New Additions: October 2026
31st October 2026
From the hundreds of fonts we add to the Identifont database every month we chose a selection of the most interesting recent additions, and interviewed the designers about their approach to each design:
Arnaud Chemin – Emperia (Lovercase Typefaces)
You’ve said that Emperia started from a simple question: “What would Trajan lowercase look like?”. What motivated you to address this question?
This question came naturally because I noticed that the Trajan core fonts didn’t contain lowercase letters, only small caps. This gap was an interesting starting point for me, and I later realised that many designers had asked themselves the same question; for instance Sumner Stone, with whom I share a lot of thoughts and a similar design vision.
Plus, as Emperia was born at KABK (the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague), I also noticed that one aspect of Gerrit Noordzij’s stroke theory wasn’t really taught in class. You know, the theory relies on tools shaping forms, and we had calligraphy courses exploring: 1) the pointed nib, which creates forms like Didot, Walbaum, Bodoni, Scotch, or Spencerian English script… and 2) the broad nib, which creates humanist, gothic, or chancery-like shapes… But we never really explored the brush side, or that one face of the square which would include, for example, sign painting or Roman capitals.
So I thought this would be a good exercise to complete the programme and learn more. I also studied at écal before, with François Rappo as a teacher, and I remember him saying that most of his work starts from a gap; gaps he was trying to fill, but from a revival or historical perspective.
Soooo, “a gap” is a good answer, I guess!
How did you design the Emperia capitals? Did you follow an existing version, such as Goudy Trajan by Jason Castle or Adobe's Trajan by Carol Twombly?
I started the project in August 2020, when I arrived in The Hague for Type & Media. At that time I knew I had to organise my thoughts and start thinking about what the outcome of my diploma project could be for the upcoming year. So I decided to practise calligraphy every day for almost a month, even before the courses started.
I wanted to get back to some kind of essence, to the basics of typography. That’s why I focused on Roman capitals. And as I’m self-taught in many things, I just picked up some online tutorials, scanned books, and a few guidelines on how to construct Roman capital letterforms on my own.
Claude Mediavilla’s Roman capitals model was one of my main inspirations at the time. But of course, I also looked at many typefaces along the way, such as Eric Gill’s Perpetua, which I used a lot during my graphic design studies.
Some of the Emperia lowercase letters have quite distinctive features, such as the diamond-shaped dots on the ‘i’ and ‘j’, the right-facing serifs on the ‘m’ and ’n’, the opposing single serifs on the ‘x’, and the symmetrical ‘y’. What was your inspiration behind these?
The diamond-shaped dots come from stone-carving inspiration! In 2018, I did a workshop with Rodolphe Giuglardo; getting back to your second question, that might be where I first became interested in Roman capitals. It’s technically possible to create a circular dot with chisels, but it’s very time-consuming and not the most efficient way to work.
The decisions around asymmetric serifs come from the brush itself. Roman capital construction requires “retouches” to achieve perfection, but sometimes laziness or writing speed can become a distinctive feature. I also found the idea quite convenient, especially for the ‘x’, where it’s hard to fit all the serifs inside the counterform.
Regarding the almost upright lowercase ‘y’, the idea was to inject more uppercase into the lowercase and make it a fancy, instantly recognisable letter.
Finally, those little details are quite close to Herman Zapf’s Palatino, which I rediscovered later on. I think it’s interesting to see how different projects can turn out from a similar idea.
You’ve written that Emperia embodies the philosophy of Beatrice Warde’s “Crystal Goblet”. Can you explain a bit more about that?
Well, maybe this is a bit of marketing, and I went too far here, but I can explain the idea behind it: the crystal goblet theory is based on the transparency of the letterforms (the glass) themselves, so they don’t take over the content (the liquid).
While most of us know that we read best what we read most, I thought this theory would suit Emperia, given the classical nature of the text. It’s very subjective, of course, but what I meant is that someone without typographic knowledge might not particularly notice that it’s an unusual typeface; okay, maybe the straight lowercase ‘y’ is slightly disturbing!
Then there’s always the diagonal alternative for those who are bothered by the rather vertical texture it produces at text sizes (especially in English).
