Baudot

The story of Baudot [boˈdo] begins in 1968, in Milan Italy. François Robert was inspired by the bright lights of Las Vegas to create a headline alphabet embodying the appeal of glitzy entertainment of that period. Robert’s entry was selected for publication in an open call for submissions of new type designs and subsequently released as dry transfer type (a.k.a. rub-down type) under the name “Chicago”, which went on to grace magazine covers, posters, albums, and books throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

As digital font technology arose, Robert’s Chicago was left behind and new (unrelated) typefaces were later published under the name Chicago, most notably the bitmap font on the original Macintosh system. In the fall of 2022, Jean-Benoît Lévy introduced Robert to Delve Withrington, kicking off a collaboration to produce Robert’s original design again, from scratch, and re-imagined for the 21st century.

The resulting type family was renamed “Baudot” — a nod to Émile Baudot and his 1872 invention of Baudot code, a precursor of ASCII — is comprised of three weights: Light, Regular, and Bold, plus two styles for color layering: Baudot Pop Open and Baudot Pop Fill. While Baudot is primarily a grid-based design, it strays from that rigidity selectively by utilizing offset positions as a second grid in some instances to reduce gaps in strokes and to achieve a more consistent representation of design intent across the typeface. Baudot has handy OpenType features and a broad glyph repertoire of over 900 glyphs supporting 224 languages, including Vietnamese, Greek, plus Cyrillic script.

Baudot is certain to add some dazzle and delight to any logo, headline, or dropcap treatment, especially with the layering option employed for a flashy chromatic effect.