Baudot
Inspired by the bright lights.
Designed by François Robert
For a chromatic effect, layer the Open and Fill versions of Baudot Pop. Here's how:
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ELVIS
Step 1.
Create a new layer using Baudot Pop Fill. -
ELVIS
Step 2.
Copy the first layer, creating a new one in the same position. Change the font to Baudot Pop Open. -
ELVIS
Step 3.
Change the color of the font on each layer as you like it. And that's a wrap! Mic drop and exit stage left.
Story
The story of Baudot [boˈdo] begins in 1968, in Milan Italy. François Robert was inspired by the bright lights of Las Vegas to create a headline alphabet embodying the appeal of glitzy entertainment of that period with the idea for its use possibly like that of a marquee to announce upcoming showtimes.
Robert’s entry was selected for publication in an open call for submissions of new type designs and subsequently released as dry transfer type (a.k.a. rub-down type) under the name “Chicago”, which went on to grace magazine covers, posters, albums, and books throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
As digital font technology arose, Robert’s Chicago was left behind and new (unrelated) typefaces were later published under the name Chicago, most notably the bitmap font on the original Macintosh system. Fast-forward to the fall of 2022, Jean-Benoît Lévy introduced Robert to Delve Withrington, kicking off a collaboration to produce Robert’s original design again, from scratch, and re-imagined for the 21st century.
The resulting type family — with the new title “Baudot”, which is a nod to Émile Baudot and his 1872 invention of Baudot code, a precursor of ASCII — is comprised of three weights: Light, Regular, and Bold, plus two styles for color layering: Baudot Pop Open and Baudot Pop Fill. While Baudot is primarily a grid-based design, it strays from that rigidity selectively by utilizing offset positions as a second grid in some instances to reduce gaps in strokes and to achieve a more consistent representation of design intent across the typeface. As one would expect of today’s fonts, Baudot has handy OpenType features and a broad glyph repertoire of over 900 glyphs supporting 224 languages, including Vietnamese, Greek, plus Cyrillic script.
Baudot is certain to add some dazzle and delight to any headline or dropcap treatment, especially with the layering option employed for a flashy chromatic effect. •!•
Features
Additional features include: Standard Ligatures, Fractions, Ordinals, Slashed Zero, and Stylistic Sets.
Glyphs
Basic Latin 97
Latin-1 Supplement 95
Latin Extended-A 108
Latin Extended-B 34
IPA Extensions 3
Spacing Modifier Letters 9
Combining Diacritical Marks 19
Greek and Coptic 77
Cyrillic 98
Latin Extended Additional 131
General Punctuation 16
Currency Symbols 18
Letterlike Symbols 3
Arrows 4
Mathematical Operators 12
Geometric Shapes 17
Alphabetic Presentation Forms 2
Latin Extended-D 3
Additional Glyphs 23
Baudot supports 224 languages. View our language support page to see which.