Otherwise, I believe Emperia is quite large and therefore comfortable to read. It has a vintage warmth, a flavour that I believe only people with a certain taste and knowledge are able to appreciate.
Dafne Martínez – Heartline Script (Sudtipos)
What inspired the design of Heartline Script? Is it based on your own handwriting?
Heartline Script isn't a direct transcription of my handwriting. I’ve been practicing calligraphy for many years, especially with a flexible pointed nib. This relationship between the movement of the hand and the resulting shapes has deeply influenced the way I approach letterforms. With Heartline Script I wanted to explore the forms and rhythm of Copperplate calligraphy, with a touch of Spencerian influence, so it isn't a direct transcription of my handwriting.
The light weight is particularly inspired by these calligraphic styles, but rather than reproducing their characteristic stroke contrast, I imagined the letters as if they had been drawn with a pencil, so the result is a monolinear style.
The bold weight, on the other hand, takes inspiration from neon signs. I wanted to preserve the monolinear construction while giving the letters a much bolder, less delicate character. This contrast between the elegance of calligraphy and the directness of neon lettering helped shape the personality of the family as a whole.
Heartline Script somehow has a very friendly appearance, and I think it’s because many of the letterforms have more details than you would expect in normal handwriting; for example, the extra cusp in the ‘Q’, and the loops in the ‘B’, ’D’, ‘R’, ‘Y’, and ‘4’. Was that an intentional design decision?
The uppercase letterforms you mention draw on different calligraphic models. My task was to adapt and standardize these forms so they would feel consistent with one another and work together as part of a cohesive typeface. I also had to be mindful of their proportions, making sure that the extra details didn't take up too much space or interfere with the flow of the text.
A big part of my work on Heartline Script involved this process of systematization and automation: translating the nuances of calligraphic forms into a functional typeface while preserving their character. So, while these details certainly contribute to Heartline Script’s friendly appearance, they also reflect the challenge of making expressive letterforms work within a consistent typographic system.
Heartline Script includes a number of ligatures, flourishes, and entry/exit strokes. How do you anticipate these being used?
Most of the ligatures in Heartline Script are functional: they help letters connect more naturally and keep the writing fluid, such as the ‘tl’ in “Heartline”. Others, such as the ‘ll’ ligature and combinations involving two ascenders, use a calligraphic trick in which the second ascender is noticeably shorter than the first. This prevents the two ascenders from competing for space and gives the composition a richer rhythm.
Flourishes are a familiar feature of calligraphy, adding movement and personality to letterforms. In Heartline Script I wanted to bring this aspect of calligraphy into the typeface while giving designers the freedom to decide how and when to use them. Flourishes are designed for letters within words, including ascenders such as ‘b’, ‘f’, ‘h’, ‘k’, and ‘l’, as well as the descender ‘q’.
The entry and exit strokes are provided on certain letters to create the impression that a word flows into the next, or extends beyond itself.
Each of these features can be selected through the OpenType Stylistic Sets. These details aren't just decorative extras; they can help shape the rhythm of a composition. Whether you're setting a single line or a whole paragraph, the flourishes offer another way to bring movement, elegance, and a personal calligraphic touch to the text.
Heartline Script also includes eight bird doodles, and several other illustrations and ornaments. What inspired these?
Drawing birds is relatively common in pointed-pen calligraphy, so including them in Heartline Script felt like a natural choice. Since the typeface draws inspiration from calligraphy, I liked the idea of bringing this little tradition into the font.
Alongside the birds, Heartline Script also includes left- and right-facing manicules, those little pointing-hand symbols that are perfect for drawing attention to something, and a fleuron, a decorative ornament that to my eye looks a little like a heart.
All these illustrations and ornaments are drawn in a single stroke, and I love the fluidity this gives them. You can almost follow the movement of the pen and feel the gesture behind each drawing. For me, they extend the calligraphic spirit of Heartline Script beyond the letters, giving designers playful and expressive elements to use alongside the type.
Manau Quellec – Zeyond Stencil (Blaze Type)
Zeyond Stencil is an unusual stencil font. What prompted you to design it; was it for a particular project?
