Overpass (typeface)
| Company type | Typeface / Font |
|---|---|
| Industry | Typography, Digital fonts |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founder | Delve Withrington, Dave Bailey, Thomas Jockin, Alan Dague-Greene, Aaron Bell |
| Products | Overpass (digital typeface) |
| Owner | Red Hat |
Overpass is a geometric sans-serif digital typeface inspired by Highway Gothic, specifically tailored as a webfont for use on digital displays and user interface environments. Created by Delve Withrington along with Dave Bailey, Thomas Jockin, Alan Dague-Greene, and Aaron Bell over the period from 2011 to 2021, Overpass offers a total of 18 styles: nine different weights each paired with its oblique variant.
This typeface was commissioned by Red Hat for exclusive integration within their software user interfaces, serving as a replacement for the commercial font Interstate, which lacked webfont availability. The project was driven by Red Hat’s requirement for more rapid software update cycles.
The initial release in 2011, developed by Delve Withrington, featured two weights (regular and bold) with hinting implemented by Jason Campbell. The 2015 update to version 3.0 broadened the family to include eight weights and refined oblique designs, with additional input from Bailey, Jockin, Dague-Greene, and Michael Luton on Overpass Mono—a monospaced variant offered in five weights. This iteration was made available as open source.
In 2021, under sponsorship from Google Fonts, Delve Fonts enhanced Overpass by introducing variable font capabilities alongside support for the Cyrillic alphabet. Aaron Bell contributed post-production assistance for the version 4.0 release.
See also
- IBM Plex – IBM’s open-source corporate font family
- Clearview, a typeface designed for traffic signage
External links
- Most recent release: 4.0 (includes variable fonts and Cyrillic support):
- Earlier release: 3.0.4 (without Cyrillic support):