ITC Tabula

ITC Tabula is designed to be read. It was originally conceived as a font to set film subtitles, according to Paris-based designer Julien Janiszewski. “I set parameters for the design whereby the letters had to be able to hold up at very small sizes when set on film, and yet must be able to be enlarged two thousand times to be read on a theatre screen,” he recalls.

Available ITC Tabula faces ITC Tabula Package ITC Tabula Book ITC Tabula Book Italic ITC Tabula Medium ITC Tabula Medium Italic ITC Tabula Bold ITC Tabula Bold Italic ITC Tabula Black ITC Tabula Black Italic

The subtitle font was not completed, but several months later Janiszewski revisited the design and saw that the constraints he had established for subtitling might also serve well for typographic signage. As he explains, “Many times this calls for a font that can be used easily in very large sizes for headlines on highway billboards and quite small for text copy.” With its new purpose in mind, work proceeded on the design for two more years before Julien was satisfied with the results.

The final design is a somewhat squared sans serif family of four weights with corresponding italics – what Julien calls a “‘sensitive sans’: one that is not restricted to geometric shapes but has a subtle calligraphic foundation.” ITC Tabula is a distinctive and handsome design that is also remarkably easy to read.