Sveva

Sveva - between Steampunk and Art Nouveau

Sveva is a vibrant Art Nouveau headline font featuring elegant alternates and unique character combinations. It is perfect for the setting of a short and fancy text block or line.

It gets its special character from the combination of different style elements. The base is an uppercase based on the classic DeVinne typeface. However, lots of serifs are replaced by very organic curved design elements inspired by the brush and sign painting. The slants and curves are also organically exaggerated, and the O in particular is given a very strong slant.

DeVinne typeface is named after the New York printer Theodore Low De Vinne and was published in 1892 by the Central Type Foundry, USA. It quickly became popular and its style was often copied. Around 1900, the German type foundry Bauer & Co. in Stuttgart created a special version for their DeVinne typefaces for titles and called it «Moderne Versalien». Sveva Versal is based on this old typeface.

Over the past 20 years, Sveva Versal has become increasingly popular for children's, young adult, and fantasy book titles. There are well over a hundred English-language book titles that use this font. Successful authors like Holly Black and Emma Carroll have contributed to this.

Find the latest font version at astype fonts anytime!

In 2003, Andreas Seidel designed the first version of Sveva - Sveva Versal - which was based on an old typeface called «Moderne Versalien» from the 1900's. He played with the new possibilities of OpenType features. He was able to incorporate many of the crazy letter combinations that were invented and rediscovered by designers and sign painters in the Art Nouveau years.

Looking back, he feld his font was more of a »quick fix«. It was designed and developed in only two months. It was the second release of astype fonts. As time went on, he was often annoyed by the fact that Sveva Versal was not quite logical in its construction and often seemed too thin.

Since about 2020, with the upcoming 20th anniversary of the font in mind, he has been working on a new Sveva alphabet with more consistent and logical letters. The whole thing is drawn from thin to very bold. The new bolder weights now work better on detailed backgrounds. Although these are technically completely new fonts, the name of the Sveva family remains the same. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, the Sveva Stencil font was added in the summer of 2023.

Headlines set in Sveva Versal cannot be 100% replaced by the new Sveva styles. You must use the proper OpenType functions or set the alternate characters manually. However, you will be able to create similarly exciting headlines.

— Have fun!