Industry: Design

Only

Designed extended from day one, not stretched after the fact

Only Extended is a typeface family by Swiss Typefaces designed from the outset to be extended, rather than derived from a standard-width design that was later stretched. The family spans 9 weights with matching italics, from Hairline to Black, and is available as static fonts and variable font files. Cyrillic was developed by CSTM Fonts, with Vietnamese consulting by Donny Trương. The family supports an extensive Latin and Cyrillic language set.

Set in Only Extended

Insights

Narrow letters such as uppercase I, lowercase i, j, and l were given slab serifs borrowed from monospace conventions to widen them and balance overall text rhythm.
Extremely short ascenders and descenders make the typeface stocky, reinforcing its horizontal character and allowing tight linespacing.
The design blends geometric sans influences—visible in the monolithic capitals—with grotesque construction and slightly tapering stroke connections.
Variable font files are split into separate upright and italic VF files to improve cross-platform compatibility and browser behavior.