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Only Yours: a bold new approach to typography based on unique variants
In an industry where typefaces are designed to be used by thousands, a radical new concept has emerged that turns conventional type distribution on its head. David Březina, managing director at Rosetta Type, has created a typographic experiment called Only Yours: a typeface system that generates unique variants available exclusively to individual customers.
The premise is brilliantly simple yet revolutionary: nine new variants of the typeface are released every day. Once purchased, a variant is permanently removed from circulation, ensuring that no one else will ever own that specific design.
"The idea for a typeface that would be different for each customer has been on my mind for a few years," explains David. "According to surveys, most designers do not know how to use OpenType features and hence letter alternates. I'd been working on a still-unreleased typeface called Sacco, and at some point, it was so easy to create more and more letter alternates that it seemed like a shame to keep them tucked away somewhere in the font where no one would look."
This observation sparked a more profound question: what if instead of hiding alternates within a font's features, the alternates themselves became the foundation for entirely unique typeface variants?
Inspired by Dylan
The concept lay dormant, though, until a surprising moment of inspiration. "I sat on it for a few years," recalls David. "The project seemed intimidating in scope, and I didn't really see a good reason to do it.
"Then I went to see Bob Dylan, who's known for constantly rewriting his songs, in concert. It occurred to me that having so many perceivably different variants would bring more authenticity to the users. They could each have a unique font, in the same way concert-goers can attend a unique performance."
This parallel between the legendary musician's ever-evolving performances and the notion of typographic uniqueness crystallised the concept. What began as design work in December 2025 led to a soft launch at the Automatic Type Design conference in Nancy, France, in February 2025.
Science behind the system
Only Yours isn't merely a stylistic exercise; it's grounded in David's PhD research on letter similarity perception. "I studied how they are clearly different, yet, in a well-designed font, they also look visually coherent," he explains.
Technical implementation is where things become fascinatingly complex. Rather than designing alternative letters, David took a more fundamental approach.
"Similarity perception is explained in terms of distinctive visual features that are shared by some of the letters, but not necessarily all of them," he explains. "More shared features mean stronger perceived similarity between the letters. It occurred to me that I could hack into this system and design alternates, not for the letters as we're used to from contemporary fonts, but for the individual features."
While keeping some aspects of the generation process proprietary, David confirms that this feature-based approach allows for remarkable diversity while maintaining design coherence.
"Using a reverse-contrast design remotely related to Antique Olive also helped to incorporate some rectangular elements more easily. The coherence does not need to be perfect, after all. Some of my favourite variants come from unexpected violations of the overall coherence."
Scarcity as a feature, not a bug
In an era of unlimited digital reproduction, Only Yours deliberately introduces scarcity. With over a million variants, the decision to release just nine per day transforms typography selection into something akin to a daily treasure hunt.
"We didn't want to design a system for users to pick and choose," David notes. "The value of the project is not in providing all the options. It is in exclusivity.
"Originally, I wanted the variant to be chosen randomly for the customers," he added. "But that did not seem right, so we settled on a compromise: offering nine new variants every day, which also turns it into a game. They're never shown again, so if you like one, you better get it."
This approach creates a fascinating tension between the digital nature of typefaces and the artificial scarcity that makes each variant valuable. Once a customer purchases a weight from a variant, all weights within that variant become exclusive to them, preventing anyone else from fragmenting their unique typographic identity.
Redefining typographic identity
When sharing his concept with fellow designers before launch, David received some scepticism. "When I tried to discuss this idea with some friends, graphic designers, in November, they told me that it would be 'totally useless for branding'," he recalls with amusement. I disagree: since every variant is exclusive, it is perfect for branding!"
Far from being an obstacle to professional use, the consistency within each variant across weights ensures practical usability while maintaining uniqueness. "Each variant of Only Yours is consistent across multiple weights, so it should work just fine in professional contexts," he asserts.
The potential applications extend beyond individual designers. "Creating unique experiences in branding is not new. There is Freitag with their bags, each original, or even Coca-Cola with their named cans, which is a step in that direction," David points out. "Perhaps Only Yours could make it easier in some cases. We could, theoretically, generate thousands of unique variants for someone to licence as a bulk. Or a magazine could get a new variant for each issue."
Looking to the future: Softly Yours
Building on the success of Only Yours, Rosetta Type has already announced plans for Softly Yours, a rounded version using the same generative framework.
"We set the price quite affordable to be more flexible," David adds. "We do have customers who already purchased multiple variants."
Overall, this project represents a fascinating intersection of typographic design, computational creativity and exclusivity marketing. In a world increasingly concerned with digital ownership and authenticity, Rosetta Type has created something that feels almost paradoxical: a digital asset that can't be perfectly duplicated.
For graphic designers and branding specialists, Rosetta Type offers something truly novel: the guarantee that your typographic voice won't be inadvertently duplicated by competitors. In an industry constantly searching for uniqueness, David has engineered it directly into the fabric of his typeface.
As the nine variants change daily and customers claim their exclusive pieces of typographic history, Only Yours and Softly Yours aren't just new fonts. They represent a new relationship between designers and their tools, where scarcity, exclusivity and personal connection have been reintroduced to the digital realm.
