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BRUTALIST
BY INTUITION.

Family

▶

Hardcore

Designer

Shiva Nallaperumal

2018-2023

Hardcore was originally drawn for a masthead that never ran. What was supposed to be a one-job typeface kept developing on its own, pulling from the stretched, squeezed, and distorted lettering that fills store signs, flyers, and posters across India and the wider post-DTP world. To that base, Shiva Nallaperumal added a harder edge, brutalist architecture, late Soviet and Iron Curtain ephemera, underground music posters, the visual language of techno.

Family Size

2 Styles: Roman and Stencil

Features

Extended Latin, ligatures, arrows

Character sets

Latin Extended. ~400 glyphs per weight. 248 languages.

Licensing

Desktop/Print, Web, Content, App/Game, Logo/Wordmark, Core Media, All Media

Formats

OTF, WOFF2, Variable (based on license type)

 
Regular
Shuffle
Hardcore/AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
1234567890!@#$%
 
Shuffle
Hardcore/AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
1234567890!@#$%

The design was guided by intuition rather than system. The result is a typeface that lends itself to stenciling and to graphic work where the type is meant to do something more than just say something.

▶

The Cuts

Hardcore Bold

The working display cut, adjusted by eye where the math would have read wrong.

Hardcore Stencil

Mathematically precise. Shapes are held consistently across the alphabet, with breaks falling where the geometry dictates rather than where legibility might prefer.

 
Regular
Size
200
Leading
0.90
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Vernacular typography is not a lesser typography.

 
Regular

Vernacular typography is not a lesser typography.

 
Regular
Size
200
Leading
0.90
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

The street is a design school.

 
Regular

The street is a design school.

 
Regular
Size
200
Leading
0.90
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Distortion is information.

 
Regular

Distortion is information.

▶

Hardcore

Value

01

Hardcore was drawn from the stretched, squeezed, and distorted lettering found on store signs, market flyers, and posters across Indian cities and the global post-DTP world.

▶

Hardcore

Value

01

Hardcore was drawn from the stretched, squeezed, and distorted lettering found on store signs, market flyers, and posters across Indian cities and the global post-DTP world.

▶

Hardcore

Value

02

The bold is optically corrected. The stencil is mathematically precise. The geometry was drawn so the typeface can be physically cut, sprayed, or projected. A working stencil typeface.

▶

Hardcore

Value

02

The bold is optically corrected. The stencil is mathematically precise. The geometry was drawn so the typeface can be physically cut, sprayed, or projected. A working stencil typeface.

▶

Hardcore

Value

03

Hardcore was not designed systematically. The logic emerges through use, which is why it has character that a more diagrammatic approach would not produce.

▶

Hardcore

Value

03

Hardcore was not designed systematically. The logic emerges through use, which is why it has character that a more diagrammatic approach would not produce.
 
Regular
Size
200
Leading
0.90
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Intuition produces character that systems cannot.

 
Regular

Intuition produces character that systems cannot.

 
Regular
Size
200
Leading
0.90
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Graphic impact is not the absence of refinement.

 
Regular

Graphic impact is not the absence of refinement.

 
Regular
Size
200
Leading
0.90
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Stretched, squeezed, and put to use.

 
Regular

Stretched, squeezed, and put to use.

 
Regular
Size
72
Leading
1.00
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Hardcore is a display typeface by Shiva Nallaperumal, drawn from the visual logic of stretched and distorted street typography across India and the global post-DTP era, sharpened by research into late Cold War design ephemera and built for designers who want graphic impact with consistent character.

 
Regular

Hardcore is a display typeface by Shiva Nallaperumal, drawn from the visual logic of stretched and distorted street typography across India and the global post-DTP era, sharpened by research into late Cold War design ephemera and built for designers who want graphic impact with consistent character.

