Novos Newspaper Specimen

Novos emerged from an encounter with historical letterpress-printed original texts in the university library — including an 18th-century Italian book by Jao de Villeneuve as well as a work on Johannes Gutenberg's legacy. As my first original typeface family, it was meant to pick up the roots of classical Roman antiqua before I turned to grotesque typefaces — because reading habits form over generations, not a few years. The typeface adopts the low x-height of the original, giving it an almost old-fashioned appearance, but compensates for this with a stronger contrast between capitals and ascenders. The forms are deliberately kept coarse — echoing the coarse lead type of the source — lending the letters clear distinguishability. Thanks to their own wide tracking, the capitals almost read as an independent element. The regular cut is conceived as a compromise between historical character and contemporary legibility — ideal for long body text. The italic picks up on the original function: emphasis and individual expression. Its sloppy, punk-like character has been toned down, while individual "errors" of the original have been deliberately preserved.