Harri –“stone” in Basque language– is a display font based on the peculiar letter forms used in signs and fascias all over the Basque Country. This idiosyncratic lettering style, very often used as an identity signifier, evolved from ancient inscriptions carved on gravestones which can still be found in the French part of the Basque Country (Behe Nafarroa, Lapurdi and Zuberoa).

Harri takes some of its more significant features from those engraved letter forms, but also from the current overemphasized shapes derived from them, while keeping in sight their antecessors: the Romanesque inscriptions and ultimately the Roman Capitals. Gerard Unger once said “the black version of a font is a caricature of the regular”. This may explain how the odd heavy shapes in use in the Basque Country today might have evolved from their engraved roots, which are already an interpretation of Romanesque and Roman letter forms.

This evolution is echoed in Harri through its weights, from the clean formal Roman-inspired light to the extreme expressive Basque-style extra bold. Find out more about Harri type family project (including the new Harri Text version) and the Basque lettering style here.

