https://www.vigilfont.com/notes Field guides to geometric and rounded sans serifs, the typefaces hiding in public life, and notes from the making of Vigil. en-us Keno Vigil hi@thinkkeno.com (Keno Vigil) Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/license-plate-fonts https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/license-plate-fonts There is no single license plate font. The letterforms were shaped by a stamping die, hardened against tape-and-paint forgery, and are now drawn for cameras. Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/highway-gothic-vs-clearview https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/highway-gothic-vs-clearview American road signs use Highway Gothic, drawn in 1948. A rival called Clearview was approved in 2004, killed in 2016 and revived in 2018. Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/geometric-sans-serif-fonts https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/geometric-sans-serif-fonts What makes a sans serif geometric, how to spot one in four seconds, and which geometric sans serif fonts are actually worth using. Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/typeface-vs-font https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/typeface-vs-font A typeface is the design; a font was one size and one style of it, cast in metal. Where the distinction came from, and why digital type dissolved it. Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/why-vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/why-vigil Ten years of a calendar block that said MAKE FONT, and why it finally shipped. Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/geometric-grotesk-history https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/geometric-grotesk-history Erbar, Futura and Kabel arrived within a year of each other in 1926-27 and defined a category still with us. Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/rounded-sans-history https://www.vigilfont.com/notes/rounded-sans-history Helvetica Rounded, VAG Rounded and the app-icon era, and the uniform-rounding mistake most of them make. Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Keno Vigil