All roads lead to Rome, Capitalis Monumentalis on the Library of Celsus, photo by Codrin Rusu.

Distilling Fonts

Ah, the eternal conundrum of the type designer, to serif or not to serif? Enter the Yetson typeface, my contribution to the timeless debate, striving to capture the very essence of what makes a sans different from its serif cousin.

So, what’s the deal with Sans and Serif fonts? Let’s rewind to 1450: Johannes Gutenberg designed a metal typeface called Textura quadrata for his 42‑line Bible.

42‑line Bible, Johannes Gutenberg, around 1450–1455.

Venetian printers weren’t having it and rejected Gutenberg’s heavy blackletter in favour of a more intricate, fluent, legible design. Renaissance humanists, ever the snarky critics, coined the term “Gothic” as a derogatory label, criticising the style as backward and as if it were last season’s disaster in the design department. In his book Lives of the Artists from 1550, Giorgio Vasari didn’t mince words; he branded the medieval style as “barbarous,” essentially declaring, This is not craftsmanship; it’s a dumpster fire of design. Harsh? Certainly. But in Italy back then, throwing around insults was practically an art form in itself. So the Venetian introduced a new style called Antiqua, a deliberate nod to the ancient world and a bold farewell to the aesthetics of the Middle Ages.

Antiqua, you see, was a mix of two sources. The uppercase letters were based on Capitalis Monumentalis, as seen in Roman inscriptions. Originally plain, these inscriptions acquired small decorative strokes, or serifs, as masons used broad chisels to carve stone, a practice that naturally led to their creation.

In contrast, the lowercase letters were influenced by the Humanistic Minuscule calligraphic style. A handwriting script style that was all the rage among Italy’s secular circles.

This marriage resulted in a fresh, elegant design that broke free from Gutenberg’s relatively rigid Gothic. It turns out that serifs were born from the very tools of early font design. The Antiqua font, with its roots in a 1500‑year‑old tradition, is a testament to the enduring allure of Roman design, something the Enlightenment crowd couldn’t get enough of.

An early example of Capitalis Monumentalis without serifs, from BC 100.

A later example of Capitalis Monumentalis featuring serifs, from AD 50, which laid the foundation for uppercase letters.

Renaissance majuscules served as the basis for lowercase letters from 1463.

One of the first examples of Venetian Antiqua fonts was designed by Nicolas Jenson in 1470. This style of printing type was hugely successful and widely adopted across Europe.

Venetian Antiqua from Nicolas Jenson from 1470

This approach was refined by many designers, notably by Christophe Plantin in the 16th century, whose French Renaissance Antiquas I admire greatly.

French Renaissance Antiqua, based on the work of Christophe Plantin from the 1560s, drawn by Frank Hinman Pierpont, 1913

French Renaissance and its angled axis

This continued until the Baroque Antiqua came along, when the calligraphic base changed from a broad-nib pen to a pointed-nib pen, the fountain pen you probably doodled with in school. With this change, the axis shifted from a tilted to a vertical orientation.

This design approach was taken to the max with the Neoclassical Antiqua from Firmin Didot. Didot had the advantage of better printing techniques and especially better paper in the 1800s, so that the strokes could become finer and finer.

The vertical axis is characteristic of the Didone typeface developed by Firmin Didot in 1812.

Classical Antiqua and its upright axis.

Not only were the axes made vertical, but the overall design was streamlined as well. Serifs became added strokes rather than curvy extensions growing out of the letter stems.

As the 19th century dawned, advertising burst onto the scene with all the subtlety of a brass band in a library. Printers needed to catch readers’ eyes, and type had a new role to play. There were many ways to achieve this, such as adding ornaments to fonts or using larger sizes to make a statement. One particularly impactful design idea came from Vincent Figgins. He reduced the contrast of neoclassicism serif fonts. He introduced hefty serifs into the design, thus the Slab Serif was born, laying the groundwork for the typographical evolution of the 20th century.

Likely the first example of a Slab Serif by Vincent Figgins from around 1810

The logical next step was to remove these heavy serifs, leaving only the bold, low-contrast letters. This was probably a scandal at the time, which is why they called these typefaces Grotesqueem.

Two-Line Great Pica Sans-Serif, an early example of a sans-serif printing font by Vincent Figgins from around 1834

The early designs were rather quirky, yet they quickly evolved into something far more refined by the late 19th century with the advent of fonts such as Akzidenz Grotesk. These designs were ideally suited to the early 20th century, a time when designers sought a new expression that resonated with the modernist pursuit of clarity and simplicity.

Starting point of the typeface Yetson

With these thoughts in mind, I developed the idea of creating a French Renaissance Grotesque, essentially a typeface that combines the style of a French Renaissance Antiqua with the features of a Grotesque font.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to make this work, since simply adding serifs to a Grotesque font wouldn’t suffice. However, after a few initial sketches, I realised that I could use the structure of an Antiqua with a tilted axis and simplify its form to the basics.

At this point in the design process, I decided to develop two fonts in tandem, a sans-serif and a serif version. Working on both simultaneously allowed for constant comparison. The sans-serif version, in particular, ensured that the serif design remained as simple as possible and kept the project on track.

A comprehensive overview of both variants of the Yetson typeface.

In the serif version, I added a slight contrast to hint at calligraphic principles, similar to a broad-nib pen. The serifs take a neoclassical approach inspired by Diderot, aiming for a simple design. The challenge was to balance these minimal serifs. They had to be subtle enough for small-scale use without overwhelming the page like a Slab Serif typeface.

Interestingly, the sans-serif version also shows a touch of calligraphy, especially in the design of the lowercase a and in the italics.

The final version of Yetson Serif and Sans reveals the essence of pure form.

The Sans version also features subtle calligraphic hints in its letter terminals.

The final typeface, Yetson, is unique not because it has any extravagant features, but because it deliberately leaves them out. You can experience this right now, as this essay is set in Yetson Serif.

It’s satisfying for me to observe how seamlessly the French Renaissance Grotesque harmonises with its sans-serif counterpart. Yetson truly captures the essence of serifs through a sans-serif lens, distilling it all down to the basics: calligraphy, serifs, and nothing more.