Austin Pen Regular, 1800s cursive font

Empresario Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) is considered by many the “Father of Texas” for leading the first Anglo-American colony into the then-Mexican territory back in the 1820s. A few years later, while on a diplomatic mission to Mexico City, Austin was arrested on suspicion of plotting Texas independence and imprisoned for virtually all of 1834. During this time he kept a secret diary of his thoughts and musings—much of it written in Spanish.

Austin Pen Regular is the default weight of the Austin Pen family, an interpretation of S. F. Austin’s scribblings in his Mexican prison diary. It replicates the fairly plain, legible cursive you might see on any 200-year-old letter or other handwritten document. Like the Bold weight, it has nearly 1,200 glyphs and full Latin support. (Consider licensing the full family, as both styles work well together.)

OpenType features include scores of standard and discretionary ligatures, stylistic alternates, contextual substitutions, lining and old-style figures, cross-outs, ink blots, and a bonus hand-lettered uppercase alphabet.