 
Regular
Size
28
Leading
1.15
Tracking
0.000em
OT Features
No features available

Shiva Nallaperumal was asked to draw a masthead, drew it, and the project never materialized. Most typefaces that start this way disappear with the project that prompted them but he kept developing out this idea. What carried it forward was the source material. Across Indian cities, on store signs, market flyers, photocopied posters, and the everyday output of small print shops, lettering gets stretched, squeezed, and distorted to fit the space available. The same logic shows up across the post-DTP era globally, wherever desktop publishing tools met designers and printers who treated those tools as instruments rather than rules. The other half of the typeface comes from research. The late Cold War period gave Hardcore its harder edges. Brutalist architecture, with its committed weight and refusal to soften. Late Soviet and Iron Curtain print ephemera, where graphic systems carried both ideology and exhaustion. Underground music posters from the 80s and 90s, particularly the visual culture of techno and rave, where typography was a tool for communicating energy. The design was driven by intuition rather than system. A more systematic approach would have produced a cleaner typeface and a less interesting one. Hardcore's logic emerges through use rather than through diagrams. The family includes a stencil and a bold, and the two diverge in a deliberate way. The bold is optically corrected by eye for legibility, with the small tonal shifts that any working display face needs at scale. The stencil, by contrast, holds to mathematical precision. Shapes are maintained consistently, the gaps and breaks fall where the geometry says they fall, and the typeface accepts the slight optical compromise in exchange for that consistency. Most stencil typefaces compromise toward legibility while Hardcore compromises toward structure. It's part of what makes the stencil read and function as a stencil rather than as a bold with cuts in it. It was made for graphic designers who want a typeface with point of view and treat type as a medium with weight and history. Hardcore is built for visual impact. It carries its references on its surface. It rewards designers who want all of that and don't need it explained.

 
Regular

Shiva Nallaperumal was asked to draw a masthead, drew it, and the project never materialized. Most typefaces that start this way disappear with the project that prompted them but he kept developing out this idea. What carried it forward was the source material. Across Indian cities, on store signs, market flyers, photocopied posters, and the everyday output of small print shops, lettering gets stretched, squeezed, and distorted to fit the space available. The same logic shows up across the post-DTP era globally, wherever desktop publishing tools met designers and printers who treated those tools as instruments rather than rules. The other half of the typeface comes from research. The late Cold War period gave Hardcore its harder edges. Brutalist architecture, with its committed weight and refusal to soften. Late Soviet and Iron Curtain print ephemera, where graphic systems carried both ideology and exhaustion. Underground music posters from the 80s and 90s, particularly the visual culture of techno and rave, where typography was a tool for communicating energy. The design was driven by intuition rather than system. A more systematic approach would have produced a cleaner typeface and a less interesting one. Hardcore's logic emerges through use rather than through diagrams. The family includes a stencil and a bold, and the two diverge in a deliberate way. The bold is optically corrected by eye for legibility, with the small tonal shifts that any working display face needs at scale. The stencil, by contrast, holds to mathematical precision. Shapes are maintained consistently, the gaps and breaks fall where the geometry says they fall, and the typeface accepts the slight optical compromise in exchange for that consistency. Most stencil typefaces compromise toward legibility while Hardcore compromises toward structure. It's part of what makes the stencil read and function as a stencil rather than as a bold with cuts in it. It was made for graphic designers who want a typeface with point of view and treat type as a medium with weight and history. Hardcore is built for visual impact. It carries its references on its surface. It rewards designers who want all of that and don't need it explained.

▶

Designer

Shiva Nallaperumal

 
Regular
Shiva Nallaperumal is a Graphic Designer, Typeface Designer and Creative Director and co-founder (with Juhi Vishnani) of the plural design practice November. November has worked with a wide range of clients on Identity Systems, Printed matter, Interactive media, Installations and custom typefaces. As a typeface designer he has published with Commercial Type, Typotheque, Grilli Type, Bold Monday, Lost Type and now Public Type. In 2017 he became the first graphic designer to be included in Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 and in 2019 was inducted into the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). He holds an MFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

Family

Hardcore

Designers

Shiva Nallaperumal

Release

2018-2023

Family Size

2 Styles: Roman and Stencil

Features

Extended Latin, ligatures, arrows

Character Set

Latin Extended. ~400 glyphs per weight. 248 languages.

