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BELY
Bely.a typeface story
Balance. Striking. Experimental.
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Released by TypeTogether in 2016, Bely is a luxurious, sophisticated spin on the classic serif style containing four text weights that ensure ease of legibility. As a classic serif Bely Text features beautifully balanced capitals. The family also includes Bely Display, a bold and expressive French-style inspired display weight which experiments with the balance of stroke contrast and both triangular and rectangular shape. Bely Display is an excellent weight for larger sizes with its striking angled and high stroke contrast. Bely includes the Latin A Extended glyph set as well as its two text weights, matching italics, and unique display style. Bely’s OpenType features allow for typographic exploration as it offers small caps, both tabular and proportional lining and old-style figures, ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive variants, and fractions.
Since its creation in 2016, Bely has won the following awards: the TypeTogether’s Typeface Publishing Incentive Programme scholarship (2014), the French magazine Étapes for the Diploma Issue (2014), the “TransFormations” exhibition at Centre Pompidou in France (2014), and the SOTA catalyst Award (2016).
Roxanegataud.bio
J'aime la typographie.
Bely, released in 2016, is the first contribution to the type world by French-native Roxane Gatuad. Roxane Gatuad, born in 1991, is an independent typeface designer from France. After studying graphic design for four years, Gatuad enrolled in the 2012 ESAD Type programme in Amiens, France. At ESAD, Gatuad designed her first typeface and graduated with honors a few years later. In 2014, Gateau received TypeTogether’s first Typeface Publishing Incentive Programme (now named Gerard Unger Scholarship) for the design of Bely and consequently Bely was released in 2016. In 2016, Gateau received the Catalyst Award from The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) for the creation of Bely. Since her graduation from ESAD, Gateau had collaborated with other type designers and foundries such as Typofonderie, 205.TF, Production Type, Typefactory, and Alice Savoie.
Bely is inspired by classic French-style serifs. As a young designer, Roxanne Gataud, wanted to create a bold and fearless typeface that defied the rules of both text and display weights. With Gataud at the helm, this typeface family evokes a luxurious, sophisticated demeanor, built by classical proportions and legibility. Gateau also experimented with the balance and contrast of shape, as the family itself is comprised of both bold triangular serifs on the top as well as thick, bracketed, rectangular serifs at the bottom. While Bely’s text weights were created for legibility, Bely Display was created to stun with a beautiful angled stress in each of its vowels. Furthermore, Gatuad’s final touch on this exquisite typeface was the high stroke contrast displayed in the Bely text weights and most apparent in Bely’s display weight.
Bely.typographic analysis
An exploration of shapes.
Released by TypeTogether in 2016, Bely is a luxurious, sophisticated spin on the classic serif style containing four text weights that ensure ease of legibility and a display weight that is bold and extremely experimental. Concerning Bely’s text weights, the stress is angled and the stroke contrast is medium. The typeface letter forms have larger apertures than most serifs which lends to their increased overall width. Bely text weights also include old style nonlining numerals that allow numerals to sit below the baseline. Letter forms like the capital ‘E’ display triangular serifs at their tops, with some extending off of the arms of letter forms. Although the capital ‘G’ does not have a spur, it is a unique letter form due to the fact that it displays a lower arm terminal than most serifs which extends to both the right and the left of the arm. The tail of the capital ‘Q’ letter form is unique because it displays a triangular shape and points sharply downward. Reminiscent of many slab serif typefaces, the capital ‘R’ letter form displays the rectangular serifs that adorn the base of many letter forms in the Bely alphabet. The lowercase ‘g’ is a unique, double-storied letter form whose link and loop sit below the baseline.
Concerning Bely’s display weight, the stress is angled that follows the forms of the text weights; however, the stroke contrast is higher than that of the text weights. Due to the high angle contrast, letter forms like the capital ‘C’ have smaller apertures that follow the distinct angle of the letter forms. In addition, unlike the text weights, the display weight does not have old style non-lining numerals.
Bely
Typeface Weights
Bely Regular Bely Italic Bely Bold Bely Bold Italic Bely Display Regular
Typeface Analysis R g C F G Q
abcdfg x - height ascent
abcdfg
descent baseline
