Santiago is a display typeface drawn from Roman alphabets carved and painted in stone observed directly in churches, buildings, and street shrines across Chile. Its proportions come from that observation, not from other fonts.
The typeface works as degrees of expression. At one end, the classical neutrality of a linear-bar A. At the other, Uncial-inspired alternates and ligatures for titles with character and a fourth stylistic set of ornamental symbols, frames, and astronomical signs programmed to work in combination. Capitals are authoritative and expressive. Small caps are modern and robust in paragraphs. As callejero as it is bookish drawing equally from the vernacular of roadside shrines and the research of neoclassical printing types.
A reflection written in Quilpué in 2017: it would have been impossible to draw these letters without thinking about the Spanish conquest and European migration. That history is in the stone. It came through in the drawing — authoritative, timeless, and not entirely comfortable.
1 style. 195 languages. Available at MyFonts and contrafonts.cl
Selected at the 8th Tipos Latinos Biennial, 2018.
Santiago in use → Fonts In Use