Typeface of the Month: Leida

Our Typeface of the Month: Leida is a well-refined serif type family that balances functionality with a cheerful personality.

Type designer and founder of The Northern Block, Jonathan Hill, who is no stranger to serif typefaces, wanted to tip his hat to the Dutch masters, specifically, Bram de Does, and the typeface Lexicon—regarded as one of the best type designs in history. But this isn’t about making a reinterpretation of Lexicon. This is about taking inspiration from Bram’s process and how he utilized the most up-to-date techniques of his era to create a serif with a new purpose.

Fundamentally, Leida’s design follows the basic principles of readability of small text by utilizing a more condensed letterform and having shorter ascenders and descenders. Combined with open counters and lower stroke contrast, the typeface has a robust and sturdy feel across long lines of text.

Leida includes eight weights with true italics and over 900 characters per style. OpenType features consist of fourteen number variations, including inferiors, superiors, fractions, tabular, lining, circled, and oldstyle. It also has alternate lowercase a, e, g, and y, small caps and language support covering Western, Southern, and Central Europe.

Typeface of the Month: Leida

Foundry: The Northern Block
Designer: Jonathan Hill
Release: March 2023
File Formats: OTF, TTF WOFF, WOFF 2, SVG, EOT, Variable
Styles: ExtraLight, ExtraLight Italic, Light, Light Italic, Book, Book Italic, Regular, Regular Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, ExtraBold, ExtraBold Italic, Black, Black Italic
Price: Single £24.95, Family, Variable £199.95
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