The Mule is a very special mix – it has a donkey father and horse mother, and they often inherit the best qualities of both. "The mule is an example of hybrid vigor, Charles Darwin wrote: The mule always appears to me a most surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here outdone nature."
They are typically very strong for their size compared to horses and are able to cope with bad weather better than donkeys. Mules rarely become ill and their behavior is Intelligent and sensitive. In the right home, they can make great companions for other equines, and wonderful pets. However, if they are unhandled or not correctly trained, mules have the potential to be dangerous.
Mule Cargo (pre-release)
Type Design
Thanks to Nina Stössinger and Tobias Frere-Jones for feedback and support.
The letter shapes of this design are derived from one simple idea: Expand each character horizontally while optically maintaining the same inner (negative) space and outer curves. In order to make this concept work, one must design both the wide and the regular state of each character at the same time – keeping in mind how specific decisions of one state would play out in the other. The result is are sets of letterforms with vastly different expressions, but which at the same time share almost the exact same inner and outer curves, qua making them a very fruitful couple for display typography. The original idea for this project came from Darwin's notion on so called "hybrid vigor" where two species come together to create an offspring with unexpected capabilities.
