This started as a doodle in class, and I eventually brought it into Illustrator to reuse the basic forms as much as possible. I tried to cut out the unnecessary parts of the letters while still keeping them legible. It might take some thought to get through, but hopefully not enough to make you stop reading. This is definitely for use in a display setting, not for paragraph text.
I may make a version of it with all dotted lines and make it a super-ink-friendly font by taking out all unnecessary use of ink to print it. That was the initial idea. To make a font that isn't wasteful of time, brain activity, or ink.
I made this in 2008 and it took me until 2026 to get around to making it a real font. Thanks Claude.
While I might not love it and would change a lot about it looking back now, it felt right to at least keep a version of it untouched. Maybe in another 18 years I'll do another version.
the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Hairline
Light
Regular
The download has OpenType and TrueType versions of all three weights, a specimen page you can open in a browser to try your own text, and the original Illustrator file. It covers a to z (capitals use the same shapes) and a little punctuation, but no numbers yet.
Download Brad Minimal (.zip, 270 KB) Open the specimen page
If you use it, please send me a link to where you used it! Would love to see it in action!
If you like this idea, read The design of a signage typeface. Same concept of minimal forms and legibility, but a very different, more useful application.