rafael.fyi · type · blyg
Font Build
The site's own typefaces, built from centrelines rather than drawn outlines. Pick a face, pick a letter, and step through how it is made: the centreline, the pen, then each rule that adds a serif or a detail. The dashed outline is the same letter as first drafted, before the second pass.
Why build fonts for one site
- No third party. Every font here is served from rafael.fyi, so a visit sends nothing to a font service.
- Small. Each face is about 11 KB as WOFF2, with only the characters the site uses plus Latin-1.
- One construction for every face. A letter is a set of centrelines on guide lines; a face is a choice of pen and rules. One script builds all four in about two seconds, so a change to a skeleton reaches every face at once.
- Fitted to the site. A scan of every page set the character set, and the weights were matched at the sizes the site actually uses.
- Named for documents. Each face takes its name and its geometry from a kind of document that runs through the site's reading: patent drawings, letters patent, typewritten offprints.
Fonts by Claude for rafael.fyi, October 2026. Drafts for trying out; the planned licence is the SIL Open Font License 1.1, to be confirmed before release.