Vacua #

Experimental modular negative-space font. Each letter is drawn by the absence of vertical strokes on a 5 × 9 grid, never by their presence.

Vacua is a generative display font — the glyphs are produced by a deterministic script, not hand-drawn. The result evokes a barcode or a data matrix. It belongs to the lineage of modular typefaces (New Alphabet by Wim Crouwel, 1967).

Full alphabet #

The principle in one picture (ASCII) #

Convention: █ = stroke we keep (drawn matter) · . = stroke we erase (the void — which forms the letter).

   Step 1                Step 2                  Step 3
   ──────                ──────                  ──────
   5 × 9 grid of         pick a letter (E)       what remains is
   vertical strokes      and erase its cells     what gets printed

   │ │ │ │ │             . . . . .               . . . . .
   │ │ │ │ │             . █ █ █ █               . █ █ █ █
   │ │ │ │ │             . █ █ █ █               . █ █ █ █
   │ │ │ │ │     ──►     . █ █ █ █       ──►     . █ █ █ █
   │ │ │ │ │             . . . . .               . . . . .
   │ │ │ │ │             . █ █ █ █               . █ █ █ █
   │ │ │ │ │             . █ █ █ █               . █ █ █ █
   │ │ │ │ │             . █ █ █ █               . █ █ █ █
   │ │ │ │ │             . . . . .               . . . . .

                         the `.` cells trace      look only at the █:
                         the shape of E           the E reads in the gap

The trap when adding a glyph: you don't draw the letter — you draw everything around it. Squint at the █ block above; the E is the missing column-0 and the missing middle band.

Why it's interesting #

• Absolute coherence: one algorithm, A → Z by parameters.
• Trivial 3D output: straight bars → 3D printing, engraving, CNC.
• Ambiguous legibility: E/F/H/L/T very readable, C/O/Q/X cryptic — by design, not a bug.
• Rotation ligatures: the 2nd letter is the entire glyph rotated 90°, read by turning the medium → orientation-based cipher.

Installation #

python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Install as a real system font (TTF) #

Vacua exports to TTF — installable in macOS, opening to TextEdit, Figma, the browser, anything.

mise run install      # generates dist/Vacua-{Regular,Medium,Bold}.ttf
                      # then copies them into ~/Library/Fonts/

Other targets:

mise run font         # build only (no install)
mise run check        # open a browser page that proves the install worked
mise run uninstall    # remove Vacua-*.ttf from ~/Library/Fonts/
mise run clean        # delete dist/ and .venv/

After install, relaunch any app that was already open (Firefox, TextEdit…) — they only enumerate system fonts at startup.

Did it work? #

mise run check opens scripts/check-install.html in your default browser. The page contains one big sentence styled with font-family: Vacua. If you see the characteristic Vacua barcode-like rendering, the install succeeded. If you see a plain monospace fallback (with a red warning), the font is not loaded — likely the app needs a restart.

Manual checks:

open -a "Font Book" ~/Library/Fonts/Vacua-Regular.ttf   # native macOS viewer
system_profiler SPFontsDataType 2>/dev/null | grep Vacua

Usage — Python #

from vacua import render_text, render_chart, BOLD, style_for

img = render_text("VACUA", style=BOLD)
img.save("vacua.png")

render_chart(style=style_for("medium", "solid")).save("chart_solid.png")

Usage — CLI #

python -m vacua "HELLO" --weight bold -o specimen.png
python -m vacua --chart -o chart.png
python -m vacua "A" --ligature --rotate B -o ligature_AB.png
python -m vacua "CAFE" --pairs --weight bold -o cafe_pairs.png   # overlaid pairs: [CA][FE]
python -m vacua "VACUA" --scad -o out/vacua.scad

Usage — OpenSCAD #

The scad/vacua_param.scad file is standalone: the whole alphabet is encoded in it. Editing the text variable regenerates the model.

# Generate a wrapper that includes vacua_param.scad
python -m vacua "KEYCHAIN" --scad -o scad/keychain.scad
# Open in OpenSCAD, tweak merged/with_keyring/cell/bar_w...

See docs/3d_printing.md for the full list of parameters.

Gallery #

Variants #

Variant	Stroke	Columns	Usage
Regular	thin	spaced	specimens, charts
Medium	medium	spaced	default
Bold	thick	spaced	titles
Solid	n/a	merged	only the void remains
Solid narrow	n/a	merged thin	slender glyphs
Thin joined	thin	tight	Regular/Solid compromise
Condensed / ultra-condensed	thin	narrow	compact spacing

Accepted limitations #

Angular letters (E, F, H, I, L, T) read very well. Round ones (C, O, Q) and diagonals (K, X, Z) are more suggested than drawn — this is inherent to the 5-column resolution and reinforces the cryptic feel. Do not try to "fix" this.

Tests #

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

Documentation #

• docs/specification.md — the full system
• docs/pitfalls.md — known pitfalls (the void you fill, 5×9 rotation)
• docs/3d_printing.md — OpenSCAD → STL pipeline

Lineage and inspiration #

Vacua started as a variant of a system called Epetri, then took its own direction. It draws inspiration from historical modular typefaces — notably Wim Crouwel's New Alphabet (1967) — and from the tradition of generative typography where the definition fits in a table.

License #

MIT — see LICENSE.