Typeface Design
Wilvetica
Overview
Wilvetica sits between geometric and humanist, using ink traps and tuned stem weights to handle body text and display from one source.
Try Wilvetica
Wilvetica is free to download and use however you like.
Download WilveticaThe ink traps do two jobs. At small sizes they stop ink filling the joints and keep the counters open; at display scale the same cuts read as the face’s signature rather than as a repair.
Stem weights were widened until the face earned its legibility at 8pt without going flat at 72. Spacing was then tuned across control strings rather than pair by pair, so the colour holds at both scales.
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Problem
Most student typefaces pick a lane early and optimise for it. Mine did too. Wilvetica started as a display experiment, all circular forms and bold even weight, and at 72pt it looked good.
Then I set it at 8pt and it fell apart. That is the moment the project actually started. A face that only works large is a poster. The job became getting one source to hold at both ends without going soft in the middle to manage it.
Research & Context
It began as a moodboard. Circular forms, bold weight, graphic energy. Surface stuff.
Reading into type history and classification is what moved it. Once you are asking why a designer made a decision instead of what the letters should look like, the work turns structural. That shift is why the face sits between geometric and humanist without committing to either, and I left it there deliberately.
Building the System
The ink traps do two jobs, which is the closest thing to luck in the whole project. At small sizes they stop ink filling the joints and keep the counters open. At large sizes those same cuts read as character rather than as a repair. The detail that makes it function is the detail that makes it recognisable.
Stem weights got widened until the face earned its legibility at 8pt without going flat at display size. Spacing was tuned across control strings instead of pair by pair, so the colour holds whether it is set as a paragraph or a headline.
A face that keeps its personality at 8pt and earns its expression at 72.
Self-initiated.
Glyphs App, Adobe InDesign.
Type design, letterform construction, specimen design, editorial layout.
Sole designer. Critique and guidance from Martin Brendecke and Gabriel Lopez.
22 weeks.