The four weight semi-condensed Bartholemé family came into existence as a family expansion based on the designer’s earlier concept, Bartholemé Open. This hybrid family was inspired by and loosely based on a number of contemporary mid-twentieth century type concepts having Old Face or Modern influence. Those inspirational type designs were primarily designed for various proprietary photolettering technologies of the time.

The award-winning* Bartholemé Open and its companion design Bartholemé small capital open were inspired by various Shaded, Inline and Handtooled type models from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of those inspirational type designs were designed as titling fonts with all capital sets only. To set it apart from the earlier models, Bartholemé Open is semi-condensed intentionally designed with a lowercase.

Design qualities include a large x- height, tightly curved ample counters, crisp serifs and tight bracketing. The overall plan of the family was originally intended for display usage in titling and short passages of text. At higher output resolutions all fonts read well at smaller point sizes.

The Bartholemé family works well on its own, but also is compatible with type styles possessing qualities that complement or enhance its own. The Bartholemé family consists of a Regular weight complementing a Bold weight, along with Medium complementing an Extra Bold weight. The companion true-drawn italics are based on the Bartholemé roman design.


* Award for Design Excellence
bukva: raz! Type Design Competition of the
Association Typographique Internationale, 2001