Matka Font is a condensed display type with woody flared stems and geometric curves, all which add to its visual warmth and sincerity. It is a rustic typeface made for headlines, logos and large text inspired by early twentieth century Estonian lettering found in magazines, adverts and signage. Estonian lettering at this time was heavily influenced by the organic, romantic, botanical, folk nature of the late nineteenth century German tradition (see Lawrence Mirsky and Blackletter: Type and National Identity for more). This fashion stood opposed to the perceived rationalism of French design. In Estonia, the northern borderlands of German cultural influence at the time, this style crept into many other types of lettering including sans serifs. Matka draws from early examples of these organic hybrid styles of sans serif. With its high x-height and contemporary lowercase, Matka is not a revival but a modern re-styling of a historical trend.
The name Matka comes from Finnish and means ‘journey’. Similarly, through the Finno-Urgic route Estonian shares a similar word ‘matk’ which mean ‘hike’. Although ‘matka’ will appear in Estonian when agglutinated with other nouns. Either way, it’s a lovely word.
Matka version 1.0 contains basic Latin, numerals, punctuation and several stylistic alternates for both upper and lowercase.
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