LITERA · TYPE FOUNDRY

LITERA

We have been drawing type since 2011. Nine families, four styles, one obsession: a letter must hold the line — even when it has been torn into particles.

Foundry
Antwerp
In the catalogue
9 families / 41 styles
Glyphs per font
642
Move your cursor across the word Particles: — Sample step: — px Frame: — fps
02 / Interactive specimen

Weight you can
drag by hand

Grotesk is a variable family: one axis, from Thin 200 to Black 900. There are no steps between them — only continuity. The Canon serif below is given for comparison: one cut, no axes.

Typeface

Grotesk · variable wght axis 300 / 72 px

Typeface

Canon · serif, one cut 400 / 72 px
03 / Glyph table

642 glyphs.
Showing 78

Uppercase, lowercase, figures and punctuation. Hover or tab through — each glyph shows its name and Unicode point.

Uppercase · U+0041—U+005A

    Lowercase · U+0061—U+007A

      Figures & punctuation

        Glyph

        A
        Name
        Capital A
        Code
        U+0041
        Class
        Latin
        04 / Specimen in the setting

        Type is judged
        past the poster

        Anything looks good in a headline. The test begins where line follows line and the eye has nowhere to rest. Below — one text at three sizes.

        Grotesk · 24 pxLeading 1.28

        A letter begins not with its shape but with the void inside it. The punchcutter carves the air first — the counter that holds the letter — and only then builds up the stroke.

        Grotesk · 16 pxLeading 1.55

        A letter begins not with its shape but with the void inside it. The punchcutter carves the air first — the counter that holds the letter — and only then builds up the stroke. The Latin line lives on the rhythm of ascenders and descenders: its silhouette is ragged on purpose, and one wrong extender snaps it like a false note. That is why we draw “n” and “o” before “A”: first the rhythm, then the character.

        Grotesk · 12 pxLeading 1.65

        A letter begins not with its shape but with the void inside it. The punchcutter carves the air first — the counter that holds the letter — and only then builds up the stroke. The Latin line lives on the rhythm of ascenders and descenders: its silhouette is ragged on purpose, and one wrong extender snaps it like a false note. That is why we draw “n” and “o” before “A”: first the rhythm, then the character. At small sizes a typeface stops being a picture and becomes engineering: apertures, letterspacing and the weight of the hairline do the work — not the author’s gesture.

        05 / Letter anatomy

        The two-storey “g”,
        taken apart

        Five parts a glyph is built from. Dashed — the lines of the setting: all 642 glyphs align to them.

        Anatomy diagram of the lowercase two-storey g of the Canon serif The letter g with callouts: ear, bowl, link, loop and counter, plus the lines of the setting: x-height line, baseline, descender line. X-height line Baseline Descender line g 01 · Ear 02 · Bowl 05 · Counter 03 · Link 04 · Loop
        01
        EarThe small stroke growing from the top right of the bowl. Often the first place a typeface shows its character.
        02
        BowlThe closed upper storey. It sits exactly on the x-height and carries the whole letter.
        03
        LinkThe neck joining bowl and loop — the hardest curve in the alphabet. One wrong tangent, and the letter snaps in two.
        04
        LoopThe lower storey below the baseline. The two-storey “g” is the only Latin lowercase with two counters — foundries save it for last.
        05
        CounterThe air inside the glyph. It is carved before the stroke: the counter decides whether the face will read at 9 px.