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Designed by Kaj Lehmann, ABC Synt is in the Scotch Roman style with a parametric stem-rhythm. It made its first appearance in issue 17 of sound and club culture magazine zweikommasieben, which Kaj also co-publishes. ABC Synt reimagines the typefaces documented in The Practise of Typography (1900) by Theodore Low De Vinne—a book that tells the story of the Scotch Roman style—in the context of a techno beat.

During the research phase, Kaj investigated systematized (or unitized) letter-widths and spacing system, finding that De Vinne mentions a so-called ‘self-spacing’ type that was developed by Benton, Waldo & Co. With this ‘self-spacing’ type, metal-cast letters had specified widths to speed up the typesetting process: It enabled typesetters to compose justified text by hand much quicker. At a later date, unitized letter-widths were introduced for hot-metal and phototypesetting, and now in contemporary, digital type design, the letter widths are defined on a grid of 1,000 units. For ABC Synt, Kaj developed a stricter unitized system, which divides the letters into a maximum of 28 units, and then synchronizes the distances between and within the letters. This conceptual approach defines the design of the typeface.

As a result ABC Synt’s rhythm is strict, with each stem at an equal distance from the last; its speed can be turned up or down by selecting different styles of the font’s slant cuts, which sit at drastic angles. Another special detail of the font is the little kink at the end of the stems. It counter-balances the weight and helps to print the typeface sharper.” ABC Synt has four styles: A Regular, Slant (with an angle of 16°), Turbo (with an angle of 32°), and Italics (with an angle of 16°). It’s available as a Variable Font (flexibility sliding from Upright to Turbo) or a Static Font (including the entire slant range).