#only #yours #bold #new #approach
Only Yours: a bold new approach to typography based on unique variants
In an industry where typefaces are designed to be used by thousands, a radical new concept has emerged that turns conventional type distribution on its head. David Březina, managing director at Rosetta Type, has created a typographic experiment called Only Yours: a typeface system that generates unique variants available exclusively to individual customers.
The premise is brilliantly simple yet revolutionary: nine new variants of the typeface are released every day. Once purchased, a variant is permanently removed from circulation, ensuring that no one else will ever own that specific design.
"The idea for a typeface that would be different for each customer has been on my mind for a few years," explains David. "According to surveys, most designers do not know how to use OpenType features and hence letter alternates. I'd been working on a still-unreleased typeface called Sacco, and at some point, it was so easy to create more and more letter alternates that it seemed like a shame to keep them tucked away somewhere in the font where no one would look."
This observation sparked a more profound question: what if instead of hiding alternates within a font's features, the alternates themselves became the foundation for entirely unique typeface variants?
Inspired by Dylan
The concept lay dormant, though, until a surprising moment of inspiration. "I sat on it for a few years," recalls David. "The project seemed intimidating in scope, and I didn't really see a good reason to do it.
"Then I went to see Bob Dylan, who's known for constantly rewriting his songs, in concert. It occurred to me that having so many perceivably different variants would bring more authenticity to the users. They could each have a unique font, in the same way concert-goers can attend a unique performance."
This parallel between the legendary musician's ever-evolving performances and the notion of typographic uniqueness crystallised the concept. What began as design work in December 2025 led to a soft launch at the Automatic Type Design conference in Nancy, France, in February 2025.
Science behind the system
Only Yours isn't merely a stylistic exercise; it's grounded in David's PhD research on letter similarity perception. "I studied how they are clearly different, yet, in a well-designed font, they also look visually coherent," he explains.
Technical implementation is where things become fascinatingly complex. Rather than designing alternative letters, David took a more fundamental approach.
"Similarity perception is explained in terms of distinctive visual features that are shared by some of the letters, but not necessarily all of them," he explains. "More shared features mean stronger perceived similarity between the letters. It occurred to me that I could hack into this system and design alternates, not for the letters as we're used to from contemporary fonts, but for the individual features."
While keeping some aspects of the generation process proprietary, David confirms that this feature-based approach allows for remarkable diversity while maintaining design coherence.
"Using a reverse-contrast design remotely related to Antique Olive also helped to incorporate some rectangular elements more easily. The coherence does not need to be perfect, after all. Some of my favourite variants come from unexpected violations of the overall coherence."
Scarcity as a feature, not a bug
In an era of unlimited digital reproduction, Only Yours deliberately introduces scarcity. With over a million variants, the decision to release just nine per day transforms typography selection into something akin to a daily treasure hunt.
"We didn't want to design a system for users to pick and choose," David notes. "The value of the project is not in providing all the options. It is in exclusivity.
"Originally, I wanted the variant to be chosen randomly for the customers," he added. "But that did not seem right, so we settled on a compromise: offering nine new variants every day, which also turns it into a game. They're never shown again, so if you like one, you better get it."
This approach creates a fascinating tension between the digital nature of typefaces and the artificial scarcity that makes each variant valuable. Once a customer purchases a weight from a variant, all weights within that variant become exclusive to them, preventing anyone else from fragmenting their unique typographic identity.
Redefining typographic identity
When sharing his concept with fellow designers before launch, David received some scepticism. "When I tried to discuss this idea with some friends, graphic designers, in November, they told me that it would be 'totally useless for branding'," he recalls with amusement. I disagree: since every variant is exclusive, it is perfect for branding!"
Far from being an obstacle to professional use, the consistency within each variant across weights ensures practical usability while maintaining uniqueness. "Each variant of Only Yours is consistent across multiple weights, so it should work just fine in professional contexts," he asserts.
The potential applications extend beyond individual designers. "Creating unique experiences in branding is not new. There is Freitag with their bags, each original, or even Coca-Cola with their named cans, which is a step in that direction," David points out. "Perhaps Only Yours could make it easier in some cases. We could, theoretically, generate thousands of unique variants for someone to licence as a bulk. Or a magazine could get a new variant for each issue."
Looking to the future: Softly Yours
Building on the success of Only Yours, Rosetta Type has already announced plans for Softly Yours, a rounded version using the same generative framework.
"We set the price quite affordable to be more flexible," David adds. "We do have customers who already purchased multiple variants."
Overall, this project represents a fascinating intersection of typographic design, computational creativity and exclusivity marketing. In a world increasingly concerned with digital ownership and authenticity, Rosetta Type has created something that feels almost paradoxical: a digital asset that can't be perfectly duplicated.
For graphic designers and branding specialists, Rosetta Type offers something truly novel: the guarantee that your typographic voice won't be inadvertently duplicated by competitors. In an industry constantly searching for uniqueness, David has engineered it directly into the fabric of his typeface.
As the nine variants change daily and customers claim their exclusive pieces of typographic history, Only Yours and Softly Yours aren't just new fonts. They represent a new relationship between designers and their tools, where scarcity, exclusivity and personal connection have been reintroduced to the digital realm.
#only #yours #bold #new #approach
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