My own letters.
I drew the letters this site speaks in — the titles, and the small words you’re reading now. Until 14 October 2026 my titles stood in a free font, one of the most used on the web, so none of them could tell you whose page you were on. Now they’re mine, used nowhere else. This is how I made them.
Before
Not a label.
A living brand.
Now
Not a label.
A living brand.
One idea for every letter.
Round letters, almost closed, each opened by the same thin, straight cut. Every end cut flat and level.
c e a s
The ways I didn’t go.
Before I drew a single finished letter, I set my titles four ways, on four of my pages. The cans page’s first title, each way:
Every name lost its capital.
All small letters, as heavy as the logo.
Not a label.
A living brand.
The titles outweighed the logo.
Capitals, as heavy as the logo.
Not a label.
A living brand.
The titles turned into posters.
Narrow and close-set.
Not a label.
A living brand.
The one I kept.
Capitals, one step lighter than the logo, so the logo stays the heaviest thing on every page.
Not a label.
A living brand.
The letters that fought back.
Three letters I drew wrong before I drew them right, each beside the letter as it stands now.
I first drew the a as the e turned over. It read as an upside-down e. Now it’s the n’s arch over a bowl of its own.
The bar stopped inside the G’s own wall, and GOLD read as COLD. Now the bar runs in to the middle.
At first the 2 was still an open arch on a straight line, carried from before the idea. Now its top closes almost to a ring and the stroke curves out of it.
Big and small.
My titles live in one file with two ends: one for 18 pixels and up, one for 12. Your browser moves between them by size. At 12 the cuts open wider, so on your screen a cut stays as wide as at 18.
For 18 px and up
For 12 px
At their real size, 18 and 12 px:ecec
The alphabet, as it grew.
Two letters first, then one group at a time. Each line is set in the letters as they stood after that step, every letter in its own place.
1 The first two
no
2 The cut
c e no
3 The round letters
abcde g nopq s
4 The straight ones
abcdefghijklmnopqrstu
5 The slanted ones
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
6 The round and straight capitals
BCDEFGHIJ L OPQRSTU
7 The slanted capitals
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
8 The figures and marks
0123456789.,:;?()’“”-—/·€°
The small words.
Then the reading letters: the same hand, opened up for long text. One even stroke, every opening wide, a regular and a bold. If you’ve read this far without noticing them, they’re doing their job.
Why it works.
You can know a page without its logo.
A font can mark a brand the way its colour does, if no one else has it and many people know it. A font anyone can use is never one brand’s.
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, distinctive brand assets
You feel them, not only read them.
In studies, rounder letters were matched with “sweet” and liked more. Brands set in letters that fit them were chosen twice as often.
Velasco et al., 2015 · Doyle and Bottomley, 2004
It’s what I sell.
A brand is one system: its mark, its letters, its colour, the way it moves. My own house had its mark, not its letters. Now it has both.
The cans page
Two things I never claim for them: easier reading, or a saving. They make this house speak in one voice.