NEWELL

Three Primitives

Every glyph is built from three primitives: vertical rails, horizontal rails, and 45° diagonals. No curves. No rounded terminals. No angles other than 45°.

The result reads as “engineered” rather than “drawn” — closer to a barcode or a circuit diagram than to a humanist serif. Strokes are monoline: every primitive carries the same 110-unit weight on a 1000-unit em. Cap height is 700, x-height 500, descender −200.

The signature gesture, inherited from the wordmark, is the N diagonal: a 45° stroke that descends from the top of one vertical rail to the bottom of another. It recurs in M, K, R, V, W, X, Y, Z and the digits 1, 2, 4, 7. That recurring diagonal is the family resemblance.

Known Limitations

v0.1 is functional and usable but unpolished. The DNA forbids curves, rounded terminals, and any angle other than 45° — this makes several traditional letterforms impossible to render cleanly. Known issues:

• S reads as Z. Pure rails + 45° vocabulary cannot render an unambiguous S. v0.2 will add a third primitive scoped to S/s/2/3/5/8/$ (per ROADMAP).
• C, D, G, O, P, Q, R, B are rectilinear approximations of curved letters — squared frames rather than curved bowls.
• A, V, W are wider than the alphabet average because each leg is a full-cap-height 45° diagonal.
• M, W inner notches reach only mid-height, not baseline. A baseline-reaching notch would require non-45° angles.
• 2, 5 inherit the diagonal-spine construction; 3, 8 are stacked bowls that read as chunky frames. 0 is visually identical to O and D.
• $, @ are particularly hard in this vocabulary. Both are best-effort v0.1 approximations.
• Curly quotes lose their open/closed distinction — both render as small squares at cap height.

Newell is recommended for display and headline use, not long-form body text.