GT Canon
Family overview
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- Standard
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- M Regular Italic
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Subfamilies
- Standard S LightOn the other hand, tools and designs are tailored to the user to such an extent that they do not even need to be used, as every possible action is anticipated, thus becoming literally useless, and the user, around whom everything revolved, has been relieved of their usage. Free, weight-, timeless and a fence observer. Rather than being oppressed by tradition and forced to master the tool as it has been forged over hundreds of years of craft.
- Standard M LightThe way biological systems (cells, organs, ecosystems) shift their dynamics as they grow. The contrast between quantum behaviour and classical mechanics. In digital graphics, the notion of scalability is commonly treated as resolved: vector graphics are assumed to be infinitely and losslessly scalable.
- Standard L LightMoving a vector between applications can result in measurable shifts caused by floating-point limitations and incompatible Bézier implementations. In typography, the discrepancy is heightened: glyph outlines include instructions (hinting) that govern their behaviour at specific sizes, which are lost when text is converted to outlines. Thus, even in fields predicated on precision, scale introduces qualitative change not as an exception but as a structural condition.
- Standard S Light ItalicWandering does not leave any traces as long as it keeps up with the wandering of time. Edges mark the threshold of meaning, the moment when sense meets its outside of the inside of the outside of the sentence. And therefore all is exterior.
- Standard M Light ItalicThis circumstance informs all aspects of the typeface design, from the architecture of the letters and the design of individual forms and components, to optical corrections (overshoot). Gravity manifests in stroke and proportion. The thickening of verticals, the grounding of serifs, the way curves rest against the baseline—all contribute to how a letter *sits *or stands..
- Standard L Light ItalicEdges mark the threshold of meaning, the moment when sense meets its outside of the inside of the outside of the sentence. And therefore all is exterior.
- Standard S RegularIn the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseïs and Briseïs, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles.
- Standard M RegularA face is presence. It looks back, even when it does not see. The face is exposure, vulnerability, recognition: it is how we appear to others, how we are held in relation. It is therefore always recognition and exemplification. Individual and collective.
- Standard L RegularWe meet in blurriness. If we understood each other completely, we would be identical and weightless, dissolving into pure oneness. Until that happens, however, recognising our differences and contrasts helps us to come closer together.
- Standard S Regular ItalicConsidering that the little party had been seated round the tea-table for less than twenty minutes, the animation observable on their faces, and the amount of sound they were producing collectively, were very creditable to the hostess.
- Standard M Regular ItalicDepends on a ruler who can be deceived, attacked, and overthrown. Higher power unfolds beyond that. Smart, gentle, even “positive” power operates through consent, self-optimisation, and internalisation, not through prohibition or force.
- Standard L Regular ItalicOne of the great challenges in typography awaits both the typesetter and the type designer in the same place, and it concerns writers no less. It is not only the not-so-well-tempered poster that requires the right use of tension. It is especially the longer texts whose harmony and carrying power can be sustained only by maintaining tension.
- Standard S MediumEdges mark the threshold of meaning, the moment when sense meets its outside of the inside of the outside of the sentence. And therefore all is exterior.
- Standard M MediumAn instance is a moment made material. It is the singular occurrence of a state that could have been otherwise. By virtue of this contingency, an instance is in turn also moment-creating: an instance is not only the capturing of time (including processes and patterns) or space (including organisational and hierarchical positions), but also their trigger.
- Standard L MediumWhat are we but areas that move between areas, perceiving areas, dividing areas, with the help of areas, into more areas? Lines, on the other hand, lead a ghostly existence: in their terrible conspicuousness, they are omnipresent and yet we cannot perceive them.
- Standard S Medium ItalicAll we see are moments of division, are the edges where the one tips over into the other in order to remain the same. In praise of imagery: Imagination, pencils and all other instruments of visualisation eventually help us to create these compressed surfaces.
- Standard M Medium ItalicA typeface, an interface, the face of a building—all these indicate how we can make things present: face is a principle, the visible form through which some becomes a thing. The face is the plane that mediates between structure and encounter.
- Standard L Medium ItalicOnly that is limited can invite, can expand and intrude, or be intruded upon. No boundaries, nothing to transcend? At least nowhere to stay. Wandering does not leave any traces as long as it keeps up with the wandering of time.
- Standard S SemiboldIt is too simplistic to equate the broadening of the denominator with an expansion of the numerator. Yet, there lies a sever misconception and danger in this term. Not so much because the dividing lines between users and manufacturers are supposedly becoming increasingly blurred in the rapidly changing digital landscape, but rather because of an ontological misconception in believing that the acting subject knows not just the rational and motives behind it’s actions, but also knows itself, and considers the urge of knowing itself as a invisible but leading design principle.
- Standard M SemiboldAccordingly, texts are often described as linear, even though, in most cases, this linearity is erratic or even fractal (with eye movements consisting of saccades). Any attempts to escape this linearity usually result in the lines becoming fragmented into more lines, except in the case of one-word readers, where the reading movement is directed towards a single word.
- Standard L SemiboldJustification is a responsive act, regardless of whether what is to be justified lies in the past or in the future, as any justification presupposes something that has gone before. If that something points forwards, its intention is at least roughly outlined (by virtue of its potential to be realised).
- Standard S Semibold ItalicWhat are the consequences? On the one hand, the design of the self. The device-ification of our bodies does not begin with chip implants, artificial intelligence and the semi-automation of intellectual work, but earlier and more decisively through this very intertwining of design and the various modes of supposed self-discovery.
