Fat Face
ファットフェイス / c. 1803– / Style / Type Classification
Advertising swelled the didone's stems to extremes. The result was the earliest display type, built to shout across the street.
At a glance
Visual cues
- Swollen stems
- Hairline horizontals
- Tight spacing
- Poster scale
Best used for
- Headlines of a single word on event posters meant to read from a distance
- Posters and signs for bars or markets borrowing the tone of old broadsides
Use this style
Take the compact brief into a project or hand the structured version to an AI tool.
Detailed guidance and sourcesProduction rules, reference works, comparisons, research and citation formats
Dictionary entry
- Type
- One or two words filling the sheet, spaced as tight as they will go
- Composition
- Justify each line to the same width and stack weights for contrast
- Material
- Cheap stock, black alone or black and red, ink scuff left showing
- Caution
- At small sizes the hairline horizontals disappear and the letters collapse into thick blocks that can no longer be told apart.
- Further study
- Robert Thorne / 19th-century lottery and playbills / modern revivals
Related entries
- Didone (ディドーネ)Same Type Classification lineage.Compare Fat Face and Didone
- Wood Type (木活字ディスプレイ)Same Type Classification lineage.Compare Fat Face and Wood Type
More from Type Classification
Continue through styles in the same Type Classification family, prioritised by shared effects.
- ITC Style (ITC様式)Shared effects: Exhilaration / Play.
- Emigre (エミグレ)Shared effects: Play.
- Roman Square Capitals (ローマン・キャピタル)
Browse all Type Classification entries
Cite this entry
The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.
- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/fat-face
- Markdown
- [Fat Face — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/fat-face)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/fat-face">Fat Face — IndexStyle</a>