Sybarite

Sybarite is a fat face that works at any size. Capitals with sweeping curves and sharp unbracketed serifs command attention while charming minuscules expose the amiable side of its demeanor.

Sybarite is James Puckett’s revival of the fat face type that appears in the 1829 specimen of Alonzo W. Kinsley’s Franklin Letter Foundry. Kinsley’s was a very short-lived and unprofitable business. It opened in 1825 (some sources say 1829) and ended in 1832 upon Kinsley’s death.

High-contrast typefaces like Sybarite have thin hairlines that translate poorly to scalable digital type. A hairline thin enough to remain a hairline at large sizes disappears at smaller sizes. And a hairline serif drawn for small sizes turns into a slab serif at large sizes. Solving this problem requires the creation of optical weights; fonts tuned for a certain size range, just as they existed in the era of metal type.