Zeyond Stencil was initially developed as a custom single-weight typeface for the contemporary art collective “Beyond The Post-Soviet”. It was designed as part of the visual identity for their exhibition program at the Maison de la Culture d’Amiens (MCA) in 2023. I was still a student at EsadType in Amiens at the time.
It was difficult to find other fonts on Identifont to compare with Zeyond Stencil. In Futura Black some of the characters are similar, such as the ‘E’, ‘F’, and ‘L’, but in general there is much more white space in Zeyond Stencil. Were there any particular typefaces that influenced you?
Not at all! It's mainly rooted in a brutalist sensibility, the design takes cues from the architecture of the MCA building. Sharp cuts and orthogonal structures interact with elongated curves, echoing the tension between rigid volumes and fluid surfaces found in the façade. But in general, I never look at type references when I'm starting a new project, but when I'm questioning the letters' construction I'm only looking at old specimens! Never contemporary typefaces! I'm glad that you had some difficulties finding similarities with other typefaces, it means I did my job!
Many of the characters in Zeyond Stencil seem to be constructed from a limited set of identical shapes, which reminds me of Tangrams. For example the small triangle in the ‘A’ is reused in the ‘C’, ‘G’, ‘K’, ‘L’, and many other uppercase letters. Was this an intentional design decision?
That's exactly how I did it, of course digitally, but with a very limited set of shapes. My idea was to see how radical I could be while keeping the typeface legible for the exhibition signage. The first attempt wasn't legible, it was too abstract. Then, step by step, I started making compromises to end up with letters that could be read in a little block of text.
Zeyond Stencil provides five widths, plus slanted styles and a variable font. The different widths and slanted styles seem to work really well; are they pure geometric transformations of the Normal style, or did you have to do some rethinking of the design for these?
Purely a compression system, nothing more! The original design used in 2023 was what I called Wide. I'm glad you think they work really well. I'm always asking myself how I can add an extra spice to a project without spending too much time on it. For this project, it was a slanted version!
Zeyond Stencil is the first typeface I've ever released, the first stone laid in my career. I hope it will be as solid as the ones that helped build the MCA in Amiens, where it all began.
Dani Senso – Sanilde (Dani Senso)
You’ve written that Sanilde is inspired by ceramic street nameplates in Barcelona. What led you to design a typeface based on these?
My initial impulse was simply to document and archive these street signs through photography. They immediately caught my attention because of their originality; I hadn't seen similar hand-painted signs with floral and botanical illustrations anywhere else in the area. I wanted to rescue them and share them on platforms dedicated to preserving historical street lettering. You can see the full photographic archive here: Photographs of street signs in Cornellà.
To be precise, these signs are not from central Barcelona, but specifically from the San Ildefonso (Sant Ildefons in Catalan) neighborhood in Cornellà, a city within the Barcelona metropolitan area. Digitizing the typeface was the natural next step to keep this 1960s local graphic heritage alive, especially as these original signs are gradually being replaced by standardized, metallic, and visually less engaging corporate signage.
How did you set about researching Sanilde? Did you photograph and trace sample signs, or draw the characters based on your interpretation of the letter shapes?
I went street by street, photographing each sign individually. In some cases, I had to correct the perspective digitally to get as close as possible to the original forms without distorting them. After that, I manually traced the characters, making only the minimal optical corrections necessary to ensure functional consistency.
Were the original signs hand drawn, and if so, how did you resolve variations between characters?
Although I haven't found formal documentation, I am confident they were hand drawn; you can clearly notice the stroke rhythm and ink density variations in the original ceramics. There were also noticeable variations in characters like the ‘R’, ‘M’, or ‘S’. To resolve this, I carefully analyzed the sign set and chose to digitize the glyph variations that appeared most frequently, creating a unified and coherent design system.
The font includes standard characters that presumably don’t occur on any street signs, such as currency and mathematical symbols. How did you approach designing these?
I aimed to extend the straight, sober, and structural style of the original lettering to the new characters. As visual references for the extended character set I looked at contemporary typefaces with a similar spirit, such as HEX Franklin by Nick Sherman or Goodland by John Roshell.
Additionally, as a subtle nod to the origin of the project, I designed a few spot dingbats featuring tree silhouettes from the ceramic signs and iconic architectural shapes from the neighborhood.