Fake Empire Font is what happens when a perfectly respectable typeface is introduced to paper, glue, scissors and a bad attitude. I made it by printing letters, ripping them apart, sticking them back together and doing it all again. The result is a handmade punk display font that looks damaged because it actually was.
Perfection is overrated
Perfection is boring—perfection rarely starts a fight.
Paul Arden once asked, “Why strive for excellence when mediocrity will do?”
We spend so long polishing away the awkward bits that we often clean away the personality too.
Fake Empire Font keeps the awkward bits. The torn edges, broken print and badly behaved shapes are the whole point.
Three chords. Twenty-six letters.
The idea arrived while I was listening to The National and the line “We’re half-awake in a fake empire” refused to leave. I was also listening to George Orwell’s 1984 on audiobook.
So I went back to basics: paper, glue and scissors. The typographic equivalent of learning three chords and forming a band.
I printed the alphabet, enlarged it until the dot pattern became visible, then tore the letters into narrow strips by hand. Those pieces were glued back together, scanned, printed again and attacked with scissors. Not a plug-in. Not a distress filter. Actual distress.
Damage first. Computer later.
The new letterforms were scanned into Photoshop and converted to high-contrast black and white. I removed the paper background, while keeping the tears, misprints and rough joins that gave the letters their character.
They were traced in Illustrator, turned into a working font and finished in Glyphs, where I adjusted spacing and kerning. Technology did the tidying. The mess was made by hand.
Why Fake Empire Font has three alphabets
A distressed font can quickly stop looking handmade when the same damaged letter appears twice in one word. Real accidents do not repeat themselves that neatly.
That is why Fake Empire includes three versions of every A–Z character. The lowercase keys contain alternative uppercase forms, so you can swap repeated letters and stop a headline looking mechanically distressed.
Same alphabet. Different bruises.
What is Fake Empire Font made for?
This is a detailed display face designed to be seen rather than whispered. It works best when the type is large enough for the torn edges and broken print to do their job.
- Posters and protest graphics
- Album artwork and music campaigns
- Independent magazines and zines
- Editorial covers and title sequences
- Packaging that needs a bit of menace
- Clothing, merchandise and social graphics
Use it for the headline. Let something quieter handle the small print. Even rebellion benefits from hierarchy.
What is included?
- One display weight
- Three versions of every A–Z character
- Uppercase letters with alternatives in the lowercase positions
- Numbers, punctuation and symbols
- Western, Central and South Eastern European characters
- OTF font format
Faulty. Flawed. Finished.
Fake Empire Font is dirty, distorted, misprinted and grungy. Like an old poster that has survived rain, glue, removal, another poster and somebody changing their mind.
It is imperfect by design—not because perfection was impossible, but because perfection would have ruined it.