Distressed Gelud 2 is a light, narrow, medium contrast, upright, very short x-height font.
Keywords: horror titles, posters, album covers, game ui, zines, eerie, occult, handmade, grunge, storybook, horror mood, diy texture, aged print, hand-lettered, scratchy, wiry, uneven, spiky, tattered.
A wiry, hand-drawn display face with jittery contours and rough, broken-looking edges. Strokes are thin and irregular, with occasional ink-like thickening, giving letters a slightly scratchy, weathered texture. Proportions are inconsistent by design: widths vary noticeably from glyph to glyph, counters can be lopsided, and terminals often taper or hook. Uppercase forms feel tall and spare, while the lowercase is small and compressed with simple, handwritten construction, creating a choppy baseline rhythm in text.
Best suited for short, attention-grabbing settings such as horror or mystery titles, poster headlines, album/mixtape artwork, and game menus where a gritty handmade mood is desired. It can work for pull quotes or section headers in themed editorial layouts, but is less appropriate for long body text due to its irregular rhythm and distressed detailing.
The overall tone is unsettling and theatrical, like improvised lettering for spooky ephemera. Its uneven stroke behavior and distressed outlines evoke aged print, folk horror, or DIY zines, adding tension and personality rather than polish.
The design appears intended to mimic quick, inked hand lettering that has been roughed up by wear or reproduction artifacts. It prioritizes atmosphere and character over uniformity, aiming to feel improvised, dark, and slightly chaotic in display use.
Readability drops as size decreases because the distressed perimeter and narrow apertures begin to fill in and collide, especially in dense lines. The numerals share the same sketchy, irregular texture, helping mixed text keep a consistent, handmade voice.