Typeface Design for Nara Sans
Two italics, nine numeral styles, one rational spine
Nara Sans is a humanist sans-serif designed by Andrej Krátky and released by Typotheque in 2017 as the low-contrast companion to the high-contrast serif Nara. It draws on early 16th-century Italian typography filtered through a strictly contemporary, more utilitarian structure, while retaining sharper-than-typical details for a humanist sans. The family includes two distinct secondary styles—an upright cursive and an angled italic—alongside nine numeral variants per weight accessible via OpenType features.
More in gray
Set in Nara Sans
Insights
- The upright cursive shares identical uppercase letters with the roman, pairing them with a narrower lowercase for hierarchical contrast without stylistic rupture.
- Nine numeral styles per weight—including circled, circled inverted, superior, inferior, and small-caps figures—allow users to select a custom default at the licensing stage.
- Nara Slab completes a three-family system alongside Nara (begun 1989, published 2009) and Nara Sans (2017), spanning from expressive display to functional text use.
- Despite humanist calligraphic origins, the family deliberately uses sharper details than conventional humanist sans-serifs, creating a tension between warmth and precision.
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