Let’s be serious. After all, Pergamon is a serious thing. Pergamon is a typeface that blends history, practicality, and wonderfully ridiculous innovation, conceived, designed and developed by longtime Pangram Pangram collaborator Valerio Monopoli.

Designed as a modern reinterpretation of the renowned calligraphic classic Papyrus, Pergamon transforms a well-worn typeface’s legacy into a versatile, contemporary family. When Valerio Monopoli set out to design Pergamon, his aim was to rethink the calligraphic roots of one of the most iconic, (maybe misunderstood…) and often misused fonts of all time. However, instead of creating a mere replacement, Valerio sought to distil the essence of Papyrus and reinterpret it in a modern context, blending its historical influences with a design that meets the needs of digital and print mediums alike. Pergamon, as a result, is a typeface with a contemporary sensibility and an artificially ancient history.

Today, we dive into the creative process behind Pergamon , Valerio’s approach to finding the perfect balance between playful gestures and rigorous structure, and his thoughts on how the font fits within the broader context of typography.

I think we know but, just in case people haven’t existed until this very second, what inspired the creation of Pergamon?

Pergamon was conceived as the spiritual heir to one of the most iconic—and often misused—calligraphic font, Papyrus by Chris Costello. However, my goal was not to create a replacement for it, but rather to draw from the same historical roots to design a versatile type family tailored for modern applications, particularly in digital contexts. Pergamon 's rather minimalistic construction and tall x-height are clear reflections of this intent.

Where’d the name come from?

The font is named after the city that housed one of the largest and most prestigious libraries of ancient times, rivalled only by Alexandria in its collection of books and scrolls. The intense competition between these two great libraries even prompted the Egyptian king to ban the export of papyrus to Anatolia at one point, forcing Pergamon to innovate by developing parchment as an alternative—See what I did here? To strengthen this historical reference, I designed a monotonic Greek character set for Pergamon , the first font within Off Type and The Pangram Pangram Foundry to offer said compatibility.

Pergamon feels obviously incredibly fun, but also has a rigorous, practical side – how did you go about finding this balance in its design?

Instead of trying to faithfully replicate the calligraphic finishes of the source material, I have tried to distill them into two recognisable and scalable gestures. The first is a tilted, flared cap that functions both as an exit tail and a drop terminal (see /a), and the second is a series of small spikes extending over the stems at their intersections (see /d, /R, or /K), evoking the recursive nature of calligraphic strokes. Keeping the variations of these elements to a minimum allowed me to complement the gestural nature of Pergamon with the consistency of a parametric graphic system.

What were some of the challenges you found across Pergamon ’s design process?

One particular challenge had me thinking for quite some time: how to maintain the horizontal bars of /a, /t, /f, and /z at the same mathematical height for seamless straight ligatures, while subtly shifting them to account for opposing serifs and achieve optical alignment. Ultimately, I opted for different heights, defining upward and downward alignment zones to ensure they render on the same pixel at low resolutions.

How did you approach crafting the typeface’s details – especially considering its smooth and rough cut?

Every extra detail is meant to establish a link either with the above mentioned references. In this sense, the rough family is meant to be a nod to Papyrus's textured finish, achieved here as a post-export effect to minimise the number of paths. While I’m unsure how it might be used, designers have often surprised me with inventive applications of even the quirkiest fonts I’ve created. So, I’m happy to leave this one in their hands and see where their creativity takes it!

How does Pergamon reflect your broader design philosophy?

Pergamon embodies a creative process I’ve often relied on: starting with a complex, well-established model and breaking it down to its core compositional principles. It’s a delicate balancing act—too much simplification risks losing the essence of the original, while focusing on surface details can result in a parody. The challenge lies in creating a design that both honours its influences and heritage and stands on its own as a unique work. Achieving this requires a certain understanding of formal and contextual typographic principles, and while I can’t say with certainty that I’ve fully succeeded, I find reassurance in the fact that Costello himself offered positive feedback on Pergamon, acknowledging both its connection to and departure from Papyrus.

Where would you like to see it being used?

While designing Pergamon , I often found myself thinking about the parallelisms between ancient and contemporary ways of laying out text and storing information. Digital environments almost always rely on downward scrolling interactions with text—a dynamic reminiscent of the scrolls used before the widespread adoption of manuscripts. In many ways, the digital world has rendered the concept of a "page" secondary, as there are no true boundaries to its design space. I see Pergamon and every typeface in Offtype's catalogue as native creatures of this virtually boundless world and I expect them to thrive within such environments.

Any other Microsoft Word classics you feel could do with a OT upgrade?

The first font that comes to mind is, of course, Comic Sans, but I don’t think there’s much worth extracting from it. Having seen numerous attempts by reputable type designers to revive it, I also understand how challenging that task would be! Fonts like OCR and Westminster present a far more intriguing challenge—one that designers like Maxiype and Mass Driver have already tackled with excellent results.

Ultimately, I chose to explore Papyrus because, among the system fonts we all recognise, it stands out as one of the most iconic and yet surprisingly underexplored by type and graphic designers. I felt it was a font I could truly learn from if I could uncover the essence of its popularity. Over time, my appreciation for it grew to the point where I now count it among my favorite fonts.

Something that will never, ever happen with Brush Script. Sorry, not sorry.

Pergamon is free to try TODAY, with licences starting at only $30.