Serif Forked/Spurred Fabo 17 is a bold, narrow, high contrast, upright, short x-height font.
Keywords: headlines, posters, book covers, branding, packaging, gothic, vintage, theatrical, eccentric, dark, decorative impact, antique flavor, gothic mood, poster voice, expressive texture, spurred, forked, flared, ink-trap, calligraphic.
A condensed, display-oriented serif with sharp, forked terminals and frequent mid-stem spurs that create a jagged, ornamental silhouette. Strokes show pronounced thick–thin modulation, with narrow joins and pinched counters that give many letters a slightly carved or stamped feel. Serifs are small but assertive, often splayed or hooked rather than purely bracketed, and curves end in pointed, beak-like flicks. The rhythm is tight and vertical, with compact lowercase proportions and a notably small x-height relative to the tall ascenders.
Best suited to headlines, titles, and short bursts of copy where its ornate terminals remain legible and expressive. It works well for posters, album or book covers, game titles, and packaging that benefits from a gothic or antique flavor. For longer passages, larger sizes and generous tracking help preserve clarity and keep the dark texture from closing in.
The overall tone is gothic and vintage, suggesting old posters, apothecary labels, and storybook or horror-adjacent titling. Its spiky details and high drama read as theatrical and slightly mischievous, trading neutrality for character. The texture feels intentionally distressed in spirit, even when outlines are solid, due to the frequent nicks, spurs, and irregular edge energy.
The design appears intended to deliver a historical, blackletter-adjacent mood without fully committing to traditional blackletter construction. By combining condensed proportions with forked serifs and spurred stems, it aims to create an instantly recognizable display voice that feels old-world, dramatic, and slightly uncanny.
In text settings the dense vertical patterning and many internal notches can darken quickly, especially in lowercase runs. Numerals and capitals carry the same forked, decorative logic, making the font feel cohesive for headline systems where letters, figures, and punctuation need to match in attitude.