Carta Nueva
Sharp Type · My-Lan Thuong · 2020
A digital re-imagination of a pointed-nib calligraphic model from 1851 Barcelona, offered across five optical sizes from intimate text to grand display.
About
Carta Nueva was drawn by Sharp Type senior designer My-Lan Thuong from an antique calligraphy booklet found at a Madrid fair, tracing an 1851 Barcelona hand whose original author is unknown. The design preserves Spencerian rhythm through controlled downstrokes and hairline upstrokes built at 4096 UPM, with uppercase letters carrying ornate loops and arabesques. Five optical sizes give it range from correspondence-scale text to headline work, and an extended Latin glyph set of 1,698 characters covers Vietnamese, Polish, Icelandic and beyond.
Classification
Spencerian-style pointed-nib script digitised from an 1851 Barcelona calligraphy booklet. Firm downstrokes, tapering hairline upstrokes drawn at 4096 UPM, and ornate uppercase loops distinguish it from simpler cursive faces. Offered in five optical sizes rather than weight variants; not a connecting script in the conventional sense — each optical size is a distinct master tuned for its intended size range. Multi-directional typesetting support (vertical setting) was a stated design goal.