Thelo

Thelo is a type family that emerged from a consideration of the publishing conditions in the digital era. Designed by Tassiana Nuñez Costa between 2014 and 2020, the typeface aims to answer contemporary editorial questions of coherence and legilibility accross medias and reading formats. In order to adapt to different reading contexts, on screen as well as on paper, and to allow for an efficient hierarchization of content, Thelo has three variations of optical sizes (Display, Text, and Micro) that refer to the optical settings typically used by punchcutters of the lead type era. Applied to digital typography, this principle allows the optimization of reading comfort on screen.

The constraints of digital media have driven Tassiana Nuñez Costa to make some striking formal choices: Thelo Text (Regular, Italic, Bold) is adapted to the composition of running text. Its clean and functional design brings it closer to modernist style typefaces but its pointed connections and terminations evoke certain characteristics of flared glyphic typefaces. Thelo Display (Light, Regular, Bold) has been designed for composing large sized texts such as titles. Its design is enhanced by lively and sharp lines. Finally, Thelo Micro (Regular, Italic, Bold) is tailored to the composition of smaller sized texts such as footnotes and captions. Its quite solid rectangular serifs provide it with the aesthetic of a slab serif.

Thelo is named after the Thelocactus, a variety of cactus native to Mexico: linking the harsh aspect of on screen display and the arid lands of desert zones.

Thelo

Foundry: 205TF
Designer: Tassiana Nuñez Costa
Release: July 2020
Format: .otf (desktop); .woff, .woff2, .eot, .svg, .ttf (web, app, epub)
Styles: Display (Light, Regular, & Bold), Text (Regular, Italic, & Bold), Micro (Regular, Italic, & Bold)
Type specimen available
Price: Family € 400.–  (desktop), Optical Size Packages € 150.– (desktop)
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