Aether Display, a variable typeface

Variable Display Font

Project: Type design
Weights: Regular → Bold, variable
Year: Academic year 2023–24

Clouds logo — the film loads from Vimeo when you’re online.

Concept

“Aether Display” is a typeface that sets out to capture the elegance of the past and the vitality of the present, seamlessly blending the understated forms of a modern serif with the expressive flow of a script.

Versatile and refined, it adapts to many uses, but it’s at its best in headlines for beauty products and fashion magazines, where style and personality are a must.

Features

1Smooth line transitions
2Medium contrast 1:5
3Sharp edges with optical corrections

Character specimen

Regular 300

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
À
Á
È
É
Ì
Í
Ó
Ò
Ù
Ú
!
?
.
;
:
'
"
*
$
&
%
(
)
{
}
[
]
-
+
=
/
\

04 Anatomy

Scroll to fly from plate to plate

Special traits01 / 03

M

The arches of the M spring from the stems on an ultra-fine hairline. In the close-up, the top join: the stroke goes from thick to hairline with no visible seam.
Special traits02 / 03

Q

The tail cuts across the bowl, drops below the baseline and rolls into a curl: the most calligraphic gesture in the typeface.
Special traits03 / 03

K

The arm and leg meet in a pointed vertex set apart from the stem: a sharp corner between two curves.
Measures01 / 02

Metrics

On a 1,000-unit em: x-height at 500, ascenders up to 700 (+200), descenders down to −217. The same guidelines hold across the entire character set.
Measures02 / 02

Contrast

Stroke widths measured on the A and H: thin diagonal 22 pt, thick diagonal 78 pt, crossbar 14 pt against a 70 pt stem. That’s the medium 1:5 contrast.

Letter shapes

Squared lettersE F H I L T
Round lettersC G O Q S
Diagonal lettersA V W X
Round // squaredB D J M N P R U
Diagonal // squaredK Z Y

06 Corrections

Scroll to fly from plate to plate

Optical corrections01 / 03

Overshoot

Round and pointed shapes extend slightly past the guidelines, so they look as tall as the flat ones. The symbols above and below each letter show where.
Optical corrections02 / 03

O · V · A

Up close: the O rises 8 pt above the ascender line and dips 12 pt below the baseline; the point of the V dips 8 pt; the A rises 6 pt.
Optical corrections03 / 03

B · D · P · R

In letters with bowls, the top curve just overshoots the ascender line: the dashed arcs show by how much.
Spacing01 / 02

Sidebearings

Every letter’s sidebearings start from those of the H and the O. Each colored dot shows which value that side uses.
- Minimum value — 0 pt
- Same value as “H” — 70 pt
- ~ Half of “H” value — 40 pt
- ~ “O” value — 60 pt
- < “H” value — 65 pt
Spacing02 / 02

Kerning

Tricky pairs such as AV, AW, PA and WA are kerned as tight as −76 pt; LO, by contrast, opens up by 54 pt.