Athelas Type Speciman

Athelas

Athelas

At h e l a s Athelas type specimen

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In

2006, friends Veronika Burian and Jose Scaglione established an independent type foundry called TypeTogether.

Inspired by British fine book printing, they developed Athelas, a body font whose name is inspired by a healing herb from The Lord of the Rings.

Athelas is a serif font intended for use in body copy. It has open counters with elegant curves, even the italic variant, though more angular, is still very round and elegant.

Though it is inspired by British literature, Athelas respects the cultural needs of other languages, such as those that use the diacritic. Included in the Athelas character set is a Greek variant designed by Irvene Vlachou and a Cyrillic variant designed by Tom Grace.

Athelas can be used in both print and screen use. It is included as a system font in macOS (Mavericks and later) and used as the default font in the iBooks app.

Athelas won first prize at the 2008 Granshan Type Design competition for best Latin alphabet body text.

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9/11

Athelas is easily readable at many point sizes, such as this line in 9 points with 11 points of leading. Leading is the amount of space between each line of text.

10/12

A good rule of thumb to use when determining the leading is to use two points more of leading than the font size, like in this example of a 10-point font size and 12-point leading.

11/13

The leading size can make a large difference in how a block of text can look. Compare this block at 11-point font size and 13-point leading with the former two blocks of text.

12/14

Leading makes the biggest difference when using multiple lines of text, typically at least three. Good leading helps blocks of text ‘breathe’ so that ascenders and descenders don’t touch. This example has a 12-point font size and 14-point leading.

Athelas: the Body Font Athelas was originally meant to be used as a font for body copy and large blocks of text. Since Athelas itself has a high contrast, when paired with a thin, lightweight font such as Avenir (light) used here, it can be used a header or sub-header.

Athelas itself also comes in regular, italic, bold, and bold italic. These can

be used to draw emphasis or, when paired with other weights or fonts, can create contrast and develop hierarchy which is very important helping break up large blocks of text.

The apexes in Athelas do not form sharp points, instead they are around with a beveled edge.

The left arm and the crossbar are the same width, but much thinner than the right arm. This creates contrast between the letterform and the white space around it.

The crossbars here donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t perfectly line up, creating an offset, yet balanced letterform.

The serifs dip slightly below the baseline, creating a feeling of lift as if the words were rising off the page.

The lower case â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has a large aperture with a beveled beak.

The regular weight of Athelas has very smooth curves, making it easy to read in large blocks of text.

The large bowl here adds contrast and balances the negative space opened up by the counter and aperture.

The italic version trades smooth, round curves for more angular points and larger, open counters.

The bowl here is not as large as the regular weight.

Bodoni, 112-pt

Athelas, 112-pt

Georgia, 112-pt

Big Clason Medium, 112-pt

Merriweather, 112-pt

Compared to similar fonts, Athelas is smaller and more conservative, even at the same point size. While other fonts have ears that tend to curve out in a circular or straight shape, Athelas' ears are narrow at the attachment and end in a wider, curved shape, similar to the beak of other letters.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelas_(typeface) https://www.type-together.com/athelas-font https://fonts.adobe.com/foundries/typetogether

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