Abnormal draws inspiration from 19th century typography, mainly from typefaces found in American Wood Type specimen. This era of industrial revolution and advertising boom was typical for its grave need of unconventional eye-catching aesthetics. Designers of that time were trying to introduce new letterforms that would stand out from the rest, with whatever means necessary. Their typefaces may seem crude in contrast to the elegant 18th century types, but they mark an important step in design history. One of the means of catching the eye of Victorian era spectators was reversing the contrast of the letters, meaning that horizontal strokes became thicker than the vertical ones. This was never seen before, as all typefaces prior to that date were based on a stroke of a broad nib, or pointy pen, imitating the characteristics of hand lettering. Abnormal’s design is based on this contrast reversion, but with a twist. In light weight, the stroke looks almost monolinear, but as the weight increases, the horizontals are gradually getting darker than the verticals. Also, the typeface’s skeleton does not resemble the grotesques of the Victorian period. It is based rather on early humanist sans-serifs of the 20th century. The resulting design is playful and soft, ideal for unserious ephemera, cirque posters and toy packaging.