Typeface Design

Wilvetica

Overview

Self-Initiated
Typeface Design
2026

Wilvetica sits between geometric and humanist, using ink traps and tuned stem weights to handle body text and display from one source.

Deliverables

Type specimen. The family from 8pt text to 72pt display, holding its personality across the range.
Business card. Wilvetica in use on an identity piece, carrying both the display name and the fine print.
In use. Wilvetica set as an editorial specimen, built in Glyphs.
Glyph set. The full character set, with the ink-trap detail visible at display scale.

Try Wilvetica

Geometric bones, humanist warmth.
Wilvetica holds its nerve at both ends. It’s disciplined enough for a caption at 8pt and expressive enough for a headline at 72. The ink traps keep counters open where ink would close them, then show up as a feature at display sizes. Geometric bones, humanist warmth: structured but not cold, playful but still in control.

Wilvetica is free to download and use however you like.

Download Wilvetica↓

Process

01

Ink Traps

Designed the ink traps to keep counters open at small sizes and add personality at large ones.

02

Stem Weight

Expanded stem weights to earn legibility at 8pt without losing display impact.

03

Spacing & Rhythm

Tuned spacing across control strings for consistent color at both text and display sizes.

Background

Problem

Most student typefaces pick a lane early, display or text, and optimize for one. Wilvetica started as a display experiment built on circular forms and bold, even weight. The real problem showed up later: how to keep the quirk and energy of those first sketches while making a system disciplined enough for 8pt body copy. Every structural call, from counter aperture to joint treatment to ink-trap placement, became a trade between those two demands.

Solution

The ink traps do two jobs. At small sizes they stop ink from filling the joints; at large sizes they show up as a feature. Stem weights were widened to earn legibility at 8pt without giving up display impact. Geometric bones with a little humanist warmth keep the face structured but not cold, playful but still disciplined. That tension runs through every glyph.

Research & Context

Wilvetica started from a moodboard of circular forms, bold weight, and graphic energy. Studying type history and classification moved the work from surface choices to structural ones: why designers decide what they do about counter aperture, joint treatment, and weight, and how those calls make a face read as geometric, humanist, or something in between. That in-between is the point. Wilvetica doesn't settle cleanly into either camp.

Project Details

Client: Self-initiated

Tools: Glyphs App, Adobe InDesign

Skills: Type design, letterform construction, specimen design, editorial layout

Role: Sole designer. Critique and guidance from Martin Brendecke and Gabriel Lopez

Timeline: 22 weeks

Outcome

A face that keeps its personality at 8pt and earns its expression at 72, built on close study of type history and construction, and meant to resist clean classification.

Next project
The Pigeon Oracle
↗