A typeface cast by taking dots snapped to a grid and turning them straight into outlines, without tracing. In a single file, the weight changes seamlessly from 100 to 900.
This typeface was not drawn by hand. It came out of a tool called 鋳 CHU. Letters are snapped to a grid, dots larger than the cells are placed on it, and where they spill over and overlap becomes the outline. Nothing is traced, so each dot’s position and radius become the points as they are, and no letter drifts from the rest.
The weight axis is the size of those dots. Small dots stand apart as a row of points; larger ones fill the surface. The slider says “weight”, but what actually moves is the dots.
The tool is public. Change how the grid is cut, the shape of the dots or the width of the letters, and a different typeface comes out.
Open 鋳 CHU →Installs with a double-click on both Mac and Windows.
In Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop (2018 or later), selecting the font brings up a weight slider.
Where variable fonts are not supported, it simply appears as Regular (nothing breaks).
⚠️ No kanji included. To use kana, install the JP version.
Change the shape of the dots and only the texture changes, on the same skeleton. These are not products — just examples the tool can produce.
A typeface cast by taking the outlines of an existing typeface and roughening, chipping and scattering their edges. The breakup is applied to every letter by the same rules — which is why it is broken, yet still a typeface.
A rumour changes shape each time it passes from mouth to mouth. Someone adds a little; someone drops a little. UWASA turns that “changing with every telling” into a typeface.
How it is made lives inside a tool called 噂 UWASA. It takes the outlines of an existing typeface and applies brush roughness, chips, fuzz and spatter to every letter by the same rules. Nothing is decided letter by letter by hand, so even broken, it reads as one when set.
⭐ Turn the knobs inside the tool and you can cast and download a rougher or a quieter UWASA on the spot. What is here is just one of them.
⚠️ The six fonts here are based on Zen Kaku Gothic New (gothic). If you want mincho (serif), go to “Mincho base” at the very bottom.
Installs with a double-click on both Mac and Windows.
⭐ The five JP fonts differ in breakup style, not in weight. The skeleton is the same;
only how the edges roughen changes.
⚠️ The six above contain no kanji at all (kana, katakana and Latin only / 267 glyphs measured).
If you need kanji, download “with kanji” below.
⚠️ All five share the same internal name, UWASA / Regular.
Install them in your OS one at a time (installed together, they can’t be told apart).
⭐ The source letters are Zen Kaku Gothic New (SIL Open Font License 1.1).
UWASA is distributed as its derivative under SIL OFL 1.1 —
free for commercial use, modification and redistribution (only selling the font itself is not allowed).
6,949 glyphs (168 kana & katakana + 6,682 kanji + Latin & symbols).
The same five styles, with the kanji broken up by the same rules.
⭐ Every kanji in the source typeface is included, so ordinary Japanese text sets as is.
⚠️ They are heavier for it, so when kana alone is enough, use the six above.
The fonts above break up Zen Kaku Gothic New (gothic).
These break up Zen Old Mincho (mincho / serif) — the same breakup yields a different typeface.
⭐ Hajime = the state with no style stamped on in the tool (the tool’s own face). 6,949 glyphs.
⚠️ There is no mincho “Su” (it would weigh 43 MB, and Su = not broken up = simply the original mincho).
⭐ The source letters are Zen Old Mincho (SIL OFL 1.1). UWASA is distributed as its derivative on the same terms.
⭐ In 靄 MOYA, choose “UWASA Mincho with kanji” as the font to use it directly.
⭐ To cast your own: in 噂 UWASA,
at step 1 load a font file (the .otf / .ttf you want as the base) → at step 7, under [Character set],
choose + All kanji. That’s all.
⭐ Measured (base = Zen Kaku Gothic New, style = Fude): 500 kanji = 767 glyphs, 277 KB, 0.8 s /
2,500 = 2,767 glyphs, 1.2 MB, 2.4 s / all 6,682 = 6,949 glyphs, 3.7 MB, 6.3 s.
⭐ In 靄 MOYA you can use them without downloading
(choose UWASA JP with kanji as the font → pick a style).
噂 UWASA has five breakup styles. The skeleton stays the same and only how the edges roughen changes — everything below was cast exactly as is.
⚠️ Of the breakup you see on the tool’s board, the “splits” of Sure and the “grains” of Sumi are cut out in pixels, so they do not appear in the outline, i.e. the font. What becomes the font is edge roughness, chips, fuzz and spatter. (That is why the board and the font look different.)
A typeface that holds each letter as a few strokes (a skeleton) and is cast by running a brush along them. Strokes taper at entry and exit, and traced marks overlap — a Latin face written from the bones, needing no source typeface.
An ordinary typeface holds “outlines”; HON holds “bones”. Three strokes for A, three for H — only the strokes in writing order sit in a 0–1 box, and a brush runs over them to make the outline.
So strokes thin at entry and exit, corners sharpen and crossings overshoot. And when the same bones are traced once more, two strokes land slightly apart and overlap — the trace of writing fast, then going back over what was missing.
⭐ No source typeface is used, so this typeface belongs entirely to Kinoshita Studio (it is not derived from anyone else’s font). Turn the brush and hand knobs in the tool (奔 HON) to cast and download a different HON on the spot.
Installs with a double-click on both Mac and Windows.
⚠️ No lowercase or Japanese (only capitals, figures and punctuation have bones).
Any lowercase you type falls back to another font.
A typeface made by turning letters into a coarse grid picture, then moving each column’s width and each row’s height one by one. The picture stays the same, yet as the grid shifts the letterforms change — narrowed columns become stripes.
Burn a letter into a 12×12 grid and keep only the black cells. Up to here it is a coarse dot picture, but KETA then changes each column’s width and each row’s height one by one.
The picture (which cells are black) never changes, yet moving the grid changes the letterforms. Narrowed columns become stripes; round the corners and it becomes a modular typeface.
⭐ Column widths and row heights are the same for every letter, so whatever you type, the grid lines up vertically. Pinch the grid in the tool (桁 KETA) to cast a different KETA.
Installs with a double-click on both Mac and Windows.
⚠️ No kanji included. The cells are coarse, so letters with many strokes fill in (that is the nature of a grid typeface).
⚠️ The board’s grid is wide (22×12), but casting uses square cells matched to the vertical count
(burning each letter at the wide ratio makes it shrink in its box and look slack).