Jarlath

Though it had only a limited release as dry transfer type in 1974, Jarlath Hayes’s Tuam Uncial became an icon of Irish Modernism. Its design was based on hacked Helvetica Bold; Hayes sliced off the tops and bottoms of the letters to produce forms reminiscent of the wide, pen-formed scripts of old Insular texts. This digital revival, designed by Max Phillips under the supervision of Hayes’s daughter, supports over 150 languages and features ligatures, directional arrows, and a fuller range of punctuation. To improve readability, we’ve tempered the extreme squarishness of the original forms, reduced their contrast, and provided more generous letterspacing. Early drafts of the original Tuam Uncial lacked the published version’s semiserifs, so we’ve added a sans version, as well as italic and sans italic styles.