Rapino

Sleek, stylish and futuristic, Rapino is seen to best effect in short words and headlines.

Based on a TV-shaped rounded rectangle with a strong horizontal stress, Rapino inverts the usual thick/thin weight distribution. Reverse-weight typefaces date back to Victorian hot-metal foundries, in whose catalogues all kinds of eccentric and experimental designs proliferated. They are difficult to execute consistently as certain letters, for example the K or x, are open at the top and bottom and do not lend themselves to this treatment very easily. It is possible to redesign them – Laydeez Nite, for example, shows how this might be achieved – but the results are sometimes hard to parse. Hence Rapino has a certain degree of bounce, especially in the upper case.