Vesper Independent Type Foundry — The Hague, est. 2018

01 — Interactive specimen

The site is the specimen.

Every letter on this page is drawn from a variable font file. Pick a family below, then drag its axes — optical size, weight, width, softness, wonk — and watch the outline redraw in real time. Nothing here is a screenshot.

Set in variable type

Click the line above and type. It renders live in the axes set on the right.

02 — Pointer proximity

Weight responds to the cursor

Weight follows your cursor

Roboto Flex, wght 300–1000 and wdth 80%–151% mapped to cursor distance per letter. Move away, or lift your finger, and every glyph relaxes back to its resting weight over 600ms.

03 — Kinetic waterfall

Fraunces optical-size waterfall

A traditional specimen waterfall — one word, descending optical sizes from 144pt to 9pt — set loose to breathe. Weight ripples through the column on a 7-second cycle between wght 100 and wght 900. Hold a row with your cursor to freeze it and read its exact axis values.

04 — The collection

Three families, one philosophy: draw the axis, don't fake it.

Fraunces

Wonky old-style serif, text to display

Drawn from a 19th-century transitional skeleton, then deliberately broken: the WONK axis swaps in ink-trap curves and tilted apexes at speed, while SOFT rounds every terminal for a warmer, printed-on-toweling voice. Nine optical masters underneath, from a footnote 9pt to a poster 144pt.

ABCDEFGH abcdefgh 0123&§'¿

Hinting: delta-hinted TrueType instructions active 8–13px; grid-fit releases above 24px where the optical-size axis takes over shape duty. Vertical metrics: ascent 1030 / descent −403 / line-gap 0, UPM 1000.

Roboto Flex

Grotesque, engineered for extremes

Thirteen registered axes in the full build; Vesper licenses the three that matter for UI and editorial work — weight, width, and optical size — tuned so a single file replaces a fourteen-weight static family without a byte of redundant outline data.

IJKLMNOP ijklmnop 456%/→×€

Hinting: autohinted via TrueType instruction sets per master, interpolated at runtime; no manual delta-hints below opsz 12. Vertical metrics: ascent 950 / descent −250 / line-gap 0, UPM 1000.

Newsreader

Literary text serif, footnote to headline

Modelled on the transitional serifs that ran the broadsheets before phototypesetting, redrawn for screens that scroll instead of turn. The optical-size axis alone carries the family from a 6pt caption to a 72pt masthead — no separate display cut required.

QRSTUVWX qrstuvwx 789–†"æœ

Hinting: PostScript-style autohint, tuned for subpixel rendering at 15–19px body copy. Vertical metrics: ascent 1000 / descent −270 / line-gap 130, UPM 1000.

05 — Licensing

Every tier licenses the full variable file — every axis, every instance, no per-weight surcharge.

Prices are per family (Fraunces, Roboto Flex, or Newsreader) in USD. Bundle all three for 20% off at checkout. Desktop and App tiers are one-time; Web renews annually against traffic.

Scroll for terms →

Tier Scope Price Terms
Desktop — Studio Up to 5 seats · unlimited local documents & PDF/X embedding $180 Perpetual, one-time
Desktop — Agency 6–20 seats · unlimited local documents & PDF/X embedding $480 Perpetual, one-time
Web — Standard Up to 125,000 monthly page views · self-host or Vesper CDN, subsetting permitted $120 / yr Annual, auto-renews
Web — Growth Up to 1,000,000 monthly page views · self-host or Vesper CDN $360 / yr Annual, auto-renews
App — Single One application, unlimited installs, static or dynamic instancing $900 Perpetual, one-time
App — Suite Unlimited applications, same organization, static or dynamic instancing $2,400 Perpetual, one-time

All tiers permit variable-font instancing at any registered axis coordinate, including intermediate values not exposed in this specimen. Broadcast, packaging, and NFT/on-chain use require a separate agreement — write to licensing@vespertype.example. EULA last revised 4 March 2026.