- Standard M Semibold ItalicAnd it is only the sequence of several nodes that determines the appearance. But especially in the visual realm, they lead a dubious existence. On the one hand, they are image-forming in vector image production, making it possible to create contours and surfaces in the first place; on the other hand, they ultimately recede behind the given image.
- Standard L Semibold ItalicWho is the user of a typeface? The graphic designer, typographer and reader? Or is it equally down to its designer? UX-driven objectives still play a major role in type design, which is being framed in terms of legibility, usability, screen optimisation, hinting, or responsive typography.
- Standard S BoldHe looked out the window at the Hudson River, ruddied in the flame of the dying sun, and wondered moodily whether these last experiments would finally bring him the fame and success he was after, or if they were merely some more false alarms.
- Standard M BoldWandering does not leave any traces as long as it keeps up with the wandering of time. Edges mark the threshold of meaning, the moment when sense meets its outside of the inside of the outside of the sentence. And therefore all is exterior.
- Standard L BoldA typeface, an interface, the face of a building—all these indicate how we can make things present: face is a principle, the visible form through which some becomes a thing. The face is the plane that mediates between structure and encounter.
- Standard S Bold ItalicWho is the user of a typeface? The graphic designer, typographer and reader? Or is it equally down to its designer? UX-driven objectives still play a major role in type design, which is being framed in terms of legibility, usability, screen optimisation, hinting, or responsive typography.
- Standard M Bold ItalicEvery face is different, and every face is the same: it reveals not only itself, but the generality of its essence. Hence, every face is both singular and plural: this face, and the category of face. To call something a face is to give it agency, to acknowledge that it meets us.
- Standard L Bold ItalicNo doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer’s way.
- Standard S HeavyCompositional spaces or their amplifiers, such as grids, can also be seen as registers of response. To the questions the design willingly or unwillingly might need to respond to. And in this respect, too, the artboard extends far beyond the immediate surface into the problem definition, the historical and social context, the budget and time constraints, taste, and all other design premises or sudden contingencies.
- Standard M HeavyJustification is a responsive act, regardless of whether what is to be justified lies in the past or in the future, as any justification presupposes something that has gone before. If that something points forwards, its intention is at least roughly outlined (by virtue of its potential to be realised).
- Standard L HeavyIf my limited knowledge of physics, gained from school lessons long time ago, has enabled me to understand the theorists of general relativity correctly, the motion of our planets around the sun is only apparently circular, but rather a kind of straight line.
- Standard S Heavy ItalicScaling therefore entails rounding operations and antialiasing strategies that alter the appearance of shapes, particularly at small sizes where a single pixel represents a significant portion of form. Software environments introduce further divergence, using distinct coordinate systems, unit definitions, and conversion routines.
- Standard M Heavy ItalicBalance is the tension needed to neither explode or implode. What arises when intention meets the accidental and neither is abolished. In bodies, in breaths, in the temporality and modalities of being, balance appears as that which is always about to shift.
- Standard L Heavy ItalicThe original or merely a template? Traces? And who is to say that our sense of things, our emotions and feelings, are nothing but an unwitting attempt to quote the stories and songs that have moved us?
- Standard S BlackWalter Sills labored for years as an unknown laboratory worker—but at fifty he makes his great discovery! Fame, riches are to be his fate—until interference looms up in the form of a few unreliable characters—and Nature herself!
- Standard M BlackWe live in the age of scale. In economic ventures, scalability has long been the guiding principle on which new enterprises are founded; whoever masters the challenges of scaling is promised success. More interesting, however, are the observations that can be made across disciplines whenever something is scaled.
- Standard L BlackBalance is the tension needed to neither explode or implode. What arises when intention meets the accidental and neither is abolished. In bodies, in breaths, in the temporality and modalities of being, balance appears as that which is always about to shift.
- Standard S Black ItalicSo let us think of designers as those who constantly operate on the edge—whether with and on forms of recognition, or by allowing in the different, which fills the constantly repeating cascade of differences (from sensuality to imagination, from imagination to memory, from memory to forgetting, and finally to creative power (and then the whole thing starts all over again)).
- Standard M Black ItalicQuoting is a genuinely creative practice. Something has always been there before. We create in its stead and carry it forward. On quiet soles we walk, torchbearers with the blowpipe tucked behind the ear, moving through the forest in search of our prey.
- Standard L Black ItalicOn the other hand, tools and designs are tailored to the user to such an extent that they do not even need to be used, as every possible action is anticipated, thus becoming literally useless, and the user, around whom everything revolved, has been relieved of their usage. Free, weight-, timeless and a fence observer. Rather than being oppressed by tradition and forced to master the tool as it has been forged over hundreds of years of craft.
- Settings
Typeface information
GT Canon’s design is pragmatic but not static: movement and liveliness are embedded in the letterforms. It is our answer to what our digital times require of a serif today. It’s what a contemporary serif should be in both form and function. Like its sans serif sibling, GT Standard, it aims for modern functionality rather than stylistic reinvention.
Typeface features
OpenType features enable smart typography. You can use these features in most Desktop applications, on the web, and in your mobile apps. Each typeface contains different features. Below are the most important features included in GT Canon’s fonts:
- TNUM
- Tabular figures
0123456789
- ONUM
- Oldstyle figures
0123456789
- SMCP
- Small Caps
Anatomy
Typeface Minisite


- Visit the GT Canon minisite to discover more about the typeface family’s history and design concept.
GT Canon in use

