Serif Forked/Spurred Mafu 4 is a regular weight, very narrow, medium contrast, upright, normal x-height font.
Keywords: display, headlines, posters, titles, packaging, gothic, medieval, dramatic, old-world, spooky, historical mood, thematic display, ornamental impact, compact setting, blackletter-inflected, spurred, angular, calligraphic, ornate.
A condensed serif with a blackletter-leaning, calligraphic construction and sharp, forked terminals. Stems are mostly vertical and narrow, with pointed wedge-like serifs and frequent mid-stem spurs that create a notched silhouette. Curves are tight and slightly faceted, counters are compact, and joins tend to pinch, producing a crisp, chiseled texture. Capitals are tall and commanding, while the lowercase keeps a compact, readable x-height with slender ascenders and descenders and a slightly irregular, hand-cut rhythm across the line.
Best suited to display settings where its spurred details and condensed rhythm can be appreciated—titles, headlines, posters, album or book covers, and themed packaging. It can also work for short passages such as pull quotes or labels when set with generous size and spacing.
The overall tone is historical and theatrical, evoking manuscript lettering, gothic signage, and old print ephemera. Its sharp spurs and narrow proportions give it a tense, dramatic edge that can feel mysterious or ominous depending on context.
Designed to deliver an old-world, blackletter-adjacent flavor in a compact footprint, combining traditional serif structure with ornamental forks and spurs for heightened character and historical atmosphere.
In running text the texture is dense and vertical, with strong word shapes and frequent pointed details that can create visual sparkle at larger sizes. Numerals follow the same narrow, angular logic, reading as stylized rather than strictly utilitarian.