Aileron

Find the lowercase l in Aileron and you will see a small curved tail at its foot. Sora Sagano put it there so the letter cannot pass for a capital I, which in a plain neo-grotesque is a daily nuisance (passwords, serial numbers, the word Illinois).

Sagano publishes as Dot Colon and describes the face as his own reading of the neo-grotesques that begin with Helvetica. He adds, a little unexpectedly, that it looks closer to Helvetica while the thinking behind it is closer to Univers. You can feel both. The surface is familiar and the family is laid out like a system.

A few details soften it:

• the dots on i and j, and the period, are round
• the curves follow clothoid principles, so a bend tightens gradually
• the letter spacing is a little open, set that way for body text
• the italic was slanted mechanically and then corrected by eye

That italic was the first Dot Colon ever made, and it keeps close to the width of the roman, so switching to it inside a paragraph does not change how far a line runs.

8 weights up to Black, each with an italic, 16 files in all, Latin with the extended accents. We would set reading text in the Light and Regular and keep the Black for short headings. Sagano later released an upgraded design under a new name, Nacelle, in December 2021.