Labore — Kelsey Elder

Labore

Labore is a unitized variable font exploring how materials-based historical research can shape contemporary variable font creation. Inspired by the Renaissance-era punchcutter Hendrik van den Keere, it draws from archival research conducted at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, Belgium, including extensive analysis of punches, matrices, smokeproofs, and printed documents. The name and special “Golden Compass” glyph reference the printer’s mark used by Christophe Plantin’s press, which often featured a compass and hand inscribed with the Latin phrase Labore et Constantia — “through work and perseverance.”

Four styles sit along a width axis, each including small caps, figures, fractions, stylistic
and historical alternates, ligatures, symbols, ornaments, extended OpenType features,
and an extensive character set supporting over 435 languages which use the Latin script. As records at the MPM indicate that HDK never cut an italic, the font’s design space is limited to an upright Roman construction. In lieu of an italic style, a custom underline style provides a high-contrast means of emphasis within the family.

OpenType capabilities are designed to make digital typesetting more intuitive and responsive to the limitations of standard keyboard input. The font includes Tight-Fitting stylistic alternates, a Smart Typography feature that simplifies the use of special characters and corrects common typesetting errors, and a Saltillo feature that substitutes the correct glottal stop character used in many Indigenous languages, with support from Alfonso García. Expressive features include a Misprint that introduces randomized stylistic substitutions with progressive frequency/occurrences options, developed through Python scripting.

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