Depicto font

A pixelated typeface with asymmetrical serifs intended to depict emojis in coarse mosaic shapes and represented in two styles that perfectly complement each other – Mono (casual font) and Mosaic (color font). The main font feature is a large set of pictograms, which are activated using the Stylistic Set 1 and typed right in a text with a keywords like :smile: :happy: :sad: :pear: :rose: :horse: :bike: :house: and so on. See the complete list of 600+ pictograms in the Specimen.pdf.

Concept

I loved to play with plastic construction bricks as a child. And of course I loved 8-bit video games. All of this has been reinterpreted in the Depicto typeface. Out of respect for 8-bitness, almost all the dimensions are multiples of 8 – a letters elements have a width of 80 points and a length of 80, 160, 240, 400, and so on, as well the spacing between the characters and the vertical metrics.

Although inspired by pixelation, the font plays with its own geometry. Using simple squared shapes, it balances between pixel-perfect and diagonal mosaic. The letters construction is based on rectangles – horizontal, vertical, and rotated by 45 degrees. It is important to note that the letters consist of separate non-intersecting elements, each of which, in the Depicto Mosaic font style, is painted in different colors.

The font also uses upper left and lower right horizontal serif strokes. Such asymmetrical serifs are typical for Ukrainian typography since the works of Heorhiy Narbut. Their digitization and pixelization calls for a new look at artistic constants.

Tech details

Specimen: https://michaelrafailyk.com/typeface/specimen/Depicto.pdf

Scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian, Arabic, Hebrew

Languages: 500+

Glyphs: 3027

Hinting: Manual PostScript

Color font

Depicto Mosaic is dedicated to my love for plastic construction color bricks. Every letter element is painted in random but non-repeating color from the palette of 17 predefined colors. This palette is selected in such a way that it looks sufficiently contrasting on both white and black backgrounds. But of course, you can change the palette in the Photoshop by using Blending Options with Color Overlay (see an examples on the promo images), or in the Illustrator by converting the text to outlines and then Recolor Arkwork.

Depicto Mosaic is represented in two versions – COLR and SVG. Depicto Mosaic SVG version is needed for Adobe applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and refers to Desktop license. Depicto Mosaic COLR version is needed for the web browsers and refers to Webfont license. Also, COLR version needed for any other desktop applications (besides Adobe) and respectively refers to Desktop license.

As of fall 2023, color fonts supported since: Photoshop CC 2017, Illustrator CC 2018, InDesign CC 2019, QuarkXPress 2018, Pixelmator (macOS 10.14), Sketch (macOS 10.14), Affinity Designer (macOS 10.14), macOS 10.13 High Sierra, Paint.NET (Windows 10), Microsoft Word (Windows 10), Windows 10, Safari 11 (macOS 10.13, iOS 11), Chrome 71, Firefox 26, Edge 12, Opera 58, IE 9.

An applications and web browsers that doesn't support color fonts yet: Adobe XD, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Figma.

Pictograms

Stylistic Set 1 “Pictograms”: The main font feature is a large set of 600+ pictograms and emoticons. See the complete list of pictograms and their keywords in the Specimen.pdf starting from the page 4. It doesn't cover all possible Unicode pictograms, but the set may be expanded in future updates. There are a three ways how to use them.

1. By manually selecting pictograms from the Glyphs panel in a graphic editor.
2. By copying pictograms from the Specimen.pdf and pasting them into the text.
3. By activating the Stylistic Set 1 and typing the pictogram keywords like :smile: :happy: :rofl: :sad: :facepalm: :pear: :rose: :horse: :bike: :house: :laptop: and so on. For example: I'm so :happy: to see these beautiful :tulips: and :roses: in your :garden:, good work :clap:. GitHub, Slack, Basecamp, and others use such a markdown approach at the application level, but Depicto does this word processing at the font level, so it's available right in a text/graphic editors and a web browsers.

Here's how to apply Stylistic Set to the text. InDesign (2017+): Character panel OpenType button Stylistic Sets. Illustrator (2017+): OpenType panel Stylistic Sets icon. Photoshop (2020+): Properties panel Type Options Stylistic Sets icon. CSS: font-feature-settings: "ss01" 1;

Features

Stylistic Set 2 “Change Emoji Skin Tone”: This way you can change the skin tone of emoticons (smileys). In the Depicto Mosaic style, a classic yellow smileys become brown ones. And in Depicto Mono style the result depends on the background color – for a white background, white faces are replaced by black ones, and accordingly, for a black background, black faces are replaced by white ones. So just remember – when you change the background color from light to dark or vice versa (using Depicto Mono font), the faces appear inverted, and you can use this Stylistic Set to reinvert them back if needed.

