Ovink is a rounded type family designed for great distance legibility. Named after the legibility researcher Gerrit Willem Ovink, in it's early stages was subjected to experimental legibility investigations of distance and time threshold methods. The results of this heavily influence the design. The high regularity of the letters also makes the typeface suitable for running text and the wide span of weights motivates a broad usage for the setting of both display and text.
Ovink is also loosely inspired by Knud V. Engelhardt’s work for the street signage, designed around the years 1926-27 for Gentofte in Denmark. Being rooted in the Danish typography tradition, Ovink has a sturdy unpretentious look to it, yet compared to its predecessor the curves are tighter, and characters have a higher level of differentiation. Details include 18 weights with matching italics.
