It’s all a matter of perception and, perhaps, a matter of time and place as well. From the synthesis of letterform designs proposed by Walter Käch in the late 1940s to the optical balance achieved by Helvetica, which was drawn by Max Miedinger in the mid-1950s, an organic and rational image was defined for the letter. With a distinct sensorial liaison between the positive and the negative spaces of its letterforms and counterforms, this paradigm of modernist typography eventually became the backbone of Swiss graphic design, which, in turn, inspired an international model in the latter half of the twentieth century.
More than sixty years after the peak of Swiss style and following the release of countless variants, François Rappo reclaims this typographic heritage with Antique Legacy. Rappo, once again, proves his mastery of the grotesque genre with this tremendous project. With its unprecedented ability to produce exceptionally uniform text surfaces and high-quality letterforms, Antique Legacy ultimately reinvigorates the distinctive identity of Swiss typographic modernism and serves as a tool that will make your retina tingle with delight.
More about the collection >Antique Legacy 14 styles
Case Sensitive Forms
All Caps [cpsp]
Case Sensitive Forms [case]
This function formats the text in uppercase and adjusts spacing between all capital letters. It also applies the ‘Case Sensitive Forms’ feature which replaces certain characters with alternates that are better suited for all capital text, especially related to punctuation.
«Optimo»
@|¦()[]{}¿¡‹›«»-–—·
«OPTIMO»
@|¦()[]{}¿¡‹›«»-–—·
Contextual Alternates
This feature adapts the position of a glyph after its surrounding context. For instance, a dash placed between two uppercase letters or numbers will be replaced by an uppercase version of the dash, slightly higher. This feature is usually active by default in Adobe applications.
Fractions
With this feature, any numbers separated by a slash will automatically turn into a fraction. To fit in fraction configuration, numerals have been designed smaller and their weights have been adjusted to suit the typeface.
3/4 3/8 5/8 7/8
3/4 3/8 5/8 7/8
Ordinals
This feature replaces any letter following a numeral with its matching superior letters. French language uses the ordinal indicators such as ‘er’ for 1er premier, while Spanish, Portuguese and Italian require the feminine and masculine ordinals ‘a,’ ‘o’ for 1º, 1ª. Ordinals are designed to match the weight of the typeface.
Slashed Zero
Originally created to avoid the confusion between the ‘0’ and the ‘O’, this feature substitutes all zeros in a selected text by a slashed form of the zero.
Numerators
This feature substitutes glyphs with their matching smaller alternates. The numerators are the same glyphs that are used to create fractions, their vertical position remains within the capital letters height. These glyphs are reduced in size and designed slightly heavier to keep them consistent with the rest of the font.
H0123456789()[]
Habcdefghijklmn
Hopqrstuvwxyz
H0123456789()[]
Habcdefghijklmn
Hopqrstuvwxyz
Denominators
This feature substitutes glyphs with their matching smaller alternates and low position glyphs. The denominators are the same glyphs that are used to create fractions, their vertical position remains within the base line. These glyphs are reduced in size and designed slightly heavier to keep them consistent with the rest of the font.
H0123456789()[]
Habcdefghijklmn
Hopqrstuvwxyz
H0123456789()[]
Habcdefghijklmn
Hopqrstuvwxyz
Superscript/Superiors
This feature substitutes glyphs with their matching smaller alternates which are set slightly above the height of the capital letters. These glyphs are reduced in size and designed slightly heavier to keep them consistent with the rest of the font.
Habcdefghijklmn
Hopqrstuvwxyz()[]
Habcdefghijklmn
Hopqrstuvwxyz()[]
Subscript/Inferiors
This feature substitutes glyphs with their matching smaller alternates which are set slightly below the baseline. These glyphs are reduced in size and designed slightly heavier to keep them consistent with the rest of the font.
Habcdefghijklmno
Hpqrstuvwxyz()[]
Habcdefghijklmno
Hpqrstuvwxyz()[]
Standard Ligatures
Standard ligatures replaces a sequence of characters with a single ligature glyph, they are designed to improve kerning and readability of certain letter pairs.
Discretionary Ligatures
This feature activates discretionary ligatures which are specific to the typeface. It applies all other designed ligatures that are not classified as standard ligatures.
Lowercase math symbols
This feature activates alternate lowercase positioning of mathematical symbols.
up+down
+±×÷−=≈≠¬∞
up+down
+±×÷−=≈≠¬∞
Multiply sign
This feature substitutes the letter “x” into the multiplication sign.