Typeface Design for Piet
Finnish licence plates as a type origin story
Piet is a constructed typeface pair—Mono and Sans—designed by Nils Thomsen at TypeMates in 2024, inspired by Finnish licence plates. Defined by deep rounded ink traps, chunky forms, and more and less than expected optical corrections, the family treats its idiosyncrasies as a design asset. The Sans derives from the Mono but adds proportional spacing, kerning, and gentler forms. The two italics diverge sharply: the Sans italic simply slants; the Mono italic introduces entirely redrawn letterforms with rotated capitals that adhere to the baseline, producing raw tension. The family won Gold at the European Design Award 2025.
Set in Piet
Insights
- The Mono italic features all-new shapes including x, w, and z, with rotated capitals creating deliberate baseline tension.
- ss02 behaves inversely across the pair: in Mono it uses non-stretched letters to amplify inharmonious whitespace; in Sans it adds mechanical semi-serifs to push toward a monospaced feel.
- ss03 ('Rotalic roundness') applies upright italic shapes across both Mono and Sans. Each font has over 550 glyphs, 16 styles across four weights plus italics, and supports more than 200 languages.
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