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David Hatleydesign · AI/ML · generative tools

No. 09 / 16 · Serif · DisplaySpecimen · 2026-10-27

Cap 700Base 0Outline

A heavy, low-contrast display serif with ink traps cut into every join.

Download .zipTTF, WOFF2 and CSSBuy me a coffee ↗
Glyphs 54Styles 1Kerning 549 pairsUPM 1000Cap 700WOFF2 9.0 KBTTF 26.6 KBSizes anyChecksum 36D5
00Type tester

Try it

STOP SHRINKING

72 px · kerning on · click the text to edit it

01Construction

How it is built

Straight strokes are rectangles with flat serifs; curves are a flat nib stamped along a skeleton. Stems are 176 units and hairlines 62, so the contrast is low and the colour is dark.

Ink traps are found, not drawn. The outline is grown and shrunk by 34 units, which fills every concave corner; those fills, and only the small ones, are cut back out a little deeper. Every join gets a notch, and the counters are left alone.

A vector face: it works at any size. The tester and the waterfall use the house steps.

PLATE 9.1 · CONSTRUCTION · NOTCH K67 ON-CURVE · 42 OFF-CURVE · QUADRATIC
Baseline 0Cap height 7001234
  1. NodeAn on-curve point at (674, 0). 67 in this glyph.
  2. HandleAn off-curve point at (327, 647). Quadratic curves: one handle per curve. 42 here.
  3. Advance735 units wide: 62 of space on the left, 61 on the right.
  4. Ink trapA notch cut back into the join: the outline grown and shrunk by 34 units finds it.
Plate 9.1. Notch K, drawn from the built font file: every square is a node and every ring a handle the outline really has.
02Spacing

How it fits

PLATE 9.2 · SPACING · NOTCHTIGHTEST 8 OF 549 PAIRS
12
FJ −120
LT −120
LY −120
PJ −120
FA −110
LV −110
AT −100
AV −100
  1. UnkernedThe second letter where its advance width alone would put it: hairline.
  2. KernedThe pair as the font sets it, pulled in by the value under it, in units of a 1000-unit em.
Plate 9.2. The eight tightest pairs in Notch’s kerning table, each set over its unkerned ghost.
03Waterfall

Every size it is drawn for

120 pxSTOP SHRINKING
72 pxSTOP SHRINKING
48 pxSTOP SHRINKING
32 pxSPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ, JUDGE MY VOW.
25 pxSPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ, JUDGE MY VOW.
20 pxSPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ, JUDGE MY VOW.
16 pxSPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ, JUDGE MY VOW.
04Character set

All 80 characters

Char
K
Code point
U+004B
Glyph
K
Advance
735
LSB · RSB
62 · 61
Contours · points
1 · 112

Uppercase · 26

Lowercase · types the capitals

Figures · 10

Punctuation and symbols · 18

05In use

Good at

Poster stack72 px

CREATE THE

THINGS YOU

WISH EXISTED

06Download

Get Notch

TTF for desktops, WOFF2 for the web, or the zip with both, the licence and a readme. Free for anything, commercial included, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Download .zip · 2 filesRegular · TTFRegular · WOFF2

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CSS · put the .woff2 next to your stylesheet
@font-face {
  font-family: "Notch";
  src: url("Notch-Regular.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 400;
  font-display: swap;
}

h1 { font-family: "Notch", sans-serif; }