Paralucent font family


Designed by  Rian Hughes

Paralucent is versatile all-purpose modern sans. Available in seven weights, from Thin to Heavy, and in two widths each with corresponding italics, it avoids some of the more eccentric calligraphic quirks of Akzidenz or Helvetica or the cool precision of Univers for an elegant, functional, yet warm design.


There are two additions to the core 28-weight family: a three-weight stencil set, and a four weight text family. The text weights have been adjusted for use at small point sizes, and feature more open character shapes, looser inter-letter spacing for improved readability, and lining numerals for use in listings and tables.


Several core ideas inform Paralucent’s design. Prime attention has given to the negative space between characters, giving a more even “colour”, especially in text. For example, the J, L and T have shorter arms than comparable sans typefaces, while the M and W are wider. The A has a lower bar, opening up the interior counter. An unusually high lower-case x-height again helps to give a more even colour and improve legibility. Care has been taken to rationalise repeated elements like the tails on lower-case letters, or the Q and the “ear” of the g. Typographic design solutions that are consistent across all these features add more stylistic cohesion.



‘Ink traps’ are exaggerated incisions used to open up a letter's narrower internal angles, which can become clogged with ink, especially in small point sizes. Now largely redundant due to the high quality of modern print, they are still sometimes used as a stylistic quirk or design feature. Now that digital fonts are often reversed or outlined, or enlarged to enormous sizes, these can also lead to unexpected or obtrusive results. Paralucent takes these inevitable digital manipulations into account, and adds optical corrections without resort to ink traps.


The family has been picked up by many UK and US publishers, featuring heavily in magazines like Loaded, Heat and TV Quick, as well as high-end coffee-table photography books and gallery websites.


A perennial Device bestseller.

Paralucent Thin Italic

Desktop fonts are designed to be installed on a computer for use with applications. Licensed per user.
Annual web fonts are licensed for a set number of page views.
Annual web fonts are licensed for a set number of page views.
Application licensing allows fonts to be embedded in your software applications. The license may be based on the number of titles or the number of installations.
Electronic Document Fonts can be embedded in an eBook, eMagazine or eNewspaper. Fonts are licensed annually per issue.
Server fonts can be installed on a server and e.g. used by automated processes to create items. A license is per server core CPU per year.
A Digital Ads license allows you to embed web fonts in digital ads, such as ads created in HTML5. These license is based on the number of ad impressions.
Paralucent


Select technical format and
language support of the font.
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Std / OT CFF

supports at least

21 languages.















Technical details
Digital data from:
OpenType outline flavour:
CFF - PostScript-Outlines
Technical font names:
File name: Paralucent-ThinItalic.otf
Windows menu name: Paralucent Thin
PostScript name: , Paralucent-ThinItalic
PostScript full name: , Paralucent Thin Italic
Catalog number:
16715297
Characters:
399
US$ 39
Add to cart

Features

Languages

Denominators

Tag: dnom

Function: Replaces selected figures which follow a slash with denominator figures. In the string 11/17 selected by the user, the application turns the 17 into denominators when the user applies the fraction feature.

Fractions

Tag: frac

Function: Replaces figures separated by a slash with 'common' (diagonal) fractions. The user enters 3/4 in a recipe and gets the threequarters fraction.

Standard Ligatures

Tag: liga

Function: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which is preferred for typographic purposes. This feature covers the ligatures which the designer/manufacturer judges should be used in normal conditions. The glyph for ffl replaces the sequence of glyphs f f l.

Localized Forms

Tag: locl

Function: Many scripts used to write multiple languages over wide geographical areas have developed localized variant forms of specific letters, which are used by individual literary communities. For example, a number of letters in the Bulgarian and Serbian alphabets have forms distinct from their Russian counterparts and from each other. In some cases the localized form differs only subtly from the script 'norm', in others the forms are radically distinct. This feature enables localized forms of glyphs to be substituted for default forms. The user applies this feature to text to enable localized Bulgarian forms of Cyrillic letters; alternatively, the feature might enable localized Russian forms in a Bulgarian manufactured font in which the Bulgarian forms are the default characters.