Stylistic Set 3 “Arrows”: Please read the Description.txt for the detail.

Stylistic Set 4 “Circled Numbers”: Numbers are replaced with a numbers in a circle.

Stylistic Set 5 “Circled Black Numbers”: Numbers are replaced with a numbers in a black circle.

Small Capitals: Lowercase letters are replaced with Small Capitals forms.

Capitals to Small Capitals: Uppercase letters, all figures, and some punctuation are replaced with Small Capitals forms.

Figures (numbers): Lining, Oldstyle, Proportional, Tabular, Circled, Circled Black, Superscript, Subscript, Numerator, Denominator.

Fractions: ¼½¾⅐⅑⅒⅓⅔⅕⅖⅗⅘⅙⅚⅛⅜⅝⅞⅟ (precomposed). Any other fractions (even those typed through a slash) will also be displayed correctly, with the automatic replacement to Numerator + fraction + Denominator.

Slashed Zero: Lining and Oldstyle 0 figures are replaced with a slashed/dotted zero.

Ordinals: adehlnorst

Case Sensitive Forms: ()[]{}‹›«»-–—•·#%‰@ and Arrows are centered on capitals. Oldstyle figures (if presented) are replaced with Lining figures.

Case conversion for monotonic Greek: ΆΈΉΊΌΎΏ. Greek uppercase accented characters lose their tonos accent and retain only dieresis in All Caps mode. Turned on by default. If you need tonos accents in All Caps then turn off Contextual Alternates (calt) feature.

Standard Ligatures: ff

Localized Forms: Characters substituted by their adapted alternate form for Azeri, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, German, Kazakh, Macedonian, Moldavian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Tatar, Turkish languages.

Glyph Composition/Decomposition: Set of diacritics (600+ characters) precomposed from a base characters and combined diacritical marks.

Mark Positioning: Diacritical marks positioned for a base characters.

Initial Forms: Feature required to process a shapes of the Arabic language.

Medial Forms: Feature required to process a shapes of the Arabic language.

Terminal Forms: Feature required to process a shapes of the Arabic language.

Required Ligatures: Feature required to process a shapes of the Arabic language.

Supported languages

Arabic: Arabic, Kurdish, Malay (Jawi), Pashto, Persian (Farsi, Dari), Talysh, Urdu, Uyghur

Hebrew: Hebrew (Modern)

Greek: Greek (Modern)

Mkhedruli: Georgian

Cyrillic: Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Aleut, Altai, Avar, Bashkir, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Buryat, Chaplino, Chechen, Chukchi, Chuvash, Dargwa, Dungan, Enets, Erzya, Even, Ingush, Kabardian, Kalmyk, Karachay, Kazakh, Khalkha, Khanty, Kildin Sámi, Komi, Koryak, Kumyk, Kyrgyz, Lak, Lezgian, Macedonian, Mansi, Mari, Moksha, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Mordvinic, Nenets, Ossetian, Romanian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Siberian Tatar, Tabasaran, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Tuvan, Udmurt, Ukrainian, Urum, Uyghur, Uzbek, Yakut (Sakha)

Latin Europe: Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Aranese, Aromanian, Arvanitika, Asturian, Balkan Romani, Basque, Bosnian, Breton, Catalan, Cimbrian, Colognian (Kölsch), Cornish, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, Folkspraak, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz, Galician, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Istro-Romanian, Italian, Jèrriais, Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), Kalaallisut, Karelian, Kashubian, Kven, Ladin, Latgalian, Latin, Latvian, Ligurian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low German, Luxembourgish, Maltese, Manx, Megleno-Romanian, Mirandese, Montenegrin, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Occitan, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Picard, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Prussian, Romani, Romanian, Romansh, Rusyn, Sami (Inari, Lule, Northern, Southern, Pite, Skolt, Ume), Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovene (Slovenian), Sorbian (Lower, Upper), Spanish, Swedish, Swiss German, Tosk, Venetian, Veps, Võro, Walloon, Walser, Welsh

Latin Asia: Amis, Ao, Asu, Atayal, Azerbaijani, Falam, Hakha Chin (Lai), Hani, Hmu (Qiandong Miao), Karakalpak, Khasi, Kurdish, Mizo, Nagamese (Naga Pidgin), Oroqen, Talysh, Tatar, Tedim, Turkish, Turkmen, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Zaza

