Typeface Design for Multilingual Digital Applications
81 styles, one multiplexed system
Halvar is an 81-style pragmatic grotesk by TypeMates, structured across three width subfamilies—Breitschrift, Mittelschrift, and Engschrift—spanning Hairline to Black with Roman, Slanted, and SuperSlanted variants. Designed by Jakob Runge, Nils Thomsen, and Lisa Fischbach in 2019, the system supports over 190 languages across extended Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts. A variable font and stencil display companion are also available.
Set in Halvar
Insights
- Multiplexing covers all styles except SuperSlanted: text occupies identical horizontal space regardless of weight, supporting animation, rollovers, and space-critical layouts.
- Cyrillic and Greek letterforms were developed in consultation with native readers; advisors include Ilya Ruderman, Yury Ostromentsky, Maria Doreuli, and Kostas Bartsokas.
- The family includes 14 named stylistic sets, among them script-specific alternates for Bulgarian Cyrillic, Serbian/Macedonian Cyrillic, and conventional Greek forms.
- Manual TrueType hinting and attention to x-height stability are cited as optimisations for screen and UI typography.
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