Looking back at the first version of Banda, it’s hard not to feel a mix of affection and mild embarrassment. It was designed very early in the life of the studio, at a point where we were still figuring things out as we went along. A lot of decisions were made instinctively, without much of a system to back them up. The result was a typeface that felt friendly and expressive, but also uneven in places. Sweet, in the way first attempts usually are—but not particularly good at holding itself together.

Still, people liked it. They used it, shared it, and gave it a life beyond what we expected. That kind of response matters, and it stuck with us even as our understanding of type design slowly improved. Over time, it became harder to ignore the issues we hadn’t really seen before: odd proportions, shapes that didn’t quite belong together, details that worked once but didn’t scale. Nothing catastrophic—just a lot of small things adding up.

So we started revisiting Banda.

At first, the changes were minor. Fix a curve here, adjust spacing there. But the deeper we went, the more we realized that many of the original decisions needed a proper rethink. Eventually, so much had changed that we had to ask ourselves whether this was still the same typeface at all. In a strict sense, probably not. But it still carried the same general attitude, and that felt worth holding on to.

Banda Nova is built around a few simple ideas. The x-height is tall, giving the lowercase a strong presence and making the typeface feel immediate and readable. The strokes are low-contrast and mostly rounded, which keeps things calm and predictable without feeling dull. Curves follow a consistent logic, not to show off, but to make sure letters actually get along with each other.

The terminals sit somewhere between sans and serif. They’re not classic serifs, and they’re not cut off sharply either. We think of them as soft stops—small gestures that keep the shapes from feeling too blunt or too mechanical. It’s a detail you might not notice right away, but it helps the typeface feel more relaxed and less rigid.

We also paid more attention to vertical proportions this time around. Descenders are kept fairly compact, which helps lines sit closer together and keeps headlines from falling apart vertically. Again, nothing flashy—just decisions meant to make the typeface easier to use.

The family now includes seven weights, from fairly light to unapologetically heavy. The lighter ones feel more restrained and work well when you don’t want the type to shout. The heavier styles lean into the rounded construction and start to feel chunky, almost cartoonish in a good way. Together, they give enough range to cover a lot of ground without trying to be everything at once.

With Banda Nova, we also took the opportunity to expand the character set properly. The family now includes full Cyrillic support, drawn with the same logic as the Latin, and the total number of characters is almost twice what the original Banda offered. This wasn’t about ticking boxes—it was about making the typeface usable in more places without it feeling patched together.

Banda Nova isn’t a revival and it isn’t a cleanup job. It’s more like finishing something we started before we really knew how to finish things. It keeps the friendliness of the original, but it’s more stable now, more consistent, and better suited to the kinds of work we actually do today.