The margin is not empty space.
On the typography of second thoughts — why every honest page keeps room for the reader to argue back.
[ Independent type foundry — est. 2019 · Porto & remote ]
The alphabetis anargument.
Glyphica publishes ours: retail families built on honest variable axes, and custom cuts for mastheads that need a voice. Drawn, spaced, kerned and hinted in-house — because spacing is drawing, and a font you can’t read at 9 px wasn’t finished.
- Families
- 12
- Glyphs / family
- 1,248
- Languages
- 92
- Axes, flagship
- 4
[ The instrument ]
Pull the axes. The letters hold.
Cathedra is one file with four axes — weight, optical size, softness and wonk — not eighteen frozen styles pretending to be a family. Set it yourself: every slider below writes real font-variation-settings, and the readout hands you the CSS.
Hamburgefonstiv
opsz 96 · wght 640 · SOFT 0 · WONK 1 · -0.010emauto-specimen — touch any control to take over
640
96
0
118 px
-0.010 em
This exact setting, as CSS
.cathedra {
font-family: "Cathedra VF", serif;
font-style: normal;
font-size: 118px;
letter-spacing: -0.010em;
font-variation-settings:
"opsz" 96, "wght" 640, "SOFT" 0, "WONK" 1;
}[ In use ]
Proof, not promises.
A typeface is finished when it survives someone else’s layout. Four plates from licensees — an opinion page, a theatre bill, an app, an annual report — each set in the cut it was licensed for.
Noite
Grotesca
Teatro da Rua — Outubro 9–14 · Bilhetes na porta
FieldpayToday
Rent — Rua das FloresScheduled · monthly−€780.00
Invoice #241 — Studio WeftCleared 09:12+€2,400.00
Type licence — GlyphicaPerpetual, obviously−€220.00
Send money| Line | FY24 | FY25 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail licences | 412,090 | 468,114 | +13.6% |
| Custom commissions | 380,500 | 411,020 | +8.0% |
| Trial downloads | 88,410 | 104,977 | +18.7% |
| Regret, itemised | 0.00 | 0.00 | — |
[ Licensing ]
Licensing that fits on one screen.
No seat auditors, no pageview anxiety, no subscription that bricks your brand when a card expires. Three licences, plain terms, perpetual files.
Single style
$40 / style
One cut, committed to. The way most love affairs with a typeface start.
- Desktop OTF + web WOFF2
- Up to 5 workstations, one studio
- Web use to 50k pageviews / month
- Trial first, always — full character set
Family most licensed
$220 / family
All eighteen styles — plus the variable file, which is the point.
- Everything in Single, ×18 styles
- Cathedra VF — all four axes, roman + italic
- App embedding to 10k monthly users
- Upgrades credit every dollar you’ve paid
Custom
from $9,500
A masthead cut nobody else can set. Four weeks, brief to beta.
- Exclusive for 24 months, then yours cheap
- Hinted to your target grid — we test at 9 px
- Axes to your spec — yes, even a WONK
- Kerning proofed against your actual copy
All licences perpetual · files DRM-free · if your use outgrows a tier you pay the difference, not a penalty · trials carry the full character set because you cannot judge spacing from a crippled file.
[ Correspondence ]
Kind words, well set.
We reset a 96-page annual report in Cathedra Text and the proofreader asked what changed. Nothing had — the page just stopped fighting her. That is what spacing buys you.
The Footnote cut at 9 px on our worst Android screen still has its ink traps doing quiet, unglamorous work. Someone drew for that pixel grid by hand, and it shows.
Wonk on, wonk off — the whole temperature of the poster changes, and the client finally understood what “voice” meant without me saying a word.
[ The binder ]
Your fonts live here.
Sign in to reach your licences, invoices and trial downloads. Every family ships as a free trial with the complete character set — watermark-free, nag-free — because the only honest way to choose a typeface is to set your own words in it.
- Trials for all 12 families, full glyph set
- Licences and invoices, one page, no portal maze
- Version notes when a family is re-hinted or extended