Stornoway Font

A large ampersand on the left and the words "Stornoway, 28 styles of sturdy elegance" Large ampersand  next to the word Stornoway.

Stornoway

An image that is showing the typeface in use. The left two thirds has a background image of a modern home interior with a dark overlay in a tone similar to smoked glass. The text on the left side is running upward and reads "sturdy elegance" in white. Next to it is smaller text that reads "a high contrast sans serif emanating sturdy elegance. The middle has a large lowercase y. The last third of the image has an example of a modern logo that could be used for a home good shop and reads "to your good home, quality goods for healthy spaces."
A demonstration of all the styles in the Stornoway font using the lowercase a character. Each lowercase a is in a box with the lightest weight at the left and the heaviest on the right.
A faux magazine cover with a masthead in the top left called "Open House Interior Design and Decor". A large outlined "72" takes up the right side overlapping an image of a modern living room interior. The interior has white walls with wooden details and an inset desk with Scandinavian style decor on it. There is also a light coloured, comfortable-looking couch in the foreground.
White text on a black background. The upper left has a large uppercase and lowercase A followed by the full alphabet set in a smaller size. The right side is a mirror image but set in italic instead of the upright style.

Styles

Stornoway

ExLight
ExLight Italic
Light
Light Italic
Regular
Regular Italic
Semibold
Semibold Italic
Bold
Bold Italic
ExBold
ExBold Italic
Chonky
Chonky Italic

Stornoway Low

ExLight
ExLight Italic
Light
Light Italic
Regular
Regular Italic
Semibold
Semibold Italic
Bold
Bold Italic
ExBold
ExBold Italic
Chonky
Chonky Italic

Features

OpenType Features

Ligatures
Aficionados → Aficionados
Small Caps
Typography Rules → Typography Rules
Uppercase Forms
(@WIZARD) → (@WIZARD)
Fractions
2 1/2 cups → 2 1/2 cups
Subscripts
C7H8N4O2 → C7H8N4O2
Superscripts
Magic Spells1 → Magic Spells1
Tabular Numbers
$25.23, £14.22 → $25.23, £14.22
Oldstyle Numbers
June 26, 1987 → June 26, 1987

Variable Font

Stonoway has a variable font with two axes—weight and contrast. The contrast axis can be used to make the letterforms have lower contrast and therefore be more suitable for text paragraphs like this one you are reading right now! Yes, I know this could’ve been done with an optical size axis but this axis really only controls the contrast amount and I have plans to expand the contrast axis into a reverse contrast version soon. Read more about variable fonts here.  

About Stornoway

Elegant fonts usually have extremely high contrast and crisp delicate shapes, but Stornoway’s version of elegance is a little more sturdy than that—it won’t fall apart from being too delicate. Inspired by the charm of Scotch Roman faces and Dwiggins’ Caledonia, Stornoway brings the style a bit further into the modern era with a higher x-height, flared terminals, and no serifs. The name “Stornoway” comes from an Island town in the Outer Hebrides in Northern Scotland, a town where my ancestors come from.

The high contrast styles are great for display work and can effortlessly express Art Deco, the ideals of modern architecture and interior design, or graceful menus and signage. The low contrast styles are based closely on the same structure but with enough mass to perform very nicely in body text situations. The heavier weights in the low contrast style offer a unique chunky character that would be right at home on food and drink packaging. True italics provide sparkling, expressive styles that provide more ways to include the concept of sturdy elegance into your projects.

Published: 2024
Designer: Alanna Munro
Version: 1.1 (2025)

PDF Specimen

Language Support
Licensing
Trial Fonts
Changelog

Character Set

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Copyright © Alanna Munro All Rights Reserved