A retro serif family for headlines, magazine covers and posters.
Rotocalco is a retro editorial serif family in four styles: Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. It is named after the Italian illustrated weeklies printed by rotogravure, and its round, full letters bring back the confident, friendly glamour of magazine covers and posters from the 1950s to the 1970s. Set it large on headlines, book covers, posters and packaging.
Rotocalco grew from a public-domain oldstyle serif of 1909, redrawn into a new design: rounder, fuller letters with the confidence of mid-century magazine covers.
No. Rotocalco Italic leans 11 degrees, and 25 of its 26 lowercase letters are drawn again: the a loses a storey, the f drops below the line and the feet turn into flicks. Only the capitals stay sloped romans, so an italic line reads as a second voice, not a tilted first.
In the thick strokes. From Regular to Bold the sides of the o grow by about 40 % while the hairlines barely change, and the letters widen a little so the counters stay open. A simply thickened outline would clog; a drawn Bold keeps the contrast of the family.
The x-height is 73 % of the capital height, so words read large and open at any size. The ascenders stay short, which lets a headline be set with tight line spacing without the lines touching.
Rotocalco is spaced for reading sizes, about 24 to 72 px. On a poster or a cover the gaps grow with the letters, so take out a little tracking, −0.015 to −0.025 em, and stop before the letters crowd.
Rotocalco Regular
Rotocalco Italic
Rotocalco Bold
Rotocalco Bold Italic
Rotocalco has the accented letters for 30 languages written in the Latin alphabet, in all four styles, so the same headline serif works in English, French, German, Polish, Turkish or Indonesian. Choose a language to see a line set in Rotocalco.
Numéro d’été : cinéma, mode et voyages
French letters: à â æ ç è é ê ë î ï ô ù û ü ÿ œ
Die große Sommerausgabe: Kino, Mode, Reisen
German letters: ä ö ü ß
Número de verano: cine, moda y viajes
Spanish letters: á é í ñ ó ú ü ¡ ¿
Speciale estate: cinema, moda e città
Italian letters: à á è é ì í ò ó ù ú
Edição de verão: cinema, moda e viagens
Portuguese letters: à á â ã ç è é ê í ò ó ô õ ú
Zomernummer: film, mode en reizen
Dutch letters: á â ä è é ê ë í ï ó ô ö ú û ü ij
Número d’estiu: cinema, moda i viatges
Catalan letters: à ç è é í ï ò ó ú ü ŀ
Sommarnumret: film, mode och resor
Swedish letters: å ä ö é
Sommernummeret: film, mode og rejser
Danish letters: å æ ø é
Sommernummeret: film, mote og reiser
Norwegian letters: å æ ø é è ê ó ò ô
Kesänumero: elokuvat, muoti ja matkat
Finnish letters: ä ö å š ž
Sumarblaðið: kvikmyndir, tíska og ferðalög
Icelandic letters: á æ é í ð ó ö ú ý þ
Wydanie letnie: kino, moda i podróże
Polish letters: ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ź ż
Letní číslo: film, móda a cestování
Czech letters: á č ď é ě í ň ó ř š ť ú ů ý ž
Letné číslo: film, móda a cestovanie
Slovak letters: á ä č ď é í ĺ ľ ň ó ô ŕ š ť ú ý ž
Nyári szám: film, divat és utazás
Hungarian letters: á é í ó ö ő ú ü ű
Numărul de vară: cinema, modă și călătorii
Romanian letters: ă â î ș ț
Yaz sayısı: sinema, moda ve gezi
Turkish letters: ç ğ ı İ ö ş ü
Suvenumber: kino, mood ja reisid
Estonian letters: ä õ ö ü š ž
Eagrán an tsamhraidh: scannáin, faisean agus taisteal
Irish letters: á é í ó ú
Iris an t-samhraidh: filmichean, fasan is siubhal
Scottish Gaelic letters: à è é ì ò ó ù
Udako alea: zinema, moda eta bidaiak
Basque letters: ñ ü
Número de verán: cine, moda e viaxes
Galician letters: á é í ñ ó ú ü
Numri i verës: kinema, modë dhe udhëtime
Albanian letters: ç ë
Someruitgawe: rolprente, mode en reis
Afrikaans letters: á é è ê ë î ï ö ô û ü ý
Edisi musim panas: film, mode, dan perjalanan
Edisi musim panas: filem, fesyen dan pelancongan
Isyu ng tag-araw: pelikula, moda at paglalakbay
Filipino letters: ñ
Toleo la kiangazi: filamu, mitindo na safari
Yes. The Desktop licence covers personal and client work: magazine and book covers, posters, packaging, merch and print-on-demand products.
Yes. On MyFonts and Gumroad each style is sold alone from $19, and the family of four is $59.
Yes. A logo set in Rotocalco is yours to use; the font files themselves stay licensed to you.
Yes. Install the OTF on your computer or iPad, and any app that uses installed fonts can set it.
Yes, with the Web, App or ePub licence, sold on MyFonts and Gumroad. Our licence page explains the Gumroad licences in plain words; MyFonts uses its own.
Twenty-four languages written in the Latin alphabet, from French and German to Icelandic and Indonesian. Each one is shown above.