Havel is an updated interpretation of a Czech type design from the 1930s.

It is powerful and very condensed. At a quick glance you might find kinship with other condensed typefaces of the same period, like Spire (Sol Hess, 1937), Onyx (Gerry Powell for ATF, 1937) or Quirinus Bold (Alessandro Butti, 1939). But Havel has its very own look, rooted in the rapidly disappearing “Eastern European Type”, a typographical tradition where poster and packaging design were the highlights.

Torbjörn Olsson has revived this classical Czech beauty, and the Open Type version, Havel Pro, can also be used for Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian.