Heathen

A few emails sent to Canada Type asked for more “bad scripts”. A few others asked for “more Mascara-like treatments”. And some asked for more fonts of “distressed elegance”.

Whatever you like to call this style of doubled-script font, sightings of designs using it have become common within the last few years. Such fonts have become the standard in expressing elegant confusion, old chaos in modern settings, recycled histories, and rebellious ideas. This style is quite seen on chic clothing, music packaging, some sports paraphernalia, surfer and skateboarder gear, even book covers.

That said, the Heathen font was made to include an advantageous feature that other distressed scripts do not normally have: More intertwined over-swashing in the majuscules. This over-swashing is quite useful in settings where the stroke and fill colors differ, or complement each other. It is also quite the point of emphasis where the idea is to show elegance gone ancient, old thoughts in a modern wrapper, rust never sleeping, or the very basic limits of the world’s nature.