Industry: Design

Typography for the Abril Font Family

Two subfamilies, one system: Didone display meets slab-serif text

Abril is a 22-style editorial type family designed by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione at TypeTogether for intensive use in newspapers, magazines, and digital media. The Display styles draw from contemporary Didone models, while the Text styles take a separate historical route—referencing 19th-century slab serifs and Scotch Roman—to deliver darker colour and lower contrast suited to continuous reading. The two subfamilies are designed to appear visually consistent while serving distinct typographic roles.

Set in Abril

Insights

Abril Text was drawn from scratch rather than adapted from the Display styles, with colour, texture, and overall width calibrated independently for continuous reading.
Display and Text subfamilies share a deliberate visual resemblance, easing typographic transitions across a layout despite drawing on different historical sources.
Abril Text includes a full set of small caps with matching numerals and punctuation, which the foundry positions as an improvement on comparable newspaper classics.
The family supports over 50 languages, covering Central and Northern European Latin scripts, across all 22 styles.