Formats

OTF, WOFF2, Variable (based on license type)

Licensing

Desktop/Print, Web, Content, App/Game, Logo/Wordmark, Core Media, All Media

Supported Languages

Acheron, Achinese, Acholi, Achuar-Shiwiar, Afar, Afrikaans, Aguaruna, Alekano, Aleut, Algonquin, Amahuaca, Amarakaeri, Amis, Anaang, Andaandi, Anuta, Ao Naga, Apinayé, Aragonese, Arbëreshë Albanian, Arvanitika Albanian, Asháninka, Ashéninka Perené, Asu (Tanzania), Balinese, Banjar, Bari, Basque, Batak Dairi, Batak Karo, Batak Mandailing, Batak Simalungun, Batak Toba, Bemba (Zambia), Bena (Tanzania), Bikol, Bislama, Borana-Arsi-Guji Oromo, Bosnian, Breton, Buginese, Candoshi-Shapra, Caquinte, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Cashinahua, Catalan, Cebuano, Central Aymara, Central Kurdish, Chachi, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chiga, Chiltepec Chinantec, Chokwe, Chuukese, Cimbrian, Cofán, Congo Swahili, Cook Islands Maori, Cornish, Corsican, Creek, Crimean Tatar, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dehu, Dutch, Eastern Arrernte, Eastern Oromo, Embu, English, Ese Ejja, Esperanto, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Galician, Ganda, Ga'anda, German, Gheg Albanian, Gilbertese, Gooniyandi, Gourmanchema, Guadeloupean Creole French, Gusii, Haitian, Hani, Hiligaynon, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Huastec, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, Iloko, Inari Sami, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Interlingue, Irish, Italian, Ixcatlan Mazatec, Jamaican Creole English, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, K'iche', Kabuverdianu, Kaingang, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Kamba (Kenya), Kaonde, Karelian, Kashubian, Kekchi, Kenzi/Mattokki, Khasi, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda, Kituba (DRC), Klingon, Kongo, Konzo, Kuanyama, Kven Finnish, Kolsch, Ladin, Ladino, Ligurian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Lombard, Low German, Lower Sorbian, Luba-Lulua, Lule Sami, Luo (Kenya and Tanzania), Luxembourgish, Makhuwa, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Makwe, Malagasy, Malaysian, Maltese, Mandinka, Manx, Maore Comorian, Maori, Mapudungun, Matsés, Mauritian Creole, Meriam Mir, Meru, Minangkabau, Mirandese, Mohawk, Montenegrin, Munsee, Murrinh-Patha, Mwani, Miskito, Naga Pidgin, Ndonga, Neapolitan, Ngazidja Comorian, Niuean, Nobiin, Nomatsiguenga, North Ndebele, Northern Kurdish, Northern Qiandong Miao, Northern Sami, Northern Uzbek, Norwegian, Novial, Nyanja, Nyankole, Occitan, Orma, Oroqen, Palauan, Paluan, Pampanga, Papiamento, Pedi, Picard, Pichis Asheninka, Piemontese, Pijin, Pintupi-Luritja, Pohnpeian, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Paez, Quechua, Romansh, Rotokas, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu (Tanzania), Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Sena, Seri, Seselwa Creole French, Shambala, Shawnee, Shipibo-Conibo, Shona, Shuar, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Soninke, South Ndebele, Southern Aymara, Southern Qiandong Miao, Southern Sami, Southern Sotho, Spanish, Sranan Tongo, Standard Estonian, Standard Malay, Sundanese, Swahili, Swati, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tedim Chin, Tetum, Tetun Dili, Tiv, Toba, Tok Pisin, Tokelau, Toki Pona, Tonga (Tonga Islands), Tosk Albanian, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Uab Meto, Umbundu, Ume Sami, Upper Guinea Crioulo, Upper Sorbian, Venetian, Veps, Volapuk, Voro, Walloon, Walser, Wangaaybuwan-Ngiyambaa, Waorani, Waray (Philippines), Warlpiri, Wayuu, Welsh, West Central Oromo, Western Abnaki, Western Frisian, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yanesha', Yao, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Yucateco, Zulu, Zaparo.

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