Bely

Bely is the first design by French newcomer Roxane Gataud. Too many typefaces are either governed by fear and never accomplish what they could, or are unrestrained which results in their frenetic dangling like a leaf caught in a spider’s web. Bely’s strength is that it has both restraint and freedom throughout the text weights and into the unique display weight. There is no fear in this type family, but only great respect for both the tradition of reading and the opportunity to make an impression.

Bely is a high-class throwback containing four text weights which were built upon classical proportions to capitalise on reading familiarity. Bely Text features balanced capitals and a play between large, triangular serifs at the top and thick, bracketed, rectangular serifs at the bottom. The family is capped by a radical, expressive French-style display weight which pushes the rules of the text weights to their logical extreme. Bely Display, truly daring with its monstrous and angled contrast, exploits the features which make an impression at larger sizes. In the end, Bely Display is adventurous when used in packaging, identities, and headlines with attitude, while Bely Text’s calm baseline and piercing ascenders give paragraphs texture and familiarity.

Bely covers the Latin A Extended glyph set and brings its sense of confidence to your projects with its two text weights, matching italics, and unique display style. Bely’s satisfying OpenType features allow for the implementation of typographic niceties such as small caps, both tabular and proportional lining and oldstyle figures, ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive variants, and fractions. The complete Bely family, along with our entire catalogue, has been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.