/\ /\ ( o o ) = _Y_ = ( )ばけねこ
Bakeneko
Text · Extrabold
The cat that grew too old and learned to walk upright, speak and play the shamisen. Proportional, warm, built for reading.
Bakemono · a shape-shifting superfamily by Zetafonts
Move the mouse: left half is Roman, Text → Mono · right half is Italic, Mono → Text · up ⇄ down the weight
The name comes from Japanese folklore: bakemono are yōkai that change their form freely, between human and animal, between object and spirit. Literally, the word means a thing that changes.
It aptly describes this superfamily. Bakemono explores the design space around the duality of fixed and proportional width, mixing the lessons of mechanical typewriter technology with the intuitions of eastern brush calligraphy, which has been dealing for centuries with fixed space grids. The result comes in three subfamilies, Text, Stereo and Mono, and in two variable fonts where the transformation happens on a single axis.
A fox, a cat, a sandal, a lantern. Or a letter that is proportional by day and monospaced by night.
/\ /\ ( ^ ^ ) \ ^v^ / '----'
Francesco Canovaro started Bakemono to explore an idea inherent in monospaced type and rare in proportional type: keeping every letter's width constant across all weights. You can turn a word from Thin to Extrabold without losing the alignment and flow of the text block. Watch the red guides.
/\ /\ ( o o ) = _Y_ = ( )ばけねこ
Text · Extrabold
The cat that grew too old and learned to walk upright, speak and play the shamisen. Proportional, warm, built for reading.
/\ /\ ( ^ ^ ) \ ^v^ / '----'きつね
Stereo · Medium
The fox borrows a human face and keeps its tail. Stereo sits halfway: almost proportional, almost fixed.
.-----. / Y \ | (o) | | _-_ | '-------' / \ばけぞうり
Mono · Regular
A straw sandal that got a soul after a hundred years. Mono is the typewriter grid: every glyph, one cell.
(o_o)
S
S
S
/||\
/ || \ろくろくびVariable · MONO axis
By day a normal woman; by night her neck stretches across the room. The variable font stretches the same way, from 0 to 1000.
_______ ( o o ) ( ~ ) \_____/ ~~~~~~~~~おおにゅうどう
Text · Thin to Extrabold
The giant monk who looms over Mount Fuji. Seven weights, each with a true italic, in every subfamily.
.-""-.
/ (o) \
'--------'
||
||
_/\_からかさLatin · Greek · Cyrillic
The old umbrella that grew an eye, a tongue and a single leg. One eye, 218 languages. May the monster be with you.
_______________ | _|___|___|_ | |_|__ o o __|_| | _|___-___|_ | |_|___|___|___|_| | |ぬりかべ
Tabular figures · tnum
1,234,567
9,876,110
The wall that blocks the night traveller. Tabular figures stand in fixed columns, so totals and timetables never wobble.
_|_
/ \
| (0) |
| -=- |
\_|_/
UちょうちんSlashed zero · zero
0O 0O 10 100
The paper lantern that split open and grew a tongue. Bakemono's zero carries a slash, so it never passes for an O in code or in a licence plate.
/^^^\ ( o.o ) ( ~ ) ( ) \___/たぬき
Stylistic sets · ss01–ss10
Raag @ & Qy 0123
The raccoon dog, master of disguise, with a leaf on its head. Ten stylistic sets swap letters for their alternate selves. Hover to see the trick.
,-. (* *) /| |\ / | | \ . | | . / \ゆきおんな
Thin weights · monowidth
hairline cold
The snow woman, pale and weightless. Bakemono Thin is a hairline that keeps the same width as Extrabold: change the weight, the column holds.
.---. ( o o ) \ v / /( )\ '---' ~~~~~~~~かっぱ
Fractions · frac numr dnom
1/2 3/4 7/8 15/16
The river imp who keeps water in the dish on its head. Fractions, numerators and denominators sit on the baseline like it on the riverbank.
.---. ( o o )=====> \___/ /| |\ | |てんぐ
True italics · 21 styles
leaning into the wind
The mountain goblin with the long nose, leaning into the wind. Every weight of every width has a true italic, drawn, not slanted.
Household objects that reach their hundredth birthday come alive as tsukumogami. Bakemono Mono gives the same second life to the typewriter grid: fixed widths, generous counters, a slashed zero and a full set of stylistic alternates, so your code looks like it was written by a hand and not a machine.
tnum · zero · calt · ss01–ss10 · frac · case
Desktop licence · Freelance tier · VAT excluded