The Another
Face of
Blackletter

Why is that? The black letters we see in pop culture are next to the bad guys. It's as if we get the impression of cool, boisterous delinquents who are about to get into trouble at any moment. When did this all start? To fill in the gap between the austere impression we get from the Gutenberg Bible and newspaper mastheads, we look back on 100 years of Blackletter, from HIPHOP, ROCK, Satanism to Nazism.

BIGGER
&BOLDER

The Cambria Explosion of Modern Typeface

Did the birth of the display typeface revolutionize how letters look? The devices used to make bigger, bolder, "short words" readable have colored the world in rough and sometimes beautiful ways. From fat faces to woodcuts, we now unravel the Cambrian explosion of modern typefaces, born at the dawn of the 19th century and buried in the shadows of history.

The
Future
Lost in Type

Did the birth of the display typeface revolutionize how letters look? The devices used to make bigger, bolder, "short words" readable have colored the world in rough and sometimes beautiful ways. From fat faces to woodcuts, we now unravel the Cambrian explosion of modern typefaces, born at the dawn of the 19th century and buried in the shadows of history.

Type Basics

This section explains some of the basics of fonts and typography in a way that even those unfamiliar with design and typography can understand. From the origins of fonts and typography to basic terminology, type classifications, and type designers, this section provides a condensed explanation of the essential knowledge needed to enjoy the world of European typography.

"欧文フォントと
タイポグラフィーとデザイン"

OVENTYPE is a website about typography and fonts. Typography is a general term for the treatment of type, which is central to graphic design, such as fonts and letterforms, or more simply, the treatment of “letters” in design. This site focuses on graphic design and fonts from overseas, with less emphasis on typography related to textbook books and more on display typefaces that attract people when they leave their books behind and go out on the street, such as billboards, posters, product packaging, T-shirt logos, movie titles, and so on. We will occasionally provide information about typefaces and the European letter culture behind them, focusing on works designed using the Latin alphabet.