Ciel Initials

Styles

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Information

Design

Léa Bruneau

Release Date

2025-10-22

Version

1.001

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About this font

Ciel: seen before read

Ciel opens with appearance, a visual tapestry where the outlines overspill the linguistic task. Ciel’s ornamental layer runs thick in three styles of interwoven capitals, knotted into dense monospaced squares.

Ciel sits at the border of word and image. Its regular text-capable set of faces oscillates between control and exuberance, where it can just whisper in weightless hairlines, or assert itself in saturated initials. These lean fully into spectacle: they are not only forms to be read, but stimuli to be seen: charged, graphic presences that transform the space into a stage. Both deciphering and admiring are to be found in Ciel’s interlacing. It is joyous, vivid, and flows smoothly. Ciel insists on being both serious type and ornament in excess.

In Ciel, the bones come from British copperplate pointed nib calligraphy, a structural stance deployed into a five-weight family. Ciel leans with a greatly restrained slant to better carve a sharp toccata word after word. Seemingly free-flowing and exuberant, Ciel can convey an orderly, elegant, and even a tad rigorous mood.

Creating contact

Ciel digs into the ornamental dimension of the calligraphic capital letter by giving more to see than to read: to the spectator-reader, it seeks to create a visual stimulus rather than delivering textual content. That is because in Ciel, the linguistic sign loses some arbitrariness, regaining iconicity; the letter becomes a signifying image through its form alone. This shift activates a semiotics of affect: the Ciel letter does not just transmit meaning, it captures attention, it creates contact. Each interlace becomes a morpheme in itself, expressive before it is functional.

“With Ciel, I wanted to discover where the process of complicating initially simple letters would take me, bringing them to the level of those that were already structurally complicated. All this in a calligraphy style that I particularly like, inspired by what is known as Copperplate calligraphy.” — Léa Bruneau, designer of Ciel.

A customary tendency in flourished letterforms, Ciel proposes a typography where the signifier dominates the signified. It also strives to belong to a tradition that understands writing not as a transparent carrier but as a material presence, or rather, a language of forms that can assert itself, complicate itself, knot itself, and still remain (somewhat) legible. The family’s insistence on monospaced capitals catalyzes this statement: every glyph is confined in the same box, creating an architecture of blocks and interlocks. Yet, within this constraint, complexity proliferates. Ciel asks: What happens when ornament is not decorative excess but the very condition of meaning?

Ciel in practice: Ornament as language

Ciel can move between registers. The base styles sustain graceful headlines, distinguished short paragraphs, or sober editorial design. The initials, in contrast, demand to dominate space — commanding drop caps, titles, posters, book covers, or even architectural inscriptions. They invite to imagine language as a pattern, and messages as a mosaic. Ciel is not a tool of neutrality; it is a system for those willing to let typography speak in its own voice: loud, ornamented, and decidedly visual.

Formats

Static (OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2)

Language support

Acheron, Achinese, Acholi, Afar, Afrikaans, Alekano, Aleut, Amahuaca, Amarakaeri, Amis, Anaang, Andaandi, Dongolawi, Anuta, Ao Naga, Aragonese, Arbëreshë Albanian, Arvanitika Albanian, Asháninka, Ashéninka Perené, Asu (Tanzania), Atayal, Balinese, Bari, Basque, Batak Dairi, Batak Karo, Batak Mandailing, Batak Simalungun, Batak Toba, Bemba (Zambia), Bena (Tanzania), Bikol, Bislama, Borana-Arsi-Guji Oromo, Bosnian, Breton, Buginese, Candoshi-Shapra, Caquinte, Caribbean Hindustani, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Catalan, Cebuano, Central Aymara, Central Kurdish, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chiga, Chiltepec Chinantec, Chokwe, Chuukese, Cimbrian, Cofán, Congo Swahili, Cook Islands Māori, Cornish, Corsican, Creek, Crimean Tatar, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dehu, Dutch, Eastern Arrernte, Eastern Oromo, Embu, English, Ese Ejja, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Gagauz, Galician, Ganda, Garifuna, Ga’anda, German, Gheg Albanian, Gilbertese, Gooniyandi, Gourmanchéma, Guadeloupean Creole French, Gusii, Haitian, Hani, Hiligaynon, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Huastec, Hungarian, Icelandic, Iloko, Inari Sami, Indonesian, Irish, Istro Romanian, Italian, Ixcatlán Mazatec, Jamaican Creole English, Japanese, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, K'iche', Kabuverdianu, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Kamba (Kenya), Kaonde, Karelian, Kashubian, Kekchí, Kenzi, Mattokki, Khasi, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda, Kituba (DRC), Kongo, Konzo, Kuanyama, Kven Finnish, Kölsch, Ladin, Ladino, Latgalian, Ligurian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low German, Lower Sorbian, Luba-Lulua, Lule Sami, Luo (Kenya and Tanzania), Luxembourgish, Macedo-Romanian, Makhuwa, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Makwe, Malagasy, Malaysian, Maltese, Mandinka, Mandjak, Mankanya, Manx, Maore Comorian, Maori, Mapudungun, Marshallese, Matsés, Mauritian Creole, Meriam Mir, Meru, Minangkabau, Mirandese, Mohawk, Montenegrin, Munsee, Murrinh-Patha, Mwani, Mískito, Naga Pidgin, Ndonga, Neapolitan, Ngazidja Comorian, Niuean, Nobiin, Nomatsiguenga, North Ndebele, Northern Kurdish, Northern Qiandong Miao, Northern Sami, Northern Uzbek, Norwegian, Nyanja, Nyankole, Occitan, Ojitlán Chinantec, Orma, Oroqen, Palauan, Paluan, Pampanga, Papantla Totonac, Papiamento, Pedi, Picard, Pichis Ashéninka, Piemontese, Pijin, Pintupi-Luritja, Pipil, Pohnpeian, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Purepecha, Quechua, Romanian, Romansh, Rotokas, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu (Tanzania), Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Sena, Seri, Seselwa Creole French, Shambala, Shawnee, Shipibo-Conibo, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Soninke, South Ndebele, Southern Aymara, Southern Qiandong Miao, Southern Sami, Southern Sotho, Spanish, Sranan Tongo, Standard Estonian, Standard Latvian, Standard Malay, Sundanese, Swahili, Swati, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tedim Chin, Tetum, Tetun Dili, Tiv, Tok Pisin, Tokelau, Tonga (Tonga Islands), Tonga (Zambia), Tosk Albanian, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Uab Meto, Ume Sami, Upper Guinea Crioulo, Upper Sorbian, Venetian, Veps, Võro, Walloon, Walser, Wangaaybuwan-Ngiyambaa, Waray (Philippines), Warlpiri, Wayuu, Welsh, West Central Oromo, Western Abnaki, Western Frisian, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xhosa, Yanesha', Yao, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Yucateco, Zapotec, Zulu, Záparo

About the designers

Léa Bruneau
Type Designer
Léa Bruneau is a type designer who has perfected her skills in creating both functional text and intricate display typefaces.
View full profile

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