Distressed Emgey 13 is a very bold, narrow, very high contrast, italic, normal x-height font.
Keywords: posters, headlines, album art, streetwear, event promos, grunge, handmade, energetic, edgy, playful, impact, authenticity, texture, attention, brushy, ragged, inked, organic, expressive.
This font is built from thick, brush-like strokes with strongly irregular contours and visible stroke breakup, creating a rough, inked texture. Letterforms lean forward with a fast, handwritten rhythm and uneven pressure that produces chunky terminals, occasional pinched joins, and small interior voids. Proportions are compact overall, but widths fluctuate noticeably from glyph to glyph, reinforcing an improvised, hand-painted feel. Counters are often partially closed or textured, and the baseline and sidebearings read loosely controlled rather than mechanically consistent.
Best suited to display applications where the textured stroke can be appreciated: posters, punchy headlines, packaging callouts, album or cover art, and promotional graphics. It can also work for short captions or labels in designs that want an intentionally rough, handmade voice, but it’s not optimized for long-form reading at small sizes.
The tone is loud and tactile, like marker or paint dragged quickly across a surface. Its distressed texture and forward motion give it a raw, street-poster attitude that feels rebellious and high-energy while still remaining legible at display sizes. The overall impression is informal, attention-grabbing, and a bit unruly.
The design appears intended to mimic fast brush lettering with deliberate wear and ink breakup, prioritizing impact and texture over refined typographic regularity. It aims to deliver a handmade, distressed display look that stands out quickly and communicates urgency and attitude.
The texture is not just on the edges—many glyphs show internal scuffs and gaps that read as dry-brush or worn-print artifacts. Numerals and lowercase share the same aggressive, painty construction, keeping the set visually cohesive for short, punchy messages.