The loom
A Python generator. It ports the approved sketch engine, builds every glyph from the four parts, and writes 12 UFO masters (weight × width) with the same points in each. fontmake compiles them. No outline comes from another font.
Display grotesk · 182 characters · version 0.100
machine-made Heddle
A Swiss display grotesk for posters, headlines, wordmarks and big figures. Every letter is built from four parts, and every opening is a level cut. Two axes: weight 100–900 and width 70–140.
Playground
Set a headline
Width changes the counters, not the stems. A Compressed Bold and an Extended Bold have the same weight on the page.
This build of the font has no variable axes.
Made by machines. Proven for machines.
Width axis
Compressed to Extended
One family for the narrow column and the wide poster. Bold, width 70–140.
- 70CompressedGrotesk 1958
- 85CondensedGrotesk 1958
- 100NormalGrotesk 1958
- 120WideGrotesk 1958
- 140ExtendedGrotesk 1958
Weight axis
Thin to Black
Horizontals stay at 84 percent of the stem at every weight: the small contrast of a Swiss grotesk.
- 100ThinHamburgefonstiv
- 200ExtraLightHamburgefonstiv
- 300LightHamburgefonstiv
- 400RegularHamburgefonstiv
- 500MediumHamburgefonstiv
- 600SemiBoldHamburgefonstiv
- 700BoldHamburgefonstiv
- 800ExtraBoldHamburgefonstiv
- 900BlackHamburgefonstiv
Construction
Four parts and a level cut
No curve is drawn by hand. Rounds are superellipses with one exponent, 2.6. Diagonals keep their optical weight. Each opening is a level cut through one ring, which is where the Swiss terminals come from.
- StemA rectangle. Stems keep their weight at every width.
- RingA superellipse, n = 2.6. Inner and outer share the exponent.
- DiagonalA parallelogram or a V, widened so it reads as heavy as a stem.
- CutA level cut on one ring: the horizontal terminal.
Character set
182 characters
Read from the font's character map when the site is built. Select a character to see it large. The figures are tabular.
a
Loading the character map.
Made by machines
From a sketch to a font
Agents write the generator, the tests and the CI. People set the goals and review the proofs.
Proofs
The sketch engine and the font are rendered side by side at the corners of the designspace. A drift report measures every glyph between the masters.
CI
Every pull request runs the tests, builds the fonts, checks that the build matches the committed files byte for byte, and runs Fontspector. GitHub Actions are pinned to commit SHAs.