Numerators

Tag: numr

Function: Replaces selected figures which precede a slash with numerator figures, and replaces the typographic slash with the fraction slash. In the string 11/17 selected by the user, the application turns the 11 into numerators, and the slash into a fraction slash when the user applies the fraction feature.

Ordinals

Tag: ordn

Function: Replaces default alphabetic glyphs with the corresponding ordinal forms for use after figures. One exception to the follows-a-figure rule is the numero character (U+2116), which is actually a ligature substitution, but is best accessed through this feature. The user applies this feature to turn 2.o into 2.o (abbreviation for secundo).

Stylistic Alternates

Tag: salt

Function: Many fonts contain alternate glyph designs for a purely esthetic effect; these don't always fit into a clear category like swash or historical. As in the case of swash glyphs, there may be more than one alternate form. This feature replaces the default forms with the stylistic alternates. The user applies this feature to Industria to get the alternate form of g.

Sylistic Set 1

Tag: ss01

Function: In addition to, or instead of, stylistic alternatives of individual glyphs (see 'salt' feature), some fonts may contain sets of stylistic variant glyphs corresponding to portions of the character set, e.g. multiple variants for lowercase letters in a Latin font. Glyphs in stylistic sets may be designed to harmonise visually, interract in particular ways, or otherwise work together. Examples of fonts including stylistic sets are Zapfino Linotype and Adobe's Poetica. Individual features numbered sequentially with the tag name convention 'ss01' 'ss02' 'ss03' . 'ss20' provide a mechanism for glyphs in these sets to be associated via GSUB lookup indexes to default forms and to each other, and for users to select from available stylistic sets.

Sylistic Set 3

Tag: ss03

Function: In addition to, or instead of, stylistic alternatives of individual glyphs (see 'salt' feature), some fonts may contain sets of stylistic variant glyphs corresponding to portions of the character set, e.g. multiple variants for lowercase letters in a Latin font. Glyphs in stylistic sets may be designed to harmonise visually, interract in particular ways, or otherwise work together. Examples of fonts including stylistic sets are Zapfino Linotype and Adobe's Poetica. Individual features numbered sequentially with the tag name convention 'ss01' 'ss02' 'ss03' . 'ss20' provide a mechanism for glyphs in these sets to be associated via GSUB lookup indexes to default forms and to each other, and for users to select from available stylistic sets.

Sylistic Set 4

Tag: ss04

Function: In addition to, or instead of, stylistic alternatives of individual glyphs (see 'salt' feature), some fonts may contain sets of stylistic variant glyphs corresponding to portions of the character set, e.g. multiple variants for lowercase letters in a Latin font. Glyphs in stylistic sets may be designed to harmonise visually, interract in particular ways, or otherwise work together. Examples of fonts including stylistic sets are Zapfino Linotype and Adobe's Poetica. Individual features numbered sequentially with the tag name convention 'ss01' 'ss02' 'ss03' . 'ss20' provide a mechanism for glyphs in these sets to be associated via GSUB lookup indexes to default forms and to each other, and for users to select from available stylistic sets.

Kerning

Tag: kern

Function: Adjusts amount of space between glyphs, generally to provide optically consistent spacing between glyphs. Although a well-designed typeface has consistent inter-glyph spacing overall, some glyph combinations require adjustment for improved legibility. Besides standard adjustment in the horizontal direction, this feature can supply size-dependent kerning data via device tables, "cross-stream" kerning in the Y text direction, and adjustment of glyph placement independent of the advance adjustment. Note that this feature may apply to runs of more than two glyphs, and would not be used in monospaced fonts. Also note that this feature does not apply to text set vertically. The o is shifted closer to the T in the combination "To."

These fonts support the Basic Latin character set. Each font is Unicode™ encoded, and available in d

Tag: Basic Latin

Function: These fonts support the Basic Latin character set. Each font is Unicode™ encoded, and available in different formats. Please review the product information for each font to ensure it will meet your requirements.