Topaz NG

About

A vector interpretation of the venerable “Topaz” font, used on Amiga’s workbench.

Why?

These days I find many of the modern mono-spaced fonts, while functional, tend towards looking generic and similar to each other - lacking character. On the other hand, many font’s with character tend to fall into the novelty category, styled to look artistic but are impractical as a general purpose system-font.

For some reason I always liked the Amiga Workbench aesthetic, it’s crisp, awkward/colorful/brutalist design from the 90’s appeals to me.

This font aims to balance the retro aesthetic with the requirements of mono-spaced fonts on modern systems. Minimal changes have been made so the font can be used as a terminal font and for software development.

Approach

The font was made by tracing “Topaz 11”, then scaling the aspect as to match an NTSC output. As the result is quite heavy, this is used for the “Bold” weight, with the outlines slightly contracted for the “Regular” weight.

Glyphs for characters not found in the original (Greek & Cyrillic) have been created, following the Latin style.

Examples

Styles
Topaz NG Code in the regular, bold, italic & bold italic styles, each with a pangram.
Alphabet
Glyphs which are easily confused, regular beside bold, then the ASCII letters & symbols.
Code (Python)
Python source, syntax highlighted.
Code (Rust)
Rust source, syntax highlighted.
Box Drawing
Tables in each line style, and a box within a box with a shadow.
Box Drawing Alignment Test
The box drawing alignment test, junctions, dashes, diagonals & block ramps.
Greek Alphabet
The Greek alphabet.
Greek Prose
The opening of Ithaca by C. P. Cavafy.
Cyrillic Alphabet
The Cyrillic alphabet.
Cyrillic Prose
The opening of I Remember a Wondrous Moment by A. S. Pushkin.

License

Released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, see LICENSE.