Published on: 25th of May 2021
Contralto is a high contrast sans-serif font family, crafted to look elegant but contemporary thanks to soft humanist shapes mixed with sharp geometric details.
Contralto comes in 40 styles: 5 weights × italics × 4 optical sizes, to help optimising contrast and readability. However, you can also use them to fine tune the mood of your graphical composition.
Contralto’s generous character set and Opentype features let you meet the most demanding layout needs and lets your creativity fly!
| light | regular | demibold | bold | black | light italic | regular italic | demibold italic | bold italic | black italic | |
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 anticollision ligatures Standard ligatures (should be always on). • smart f variants to avoid collisions, • T T ligature, • anti-collision T (rightside), • variants of f and t horizontal bar when next to each other (ff, tt, ft, tf, ttt, fff…) |
 Alternate a (ss01) Stylistic set 01: Alternate lowercase a glyph. |
 Alternate g (ss02) Stylistic set 02: Alternate lowercase g glyph. |
 Alternate j (ss03) Stylistic set 03: Alternate lowercase and uppercase j glyph. |
 Alternate y (ss04) Stylistic set 04: Alternate lowercase y glyph. |
 case sensitive forms Displays a version of the glyph that matches uppercases. Case sensitive glyphs are: ß 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; · • ◦ ‣ ◆ ■ □ ▣ ( ) { } [ ] - – — ⎯ « » ‹ › ¢ ¤ $ € ƒ ₺ ₱ ₹ £ ¥ + − × ÷ = ≠ > < ≥ ≤ ± ≈ ~ ¬ ∅ ∞ % ‰ ↑ ↗ → ↘ ↓ ↙ ← ↖ ↔ ↕ ⟵ ⟶ ⟷ |
 ordinals Creates ordinal versions for letters a b c d e h i l m n o r s t. If a or o are preceded by a figure and no letter follows, ordfeminine ª and ordmasculine º are displayed instead. |
 arrows (ss06) Stylistic set 06 “Arrows”. Transforms: -> to →, <- to ←, --> to ⟶, <-- to ⟵, <-> to ↔, <--> to ⟷, ^- to ↑, -^ to ↓, ^-^ to ↕, /> to ↗, </ to ↙, \> to ↘, <\ to ↖, -- to ⎯ (double hyphen makes a long connector). |
 contextual alternates Transforms the x letter to the multiply sign (×) when between two figures and/or an extra space. |
 slashed zero Activates slashed-zero alternate |
 lining & oldstyle figures Lining figures: displays uppercase-aligned figures and case sensitive glyphs: ß 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; · • ◦ ‣ ◆ ■ □ ▣ ( ) { } [ ] - – — ⎯ « » ‹ › ¢ ¤ $ € ƒ ₺ ₱ ₹ £ ¥ + − × ÷ = ≠ > < ≥ ≤ ± ≈ ~ ¬ ∅ ∞ % ‰ ↑ ↗ → ↘ ↓ ↙ ← ↖ ↔ ↕ ⟵ ⟶ ⟷ Oldstyle figures: displays lowercase (default) figures and glyphs. |
 tabular figures & symbols Switches figures and some related glyphs to tabular ones. This feature makes the target glyphs same width and aligns them vertically as they were inside a table. Tabular glyphs are: π … # _ ⎯ ¢ $ € ƒ ₺ ₱ ₹ £ ¥ + − × ÷ = ≠ > < ≥ ≤ ± ≈ ~ ¬ ∅ ∞ ∫ √ µ ∂ ↑ ↗ → ↘ ↓ ↙ ← ↖ ↔ ↕ ◊ ☐ ☑ ✓ Glyphs with tabular alternates: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 . , : ; · " ' ° | ¦ % / \ - Most of them have case-sensitive alternates too. In this font you’ll also find 3 long arrows ⟵ ⟶ ⟷ with their case sensitive alternate. Their length is exactly twice a tabular. |
 superscripts & subscripts Activates superscript and subscript figures independently. |
 numerators & denominators Activates numerator and denominator figures independently. |
 fractions Real fractions from any [number] slash [number] sequence. |
Contralto uses the power of Opentype to overstep the current technical limitations, enriching the typesetting experience in a totally automated way. Just set your text language to activate the associated helpers.
 german uppercase eszett German language helper. German “Sharp S” cannot be typed on most keyboard layouts. This helper detects when an “ß” is among uppercases and transforms it into its uppercase version. This helper is associated with the “contextual alternates” OT feature and it is often activated by default. |
 turkish idotaccent Turkish language helper. It correctly differentiates capital i and dotless-i. Just set your text language to Turkish to show a dot on the capital i. |
 Polish zdotaccent variant (ss05) Stylistic set 05: Polish variant from Ż to Ƶ. It is a cultural alternate made to improve horizontal rhythm in text lines. |
 catalan punt volat Catalan language helper. It helps displaying the correct punt volant (Ldot sign) when typing the “l” letter followed by the vertically centered dot. Just set your text language to Catalan to activate the l· helper. |
 dutch double acute ij Dutch laguage helper. While an accented j does not exist as a glyph on its own, this helper adds an acute accent on the j (or J) when it is following and accented i (í). |
 moldavian & romanian dicritics Moldavian & Romanian language helper. It allows to display the correct diacritics. Just set your text language as Moldavian or Romanian to convert cedilla into comma-accent. |
 ideal spacing in french French language helper. Automatic (France only) French typesetting optimisation by switching common “white space” with narrownbspace (narrow non-breaking space) after * » : ; ! ? % ‰ and before « * Just set your text language as France-French to activate this feature. Note: this OT feature affects only the standard space sign (space bar) and doesn’t prevent from applying any other separator. |
 combining diacritics Combining diacritics you can put one upon another. Read more here https://glyphsapp.com/tutorials/mark-attachment |
