Abraham Lincoln Font

Frances MacLeod designed Abraham Lincoln for Lost Type Co-op, drawing inspiration from the proportions of the American president and nineteenth-century advertisements and playbills. In her own project account, MacLeod explains that she had been looking for a condensed serif. Once the name became attached to the project, the historical connection helped shape its promotion as well as its identity. The typeface is a display interpretation, not a reproduction of Lincoln’s handwriting.

Read the publisher’s family page for the source account and the edition currently offered. Keep a family name distinct from its particular release, width or optical branch.

Lost Type describes Abraham Lincoln as a humanistic display face with moderate contrast and sturdy serifs. MacLeod’s account stresses its tall, narrow proportions. These qualities distinguish it from both a delicate formal script and a broad slab serif headline face. The narrow form can support vertical arrangements, but the intended display role remains important: fitting a long passage into less space is not the same task as making a compelling title.

Use the original publisher specimen to inspect those features. An alternative can share a broad role without having the same letter shapes, metrics or character coverage.

Create a reading-event poster with a two-line title, author name and venue. Let the condensed serif carry the main title, while a quieter text face handles the address and booking details. Compare a title-case treatment against capitals before adjusting spacing. Keep a comfortable gap between stacked lines so ascenders and serifs retain their shape, and judge the composition at the distance a viewer will first encounter it.

For independent comparisons, try Marcellus and Cormorant Garamond. Use the same wording and approximate output size. The related style guide provides broader design context.

Use Lost Type Co-op to try the original and investigate the files, styles and terms for your intended workflow. This site does not distribute or serve Abraham Lincoln font software.

The editable alternatives here have their own source profiles and included licenses. For the difference between a font file and copied characters, read Unicode text versus fonts.