Agave

TrueType monospaced font designed for X environments

Agave was an attempt at making a small, monospaced, outline font that would be geometrically regular and simple. The endeavor was motivated by a deep adoration of old-school console bitmap fonts, of Consolas, of Pragmata Pro, as well as a novice’s curiosity for typographical design.

When it came to establishing a “simple” design scheme, the natural inclination was to separate the glyph design concerns into that of “frame” and “trait”. By frame, we refer to the naive geometric extent of a glyph and its parts. And by trait, we mean, for example, the “way” in which a stroke curves, or the relationship between one part of a glyph and another.

Adhering to personal tastes, bone-deep laziness, and the quirky spirit of old computer terminal fonts, the delineations of frame and trait amounted to two mathematical patterns the power of two and the golden ratio.