Latin Oceania: Acehnese, Anuta, Arrernte, Balinese, Batak, Bikol, Bislama, Buginese, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chuukese, Cook Islands Māori (Rarotongan), Drehu, Fijian, Filipino, Gilbertese (Kiribati), Gooniyandi, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Indonesian, Javanese, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kapampangan, Madurese, Malaysian Malay, Māori, Marquesan, Marshallese, Meriam, Minangkabau, Murrinh-Patha, Ngiyampaa, Niuean, Noongar, Palauan, Paluan, Pijin, Pintupi, Pohnpeian, Rotokas, Samoan, Sundanese, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Toba Batak, Tok Pisin, Tokelauan, Tongan, Tuvaluan, Uab Meto (Dawan), Ulithian, Wallisian, Waray, Warlpiri, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Yapese, Yindjibarndi

Latin Africa: Acheron, Afar, Afrikaans, Aghem, Aja, Akan, Bafia, Bagirmi, Bambara, Baoulé, Bari, Bariba, Basaa, Bemba, Bena, Berba (Biali), Boko, Bono (Abron), Bushi, Cape Verdean Creole, Central Kilimanjaro, Central Yambasa (Yangben), Chewa (Nyanja), Chokwe, Comorian, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dangme, Dendi, Dholuo, Dinka, Dongolawi (Andaandi), Duala, Dyula, Edo (Bini), Embu, Ewe, Ewondo, Fante, Fon, Fula (Borgu Fulfulde, Maasina Fulfulde, Nigerian Fulfulde), Ga’anda, Gen, Gonja, Gusii, Hausa, Igbo, Jola, Kabiyè, Kabyle, Kako, Kamba, Kanuri, Kaonde, Keiyo (Elgeyo, Kalenjin), Kenzi, Khoekhoe (Nama), Kiga, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi (Rundi), Kissi, Kituba, Kongo, Konjo, Koyra Chiini, Koyraboro Senni, Kpelle, Krio, Kwanyama, Kulango, Kwasio, Limba, Lingala, Lobi, Lozi, Luba-Katanga, Luba-Kasai (Tshiluba), Luchazi (Nyemba), Luhya (Luyia), Luo, Maasai, Makhuwa, Makonde, Makwe, Malagasy, Maninka, Maore, Mauritian Creole, Mbelime, Mende, Meru, Meta’, Miyobe, Mooré (Mossi), Mundang, Mwani, Nateni, Ndebele, Ndonga, Ngiemboon, Ngomba, Nkore, Nobiin, Nso (Lamnso), Nuer, Nyamwezi, Nzima, Onĕipŏt, Oromo, Otuho, Ovambo, Pedi, Pherá (Xwela), Pulaar, Pular, Rangi, Rombo, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Sena, Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shilha (Tachelhit), Shilluk, Shona, Soga, Somali, Soninke, Sotho (Nothern, Southern), Sukuma, Susu, Swahili, Swazi, Taita, Tammari, Tasawaq, Teso, Temne, Tiv, Tonga, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Twi, Umbundu, Vai, Venda, Waama, Waci, Wasa, West Kilimanjaro, Wolof, Xhosa, Yao, Yoruba, Zarma, Zulu

Latin South America: Achuar (Shiwiar), Aguaruna, Amahuaca, Amarakaeri (Harákmbut), Antillean Creole, Apinayé, Arabela, Asháninka, Ashéninka, Awa Pit (Cuaiquer), Awetí, Aymara, Bora, Candoshi-Shapra, Caquinte, Caribbean Hindustani, Cashibo, Chaʼpalaa (Chachi), Chayahuita, Chiltepec Chinantec, Cofán, Ese Ejja, Garifuna, Guarani, Haitian Creole, Huastec, Ixcatlán Mazatec, Jamaican, Kaingang, Kaqchikel, Kashinawa, K’iche’, Mam, Mapuche (Mapudungun), Matsés, Miskito, Murui Huitoto, Nahuatl, Nawat (Pipil), Nomatsiguenga, Northwestern Otomi, Ojitlán Chinantec, Páez, Papantla Totonac, Papiamento, Purépecha, Qʼeqchiʼ, Quechua, Saramaccan, Secoya, Seri, Shipibo, Shuar, Silacayoapan Mixtec, Siona, Sranan Tongo, Ticuna, Toba (Maskoy), Tojolabal, Totontepec Mixe, Tsafiki, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Urarina, Waorani (Sabela), Wayuu (Guajiro), Xavante, Yagua, Yaminawa, Yanesha’, Yanomamö, Yucatec Maya, Záparo, Zapotec

Latin North America: Abenaki, Aleut, Chickasaw, Gwich’in, Hän, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Innu-aimun (Montagnais), Lakota, Mi’kmaq, Mohawk, Munsee, Muscogee (Creek), Navajo, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Unami, Zuni

Latin Constructed: Esperanto, Ido, Interglossa, Interlingua, Interlingue (Occidental), Klingon, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Slovio, Volapük

Credits

The promo image “Serpant Mosaics” used a photo of Nick Verlice from Pexels