Vigil

Fewer things, measured faster.

Eight weights on one axis. One outline.

1. ExtraLight200Choosing what not to build is the job.Display weight — 40px and up.
2. Light300Choosing what not to build is the job.
3. Regular400Choosing what not to build is the job.
4. Medium500Choosing what not to build is the job.
5. SemiBold600Choosing what not to build is the job.
6. Bold700Choosing what not to build is the job.
7. ExtraBold800Choosing what not to build is the job.
8. Black900Choosing what not to build is the job.
9. Outline—Choosing what not to build is the job.Separate display style stroked from Bold — 40px and up.

Rounded by rule, not by default.

Vigil is a free variable typeface by Keno Vigil — a geometric grotesk with a large x-height, a double-story a and a single-story g. Rounding is applied by rule — most at exposed terminals (C G S c e s, the arms of E F T, the feet of K and z), then a smaller, even radius at structural corners and on the stems of l, L, 1 and I, which keep enough edge to stay apart. At 16px it reads as a clean sans. At 96px the softness becomes the signature.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789 ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØŒÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøœùúûüýþÿ ĀāĂ㥹ĆćČčĎďĐđĒēĖėĘęĚěĞğĢģĪīĮįİıĶķĹĺĻļĽľŁłŃńŅņŇňŌōŐőŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŞşŠšŢţŤťŪūŮůŰűŲųŴŵŶŷŸŹźŻżŽž .,:;…!¡?¿·•*#/\(){}[]-–—_"“”'‘’«»‹› @&¶§©®™° +−×÷=≠<>≤≥±~^% ‰ $€£¥¢ ½¼¾ ¹²³

Latin Extended (Western and Central European). Kerning throughout.

Now there are icons.

Vigil Icons is a companion set drawn on the same square grid as the type: stroke-first, rounded by the same rule, black on cream. Icons for the things people accuse each other of.

Set them at text size and they hold the line. Every group chat has a gaslighter, a narcissist, and one helicopter parent circling the lawn.

• Gaslighting
• Narcissist
• Mansplaining
• Helicopter parent
• Deepfake
• People pleaser

Vigil pairs with Vigil Icons — 111 free stroke icons for the things people accuse each other of. Same 24px grid, all free.

• Red flag The warning sign you noticed, ignored, and later screenshotted.
• Ghosting Vanishing without technically having to say goodbye.
• Could’ve been an email Thirty minutes of everyone’s life, now unrecoverable.

1. 2026-09-09The Nike font is Futura — with an asteriskFutura, a $35 Swoosh, and a slogan borrowed from a man facing a firing squad.
2. 2026-09-09The New York subway font isn’t the one you thinkThe signs are Helvetica. The 1970 manual wasn’t. Both are still down there.
3. 2026-09-07The worst fonts, by someone who makes fontsThe famous villains are competent typefaces with sincere origin stories. The genuinely bad ones fail elsewhere.
4. 2026-09-07The Coca-Cola logo isn’t a fontA bookkeeper’s handwriting from 1886, in the penmanship style he already used at work.
5. 2026-09-06What font is easiest to read?There is no single easiest font. Size, spacing and line length decide more than the typeface does.
6. 2026-09-06The Stranger Things font is ITC BenguiatDrawn by Ed Benguiat in 1977. The brief was twelve Stephen King paperbacks in a padded envelope.
7. 2026-09-04License plate fonts: shaped by a die, aimed at a forgerDrawn for a stamping die, a camera, and someone with a roll of black tape.
8. 2026-09-04Highway Gothic vs Clearview: two fonts went to war over American road signsApproved in 2004, killed in 2016, revived in 2018 — with the government refusing to endorse it.
9. 2026-09-04Geometric sans serif fonts: a field guideHow to spot one in four seconds, why the strict ones are hard to read, and which are actually worth using.
10. 2026-09-04Typeface vs font: the distinction that stopped mattering in 1985It was a real difference once, and it described a real object. Here is what it meant.
11. 2026-09-04A vigil is what you keep when you refuse to go to sleep on something.Ten years of a calendar block that said MAKE FONT, and why it finally shipped.
12. 2026-08-28A century of circles: the geometric groteskErbar, Futura and Kabel arrived within a year of each other. The idea never left.
13. 2026-08-21Soft corners: a short history of the rounded sansFrom a car company's letterhead to every app icon, and what most rounded fonts get wrong.

Questions, answered.

Using it takes about a minute.

Three ways in, depending on what you are. Every snippet below is real and copyable — nothing here needs an account.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://www.vigilfont.com/vigil.css">

@font-face {
  font-family: "Vigil";
  src: url("https://www.vigilfont.com/fonts/Vigil-wght-.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 200 900;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Vigil";
  src: url("https://www.vigilfont.com/fonts/Vigil-Italic-wght-.woff2") format("woff2");
  font-weight: 200 900;
  font-style: italic;
  font-display: swap;
}

Free. Forever. No email.

16 weights ready to install at the top of the folder · variable font, OTF and web files tucked underneath · plain-English install guide included. Statics are hinted for Windows.

@font-face { font-family: "Vigil"; src: url("https://www.vigilfont.com/fonts/Vigil-wght-.woff2") format("woff2"); font-weight: 200 900; font-display: swap; }
@font-face { font-family: "Vigil"; src: url("https://www.vigilfont.com/fonts/Vigil-Italic-wght-.woff2") format("woff2"); font-weight: 200 900; font-style: italic; font-display: swap; }

SIL Open Font License 1.1 — use it anywhere, in anything, commercial or not. No attribution required. No account. No newsletter.

Vigil in the wild.

If you have set something in Vigil — a site, a menu, a poster, a school project — send it. Good uses go up here, credited and linked. Missing a glyph or a weight? Ask for it in the same box.

Pass it on.

Free typefaces travel by word of mouth. If Vigil is useful to you, send it to someone who sets type.