Fraunces
Our headings use Fraunces, a variable old-style serif. The examples below show how its optical size, weight, softness, and wonk settings change the letters. You can try those settings yourself and compare the regular and italic styles.
drive the axes
Bend it yourself
Drag a slider or pick a preset to see how each setting changes the sample text.
Nightwork
Thickens hairlines and opens the counters as the type shrinks; sharpens the contrast as it grows to cover size.
Adjusts stroke weight continuously from thin at 100 to black at 900.
Rounds the corners and terminals as the value increases from 0 to 100.
Switches on alternate letterforms. Look for the leaning strokes in n, m, and h.
the wght axis
Nine weights, one file
A continuous mass axis, sampled here at the nine stops a print foundry would name — every value between them is fair game too.
- 100 Built through the night Thin
- 200 Built through the night Extra Light
- 300 Built through the night Light
- 400 Built through the night Regular
- 500 Built through the night Medium
- 600 Built through the night Semi Bold
- 700 Built through the night Bold
- 800 Built through the night Extra Bold
- 900 Built through the night Black
the opsz axis
The same word, drawn for its size
At small optical sizes, the letters have thicker hairlines. Larger settings increase the contrast between thick and thin strokes. Both examples below use the same font size so you can compare the effect of the optical-size setting alone.
Newsprint
Newsprint
the soft axis
A softer press
At SOFT 100, the corners are rounder and the stroke endings are fuller.
the wonk axis
The house eccentric
Wonk swaps in the crooked alternates — look at the leaning n, m and i. We ship the site with it turned on. Of course we do.
the character set
The whole cast
Set at a reading weight, wonk on — the letters, figures and marks exactly as they fall across the pages of this site.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789
& @ ? ! ; : , . “ ” ‘ ’ — – ( ) / * § ¶
at reading size
This paragraph uses an optical size of 20 and a weight of 400, with softness and wonk both set to zero. A full paragraph lets you judge the spacing between letters and lines as you read, which is harder to assess from a single sample word.
“Compare this italic with the paragraph above. Look at the shape of the letters as well as their slant.”
The rest of the press
Read about the other tools used to build this site, or browse the studio's products.