The newly designed glasses, called TYPE are based on Helvetica and Garamond for now, but more fonts may follow later. Each font is represented in light, regular and bold weights, creating a total of six designs.

The company explains its reasoning in almost poetic form:

You are a character.

You have a voice and style.

You are straight. Or you’re odd.

You’re classic or complicated or light or clunky or simple.

And you are what you are and that’s good.

Because that makes your type the type we like.

To add some extra character, TYPE glasses are available in black, tortoise and clear frames.

The glasses really do look like the fonts they are named for. The characters of the fonts are clearly visible in the spines, bridge, temples, and fronts of the frames.

It is so well-done actually that you wonder why this was never done before. Now that these glasses exist it seems so obvious to transfer the design of a font to them, or any other item that shares aspects with a font (legs, round forms, endings, etc).

The innovation is not restricted to the design. You can order the glasses online and try them at home for five days, allowing you to take your time and seek the opinion of friends and family. They will also be available at the large Ohmy Glasses chain and at a pop-up store at VACANT in Tokyo’s Harajuku district (Jan 31~Feb 2 | location).

TYPE goes on sale from January 30, but for now only in Japan. One more reason to plan a trip to Japan soon!

What other fonts do you think should be used?