Industry: Design

Typeface Design for Long-Form Text

A calligraphic serif designed for immersive long-form reading

Nocturno is a calligraphic serif typeface designed by Nikola Djurek (Latin), with Cyrillic by Ilya Ruderman and Georgian by Ana Sanikidze. Its broad-shouldered silhouettes, concave flare serifs, and oblique stress are oriented toward continuous reading. The family extends into display, text, and stencil serif variants, plus a companion sans system (Diurnal), forming a complete editorial type system. Nine numeral styles per weight are accessible via OpenType features.

Set in Nocturno

Insights

Vertical stems thicken toward the baseline to maintain stability and apparent weight at small sizes.
Counter-shapes were designed in explicit relation to outer letter forms to produce rhythmic stem intervals and harmonious inter-letter spacing.
The system separates display and text optical cuts, with a stencil serif rounding out the serif range and Diurnal providing a low-contrast sans companion.
Licensees can choose which numeral style is set as the default variant for a given font.