February 13, 2014 • Written by Rich McNabb • Proofread & Edited by Claude AI
Two free geometric fonts built 30 minutes at a time. One inspired by modular Lego-like shapes, one by Herbert Bayer's 1925 universal typeface. Both free to download and adapt.
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Both fonts are available as free downloads for personal and commercial use. If you do something interesting with them, I’d love to see it.
A few years back I read an article by David Wehmeyer called “One Year of Design”. The idea was simple: spend at least 30 minutes every day creating something, and over time you’ll reach your goal. I liked this so much I gave it a name: 30 Minutes to Mars. It’s the same approach I use across most of my side projects. A small daily commitment is a low-pressure way to learn new skills, explore different disciplines, and actually finish things.
Typography was one area I’d always wanted to go deeper on. Designing a custom font from scratch seemed like the perfect fit. It would push my vector skills in Sketch and Illustrator, add something interesting to my portfolio, and if I made it freely available, give something back to the design community.
That one project eventually became two.
The first font started with a simple constraint: every letter had to be built from the same set of geometric shapes, pieced together like Lego. A consistent bounding box kept everything on the same grid and made the family feel cohesive even as individual letters got more complex.
The early stages involved a lot of sketching on paper. I’d rough out ideas for each letter, redraw them, try different approaches, and eventually settle on something that balanced legibility with geometric rigour. The photograph of those early sketches shows the full alphabet plus numerals and symbols all mapped out in pencil, which gives a good sense of the scope.
Once the base alphabet was solid I started exploring what else the modular system could do.
Alternative version 1 kept all the same shapes but pulled them apart slightly, letting the geometry breathe. It only took a few minutes to create but adds a nice touch of visual interest to the original.
Alternative version 2 strips the fill and switches to outlines, which completely changes the mood. This version works well for graphic design projects and promotional work where you want something lighter and more editorial.
Alternative version 3 goes further by removing individual elements and masking an image behind the letterforms to reveal the background through the gaps. It’s a subtle detail you only really notice on closer inspection, but it’s the kind of thing that makes a font feel designed rather than just drawn.
The second font came from a different starting point. I’d been looking at Herbert Bayer’s 1925 experimental universal typeface and wanted to build on that foundation. Bayer’s idea was to reduce letterforms to their simplest possible geometry, removing anything decorative. My version follows that same philosophy but takes it in a slightly different direction, with a softer, more refined aesthetic.
The plan was to start with a basic lowercase alphabet and expand over time by adding numerals, symbols, and alternative characters. As a starting point I’m pretty happy with where it landed.
One letter in particular took more work than the others. The original lowercase “g” was functional but lacked personality. I pushed it further and worked through several different concepts and treatments before landing on a version I was happy with. The construction drawing shows the underlying geometry, and comparing the two side by side makes the improvement obvious.
I also developed a set of typographic alternatives for letters like g, t, w, x, and y. These give designers more flexibility and help the font feel like a more complete system rather than just an alphabet.
