenders and descenders. It is the second glance that has you realizing that it is perfect as well for larger headlines and bolder statements. He’s given us a range of widths and weights to suit any book, ad, poster, billboard, packaging or POP display. Really, this is no ordinary, two glance, serif. The details are worth a zoomed-in view and I highly recommend spending time with it at large sizes. The flat top ‘a’, the return flick on the lowercase ‘y’, the clever curve of the cross-stroke on the italic ‘t’. No detail was left to chance. It’s also the perfect partner for his other Emigre release, Vista Sans.

Tiffany Wardle de Sousa is a typographer living and working in San Jose, California. She earned her MA in the Theory and History of Typography at Reading. Active in the type community, Tiffany has written for several design publications and serves as a SOTA board member and Typophile moderator.