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Fonts can die. Are we doing enough to save them?

Fonts that fail to adapt to new technologies can become outdated and fall out of use. However, beyond this, are we also limiting type diversity by only reviving certain fonts? Here are my thoughts on modern-day font revivals.

Faux Icing
UX Collective
7 min readApr 29, 2023

Update (26/6/23): The lovely team at Fonts in Use informed me that there’s actually a digitised version of Arabeqsue available online, under the name Zylobalsamum! Done by Jason Wickersty in 2015, you can get the font as part of a bundle here or here.

An illustration of a font’s cemetery. Behind the tombstone, a person holds up a 3D Helvetica letter while the rest cheer on. Another font rises from the grave while a person sees it in shock.
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Have you ever heard of a font called Arabesque? Well, you can’t download it online, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s estimated to be around 171 years old and can be found in an 1858 type catalogue. As the name suggests, Arabesque is highly decorative in appearance, featuring wavy, leaf-like strokes that appear to have been created with an ink brush.

I adore the look of the typeface. It has a calligraphic quality and possesses gracefulness, where the words seem to dance on paper when Arabesque is used. However, if I want to use Arabesque as a font, I must locate someone who still possesses the metal types and use it with a letterpress machine. Alternatively, is there a better solution…

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Faux Icing

Freelance Graphic Designer, overthinker, and desires humour. fauxicing.carrd.co

Responses (5)

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